scholarly journals Fordelingspolitikkens nye ånd – om mulighederne for kritik i konkurrencestaten

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 9-25
Author(s):  
Jacob Didia Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Public Employees ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Moral Legitimacy ◽  
Allocation Policy ◽  
Competition State ◽  
Spirit Of Capitalism ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Labour Market Impact

Med sin introduktion af begrebet ’konkurrencestat’ i en dansk kontekst tilbød Ove Kaj Pedersen et nyt teoretisk perspektiv på, hvordan den universelle danske velfærdsstat i et vist omfang er blevet erstattet af en neoliberal konkurrencestat baseret på markedstænkning. I denne artikel forsøger jeg at udbygge denne forståelse af konkurrencestaten ved at analysere udviklingen i Danmark fra velfærdsstat til konkurrencestat ved hjælp af Boltanski og Chiapellos teori om kapitalismens nye ånd. Igennem denne analyse søger jeg for det første at vise, at de værdier, som konkurrencestaten henviser til, når den retfærdiggør sin fordelingspolitik, ikke kun kan forstås som udtryk for markedstænkning. De må også i høj grad forstås som udtryk for idealiseringen af fleksibilitet, kreativitet og inklusion i arbejdsnetværk, som Boltanski og Chiapello identificerer som centrale i kapitalismens nye ånd, og som har rødder i venstrefløjens kapitalismekritik. For det andet er formålet med artiklen at diskutere, hvilke negative konsekvenser idealiseringen af fleksibilitet og omstillingsparathed samt det store fokus på kontinuerligt at opkvalificere borgere kan risikere at have for borgere og offentligt ansattes mulighed for at forholde sig kritisk til konkurrencestatens moralske legitimitet.   ENGELSK ABSTRACT Jacob Didia Jensen: The new spirit of allocation policy With his introduction of the concept ‘competition state’ in Denmark, Ove Kaj Pedersen offered a new perspective on how the universal Danish welfare state has been partially replaced by a neoliberal competition state based on market logic. In this article, I seek to expand this idea of the competition state by analysing the Danish development from welfare state to competition state through Boltanski and Chiapello’s theory of a new spirit of capitalism. In this analysis, I seek to show, firstly, that the values used by the competition state to justify its allocation policy cannot only be understood as an expression of market logic. They must also to be understood as expressions of the idealisation of flexibility, creativity and inclusion in work-based networks, that Boltanski and Chiapello identify as central in the new spirit of capitalism, and which have roots in the left-wing critique of capitalism. Secondly, the article discusses how negative consequences the idealisation of flexibility, adaptability and the focus on continuously upgrading the skills of citizens in order to ensure their inclusion on the labour market impact on the ability of citizens and public employees to critically reflect on the moral legitimacy of the competition state. Keywords: competition state, allocation policy, justification, critique, new spirit of capitalism, Boltanski and Chiapello

Contentious Rituals

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan S. Blake
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Politics And Culture ◽  
Interview Survey ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Identity Expression

Why do people participate in controversial symbolic events that drive wedges between groups and occasionally spark violence? This book examines this question through an in-depth case study of Northern Ireland. Protestant organizations perform over 2,500 parades across Northern Ireland each year. Protestants tend to see the parades as festive occasions that celebrate Protestant history and culture. Catholics, however, tend to see them as hateful, intimidating, and triumphalist. As a result, parades have been a major source of conflict in the years since the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. This book examines why, given the often negative consequences, people choose to participate in these parades. Drawing on theories from the study of contentious politics and the study of ritual, the book argues that paraders are more interested in the benefits intrinsic to participation in a communal ritual than the external consequences of their action. The book presents analysis of original quantitative and qualitative data to support this argument and to test it against prominent alternative explanations. Interview, survey, and ethnographic data are also used to explore issues central to parade participation, including identity expression, commemoration, tradition, the pleasures of participation, and communicating a message to outside audiences. The book additionally examines a paradox at the center of parading: while most observers see parades as political events, the participants do not. Altogether, the book offers a new perspective on politics and culture in the aftermath of ethnic violence.

Conclusion: social policy in an era of competition

2017 ◽  
pp. 203-212
Author(s):  
Dan Horsfall ◽  
John Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The Core ◽  
Competition State ◽  
State Welfare ◽  
Policy Analysts

This concluding chapter highlights key arguments from across the book in order to set out an integrated agenda for future research. Theoretically rooted analyses must be at the core of such an agenda. The inter-pollination/cross-fertilisation of ideas from many disciplines is important in developing an understanding of the complex and multi-faceted ways in which competition is influencing welfare states. However, while theory is central to this agenda, it must also be rooted in detailed empirical analysis. In looking to transcend the competition state/welfare state dichotomy, this interplay between theory and evidence is key, and where theoretically rooted social policy analysts can add particular value to current debates.

Le vie cristiane della sicurezza sociale. I cattolici italiani e il welfare state

2013 ◽  
pp. 91-120
Author(s):  
Edoardo Bressan
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
State Model ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Social State ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Social ◽  
Christian Socialism ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Welfare State

In Italy, from the 1930s until the end of the century, the relationship between the Catholic world and the development of the Social state becomes a very relevant theme. Social thought and Catholic historiography issues witness a European civilisation crisis, by highlighting problems of poverty and historical forms of assistance. Furthermore, by following the 1931 Pope Pius XI encyclical Quadragesimo anno these issues interacted with fascist corporativism. After 1945, other key experiences arose, as the discussion on social security as the conclusion of the whole public assistance debate shown. These themes are reported in the Bologna social week works in 1949 and in Fanfani's and La Pira's positions, which present several correspondences with British and French worlds, such as Christian socialism, Reinhold Niebuhr's thought and Maritain's remarks. The 1948 Republican Constitution adopts the Welfare State model assumptions, and it is in those very years that the problem of a system based on a universal outlook arose. Afterwards, governments of coalition led by centre and left-wing parties fostered social security through welfare and health reforms until the '80s. While this model falls into crisis, and new social actors begin to be involved in a context of subsidiarity.

Helping That Hurts Intended Beneficiaries: A New Perspective on the Dark Side of Helping Organizational Citizenship Behavior

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Lennard ◽  
Linn Van Dyne
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Citizenship ◽  
Organizational Citizenship Behavior ◽  
Performance Outcomes ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Citizenship Behavior ◽  
Affective States ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
And Behavior

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is essential for organizations to gain and maintain competitive advantage in environments with constantly evolving demands. Although most of the literature implicitly assumes that OCB predicts positive work attitudes, affective states, cognitions, and behavior for employees and organizations, some work raises the question of when OCB fails to produce positive consequences, and scholars have called for a more balanced perspective that acknowledges possible negative consequences of OCB. In this chapter, we focus on the unintended negative outcomes of helping OCB to recipients. More specifically, we consider factors that paradoxically cause positively intended helping to backfire and have negative effects on recipients. To date, most research on outcomes of OCB has focused on performance outcomes. In contrast, we focus on nonperformance outcomes for recipients of helping because nonperformance outcomes are more proximal and can shed light on processes that influence more distal outcomes, such as performance.

Feminism, Punishment and the Potential of Empowerment

1994 ◽  
Vol 9 (01) ◽  
pp. 75-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laureen Snider
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Alternative Strategies ◽  
Transformative Potential ◽  
Dominant Ideologies ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
The Welfare State

AbstractThis paper argues that understanding the potential roles law and the state can play as transformative tools in counter-hegemonic feminist struggle requires that they be historically and structurally situated and contextualized, for both can be and have been facilitative as well as repressive. The paper examines, first, the negative consequences of using criminal law and the criminal justice system as instruments of reform, arguing that criminal law lacks transformative potential because of its particular role vis-à-vis the welfare state, dominant ideologies, and the struggle for change. Rights struggles are examined next, and it is argued that feminists should engage with law only under certain specified conditions to advance particular aims. The paper suggests some legal dead ends feminists should avoid, then examines alternative strategies which, it is argued, have the potential to empower and thereby to produce real and lasting improvements in women's lives.

scholarly journals Access to general social protection for immigrants in advanced democracies

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carina Schmitt ◽  
Céline Teney
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Integration Policy ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
National Differences ◽  
National Welfare ◽  
State Models ◽  
Cross National ◽  
Advanced Democracies

Immigration has become a central socio-political issue in most advanced democracies. While research mainly focuses on immigrant-specific policies in the area of immigration, integration and citizenship, we still know very little about the incorporation of immigrants into mainstream social policies. By analysing cross-national differences in the inclusion of immigrants into general social protection across 27 rich democracies on the basis of comparative indicators from the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) dataset, we seek to address this gap in a quantitative study. A cross-national comparison of these indicators shows a particularly large variation in the inclusiveness of the access to social protection for immigrants across countries. By drawing on the welfare state and integration regime literature, we assess the power of two contrasting perspectives, namely, the post-national welfare state and the welfare chauvinism models, in explaining this large cross-national variation in immigrants’ access to social security and social housing. Our overall findings suggest that both the welfare chauvinist and the post-national welfare state models comprise two theoretical perspectives that turn out to be fruitful to interpret cross-national variation in immigrants’ access to social protection. According to the welfare chauvinism model, we find robust evidence that left-wing cabinets are particularly reluctant to open general social protection schemes to immigrants. By contrast and in line with expectations derived from the post-national welfare state model, countries with an overall generous welfare state and countries facing large immigration flows tend to provide immigrants with more generous access to social protection.

Norwegian Public Health Policy: Revitalization of the Social Democratic Welfare State?

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Fosse
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
State Model ◽  
Health Policies ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Public Health Policies ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The Social ◽  
Structural Measures

Norway is part of the so-called social democratic welfare state model, which is characterized by its emphasis on solidarity and redistribution among social groups. The concepts of upstream and downstream policy measures may be useful to characterize different approaches to public health policies: upstream measures would be structural measures, in line with the social democratic welfare state model, while downstream measures would be more targeted at individuals or groups at some sort of risk. The aim of this article is to analyze national policies in Norway and how these may be characterized in terms of upstream and downstream factors. Health promotion and public health policies have been high on the Norwegian political agenda for two decades. However, the national policy emphasis has shifted between strategies aimed at individuals and structural strategies—that is, between downstream and upstream measures. Until 2003, policies included mainly downstream measures, but since then a policy shift has taken place and current policy includes an emphasis on upstream measures. This policy was strengthened after a left-wing coalition came into government in 2005. It may be argued that the present policy represents a revitalization of universal and structural measures, in line with the social democratic welfare state model.

scholarly journals The Labour Party and Education for Socialism

1969 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodney Barker
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Educational Reform ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Sunday Schools ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Better Than

No socialist since Robert Owen has had any excuse for being unaware of the relationship between educational reform and social and political change, and a perception of this relationship was a feature of nineteenth century socialism and liberalism. The attention which the educational principles and policies of socialist, labour, and radical movements in Europe have recently received has thus been well deserved. The socialists have however come off better than those organisations which have been designated as merely “labour”, and two valuable contributions to the literature dealing with Great Britain – Professor Simon's Education and the Labour Movement, 1870–1920, and Dr Reid's article on the Socialist Sunday Schools – are concerned with the programmes and beliefs of left wing socialist bodies, rather than with those of the ideologically more diffuse but politically more important Labour Party. Both these contributions may perhaps profitably be placed in a new perspective by an examination of the attitudes adopted within the Labour Party and within its industrial half-brother the Trades Union Congress, to the problems raised by the content and character, as opposed to the structure and organisation, of the education available to the working class.

scholarly journals Allmänhetens syn på våldsbejakande extremism: En balans mellan sociala, ekonomiska och polisiära åtgärder

2020 ◽  
Vol 107 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-216
Author(s):  
Lars Korsell ◽  
Tomas Axelson ◽  
Jonas Stier
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Swedish Population ◽  
The Public ◽  
Swedish Model ◽  
Violent Extremism ◽  
Swedish Society ◽  
Democratic Principles

AbstractThe so-called Swedish model of trust is characterised by strong public support for the idea of an individual-based and extensive welfare state, well-developed state individualism, high levels of social trust, widespread appreciation of the judiciary, openness, tolerance, and a free and independent press. Today, Swedish society faces several challenges. Will the Swedish model of trust be eroded or is it relatively resilient to stress? A Novus survey from 2019 found that a total of 74 percent of the Swedish population were very or quite worried about Islamic extremism, 66 percent very or quite worried about right-wing extremism and 46 percent very or quite worried about left-wing extremism. Other surveys show that the public is also concerned about the deterioration of the welfare state, social gaps, the increased number of refugees to Sweden and xenophobia. Moreover, the Novus survey shows that 65 percent believe that violence-promoting extremism will increase in Sweden in the coming ten-year period. 22 percent indicate that they have become suspicious of people they have encountered in everyday situations and 15 percent  have avoided large crowds, e.g. shopping malls, pedestrian areas and subways. When asked which measures are good for increasing security in society, common answers were to reduce social exclusion, increase camera surveillance in public places and provide more information on democratic principles and values. These answers indicate that Swedish public opinion has a relatively balanced view of public measures against violent extremism, which is consistent withthe Swedish model of trust. In general, the public does not propose the implementation of overly excessive measures against violent extremism. However, given continued public concern over the development of violent extremism, the long term stability of the Swedish model of trust remains in question.

scholarly journals Succes eller fiasko? – Et komparativt blik på den danske konkurrencestat

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-75
Author(s):  
Mikkel Dehlholm ◽  
Ove K. Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Employment Rate ◽  
Economic Stability ◽  
Market Policy ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Competition State ◽  
State Employment

Artiklen belyser den danske konkurrencestat sammenlignet med andre vestlige lande. I analysen fokuseres på fire dimensioner: 2. Ulighed, fattigdom og skat, 2. Social mobilitet, 3. Økonomisk vækst, konkurrenceevne og økonomisk holdbarhed, og 4. Beskæftigelse, arbejdsløshed og arbejdsmarkedspolitik. Sideløbende analyseres sammenhænge mellem dimensionerne, eksempelvis ligheds betydning for social mobilitet, vækst mv. På baggrund af den komparative analyse argumenterer vi for, at Danmark overordnet set kan karakteriseres som en universalistisk konkurrencestat med en lav grad af ulighed (om end den er steget) og fattigdom kombineret med en konkurrencedygtig og holdbar økonomi, der fastholder den traditionelle velfærdsstats fokus på social sikring og lige adgang til velfærdsservice, om end reformer af dagpenge og kontanthjælp har mindsket graden af sikring i forbindelse med arbejdsløshed. Som den største udfordring for den danske konkurrencestat peger vi på, at Danmark på trods af et stærkt fokus på området stadig er udfordret af, at erhvervsdeltagelsen blandt 25-54 årige mænd er væsentligt lavere, end den var før 1973 og end i de lande, der klarer sig bedst på dette parameter (Schweiz, Japan, Island). På denne baggrund diskuteres, hvad der skal til for at øge beskæftigelsesfrekvensen. ENGELSK ABSTRACT Mikkel Dehlholm and Ove K. Pedersen: Success or failure: a comparative look at the Danish competition state This article analyzes the Danish competition state in comparison with other western states on four dimensions: 1) inequality, poverty and tax, 2) social mobility, 3) economic growth, competitiveness and economic stability and 4) employment, unemployment and labor market policy. It also analyzes relations between these dimensions. Based on the analysis, we argue that Denmark can be characterized as a universalistic competition state. We point out that the greatest challenge for the Danish competition state is the low employment rate for men between the ages of 25-54, which is lower than it was in 1973 and also lower than other countries (such as Switzerland, Japan, Iceland). We discuss ways of increasing this employment . Keywords: Competition state, Welfare state, employment, unemployment, inequality, social mobility.

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