the state and the nordic welfare state course: introduction to the nordic welfare state 22...
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THE STATE AND THE NORDIC WELFARE STATE
Course: Introduction to the Nordic Welfare State
22 September , 2011
Johanna Rainio-Niemi
University of Helsinki
Why the state? Why not welfare? Much of the standard literature does not focus on the state Nonetheless: the state is there, implicitly, explicitly, ”naturally”
- The most central frame within which systematic and encompassing welfare policies
have been developed, discussed, compared (post 1945)
- Simply: no ”welfare state” without the component of the state
- Contemporary literature (in general): the state ”taken as granted”// treated as self-
evident
- Theoretical literature: from an excessive preoccupation with the nature of the
welfare state (ca. 1970s) to the virtual disapperance of the state from the
vocabularies (ca. 1990s)
- Public debates (since 1990s): general uneasiness with, especially, the concepts of the
state welfare reforms legitimated with needs to overcome of the burdens of the
past, its state-centredness
- From the ”welfare state” to ”welfare society”
Return to the black box of the state
The state is not self-evident, not at all
warrants more attention than has been the case
”return to the black box of the state” can provide new perspectives to
histories of welfare policies
…regarding the post-1945 period
…regarding histories before and after
why was the state seen to be so important in the post-1945 period?
how were the state-centred systems made (the making of the welfare state)
profoundly political questions….
The lecture considers
Historical trajectories
Analytical trajectories
Neo-Corporatism
The NORDIC model: key characteristics
(Europeanization and the Nordic welfare state?)
New openings in the study of the politics and policies welfare
Central questions / angles
Public vs. Private / Third Sector / Civil Society /Church
The State/ Public vs. Market /Private Economy vs. Social
Interventionist vs Laissez-Faire Democratic vs. Undemocratic
Big vs. Small Strong vs. Weak
Active // Preactive // Reactive // Passive
Two additional aspects
STATE BUDGET AS A MIRROR OF THE WELFARE STATE How big is the public sector? (expansion since 1945) Functions of the state: development and structure Mirrors the strenght of interest groups / political parties in society Where does the money come from? (note: public sector as an important area of employment too)
THE POLITICS OF LEGITIMACY Welfare policy is one of the most concrete and most visible outputs of the state = the
measure of state effectiveness that really matters Tax basis, willingness to pay taxes system performance
Historical trajectories: the big picture
From the liberal nightwatch state to a modern welfare state From poor-relief, assistance and protection to a much more systematic and
encompassive policy frameworks that cover a much wider field of issues
Beveridge Plan (Dec. 1942) as a blueprint of the modern welfare state national insurance to cover periods of non-employment (sickness, unemployment,
old age) + safety net for those who were not covered by the insurance / without
resources
defeating the ”five giants” (disease, ignorance, squalor, idleness, want) through
comprehensive health and education provision, a coherent housing/house-building
policy and measures to prevent the unemployment
radical propositions public policies / the state should be in response
how to fund these responsibilities?
From the Beveridge plan to the Nordic Model
National frames of legislation; ”the state” should take care in a systematic
and coordinated manner generated opposition // government was not ready to commit to the plan
public support was remarkable; could not be neglected altogether
did not materialise as such but led to the creation of national frames of legislation
on education, family allowances, healt care, national insurance, assistance etc.
the idea remained!
failure of the Beveridge plan as a starting point for the international fame of the
Nordic models of the welfare state (esp. Sweden)
The elements of the Nordic models for the welfare state
Traditions of equality // democracy // literacy rate Consideration of economic and social aspects at the same time: two sides of
the same coin ”socio-economic” as the core of the welfare policies // welfare state
Centrality of work // right (duty) to work //
Advanced legislation in many fields since the 19th century
Centrality of social democracy folkhemmet --> state as home of the
people
The principle of universalism
Nordic model 2/2
The famous cross-class compromises (workers – business - agriculture) of
the 1930s Were responses to the great depression and the rise of authoritarian
governments across Europe the strategy worked relatively well
Sweden was able to stay out of the WWII, too
Provided good starting points for becoming the model for countries that
were desperately looking for political , social and economic stability
Remember: this was a post-war situation // experiences of the WWII / of
the 1930s // WWI
Towards the post-1945 welfare STATE
There was a true strive for making all aspects of social services public; for
the increased role of the state “Everyone believed in the state. In part this was because everyone feared the
implications of a return to the terrors of the recent past and was happy to
constrain the freedom of the market in the name of the public interest”
“Whatever their other differences, political parties in power shared “a
common faith in the activist state, economic planning and large scale public
investment” (Judt Tony, Ill Fares the Land, 2010)
Trend was towards collective bargaining, economic and public policy
planning, progressive taxation and the provision of publically funded social
services (a’la Nordic countries)
Need for institutions and arrangements designed for the making of policy
compromises required from all sides (a´la Nordic countries)
Tensions beneath the making of the post-1945 welfare state
The process was nowhere straight-forward or simple Big questions: how to fund and share the expenses // how to target policies
Constitutional issues (cf. Austria, the U.S.) Limits to the state power, division of public authority between, for instance,
various levels / units of governance.
Consider: different traditions regarding the state’s ideal relation to civil society:
1. civil society and citizens need to be protected from the state (distrustful /
suspicious tradition)
2. citizens and the state’s administration need to be protected from civil society
(cf. nordic tradition of seeing civil society / private sector / family / market as
major sources of inequality)
The Nordic alliances
The historical alliance between the King and the land-owning peasants Participation in pursue common affairs through well-established and
structures of local governance (parishes / communes) The age of associations that mobilised the people Associations activities were in harmony with the state’s policies: civil
society mobilisation and the development of the state’s infrastructural
capacities and legitimacy were endorsing one another Absence of clear-cut boundaries between the state and civil society Instead: dense networks of institutional interdependencies between the
two and well-mobilized networks of associations that cover wide section
of society The specificity of the Nordic tradition: the state is seen as strong but
almost never discussed as being opposite, or antagonistic, to civil society
The Nordic “paradox” of strong state and strong civil society (Rainio-Niemi 2010)
The tradition of the strong state and an almost seamless fusion of it with
an equally strong civil society is a recurrent, primary theme in the
literature on Nordic political cultures (variations, of course)
“public/private mix”
Nordic view of the state as an instrument of popular will which is used to
control the private forces of market and family. (decommodification):
Welfare state = folkhemmet = people and state as one State and society used interchangeably; not as dichotomies
Sweden as the benchmark / synonym of the Nordic welfare state //
Finland as the exceptional case (more on this by other lecturers)
”In other words, a high degree of responsiveness by the state and
the incorporation of different demans into the state structures
through citizen organisations were two sides of the same coin, of a
kind of state-society alliance. Voluntary associations became the
mechanism in the interest mediation, with the so called
participatory corporatism as one of its later manifestations. Hence
the traditionally prominent role of associations other than service
providers in the Nordic countries, in fact their prominent role as
core elements in the whole political culture”
Salamon L.M. / Anheier H.K. (1998) Social Origins of Civil Society: Explaining the non-profit sector cross-nationally.
In: Voluntas 9, 213-248.
Neo-corporatism
Wide-based and centralised system of interest representation in all major
fields of industrial and occupational life Representatives of the central confederations of the trade unions, agrarian
producers, employers and the main business associations systematically
involved in the making of economic, social, public, welfare policies
Policy coordination and negotiation between the government, the central
business and labour market interest groups and political parties in parliament
”National passion for consensus” (Katzenstein 1985)
Democratic (neo-)corporatist versus authoritarian variations of corporatism
State corporatism vs. societal corporatism
Critical perspectives since the 1970s
Instead of the virtues of accessibility and participation, or policy coordination
and cooperation, the critics pointed to trends such as corporatisation,
technocratisation and bureaucratisation of public policy making
The influence of “extra-parliamentary” forces’ on government policies together
with state-intervention were seen to have detrimental effects on liberal
democracy
The semi-public authorization of the most powerful organizations reduced the
plurality of associational life // disregard for liberal democratic norms of
citizen participation and accountability
Trust-building exercises amongst the leaders of the most powerful associations
behind the “closed doors”
Challenging of the welfare state
Criticism against neo-corporatism is interconnected with the increased
criticism of the welfare state especially of the state’s role Mid-1970s as a turning point: the putting of an end to the endless expansion
In the field of theory: 1970s and early 1980s marked by massive debates on
the welfare state and its nature
Since 1980s ability to combine welfare and economic success? (democratic corportism,
Katzenstein 1985) On the other hand: Nordic welfare state as ”the most prominent example of
the ”pathology” of welfare states which has led to a general ”atrophy” of
civil society, entrepreneurship, citizens’ self-initiative, respect of diversity
etc.
Fragmentation of theory and practice
Towards more nuanced views (Esping-Andersen): the various models
respecting the different national contexts In course of the 1990s
Historical turn
- criticism of the monolithic, theoretical and a-historical models, embedding
into national contexts ( slight tendency towards a “nationalisation” of the
histories of the welfare policies) Transnational turn Beyond the nation state?
Cf. Christoph Conrad’s article
A turn away from the state...
Distance from state-centred ways of seeing, analysing, understanding and
conducting of welfare policies and politics
In reserach: Increased interest in citizen opinions, traditions, multilayred
historicity, religion, gender, every day life, NGO’s, institutions etc. (on
religion see Pirjo Markkola’s article)
In public debate: from the welfare state to welfare society, role of the third
sector networks, church (cf. Markkola)
Ongoing re-negotiations in the field of welfare policies
Renegotiation of the boundaries between public and private
- Who is responsible for what, who should pay; how much and for
what?
The aspect of Europeanization of economic policies an unavoidable
unravelling of the “socio-economic”?
the reconfiguration of the Nordic welfare system (Finland the only
country belonging to the Euro-zone)
Ongoing processes: the following angles are topical again….
Central questions / angles
Public vs. Private / Third Sector / Civil Society /Church The State/ Public vs. Market /Private Economy vs. Social Big vs. Small Strong vs. Weak Interventionist vs Laissez-Faire Democratic vs. Undemocratic Active // Preactive // Reactive // Passive
Plus: The transforming role of national authorities within the EU /
amidst the trends of globalisation? ”the state” of the post-1945
period’s welfare state is a different state than ”the state” of today