Anniken Hagelund

‘Women and children first!’ Anti-immigration parties and gender in Norway and the Netherlands

ABSTRACT Immigration, multiculturalism and citizenship policies have deeply divided political parties in Western Europe. In Norway and the Netherlands these divisions have been exploited successfully by radical-right populist parties. Akkerman and Hagelund compare the ideas and policies of the Norwegian Fremskrittspartiet (Progress Party) and the Dutch Lijst Pim Fortuyn (List Pim Fortuyn) with regard to cultural diversity, immigration and citizenship policies. What initially puzzled them was that issues that are normally left out of the radical-right agenda—such as gender equality, liberal family laws and womens participation in the labour market—seem to have been moved centre-stage in the policies and discourses of these parties. This is a development worthy of closer scrutiny. In Norway and the Netherlands, one can observe a general shift away from multiculturalism and a growing emphasis on citizenship and social cohesion. The issue of womens rights seems to provide a key to developing a renewed understanding of the boundaries of cultural diversity in these countries. To what extent have the radical-right parties provoked a rhetorical turn and policy shift towards cultural unity in Norway and the Netherlands, and to what extent are the programmes of these parties based on a defence of liberal values and gender equality?

Immigration policy and the Scandinavian welfare state, 1945-2010

List of figures Preface List of Abbreviations Notes on the Contributors Welfare State, Nation and Immigration G.Brochmann & A.Hagelund Sweden: The Flagship of Multiculturalism K.Borevi Denmark a National Welfare State Meets the World H.Vad Jonsson & K.Petersen Norway: The Land of the Golden G.Brochmann & A.Hagelund Comparison: A Model with Three Exceptions? G.Brochmann & A.Hagelund Bibliography Index

Migrants in the Scandinavian Welfare State

Migrants in the Scandinavian Welfare State During the 1990s and more so after the turn of the century, the authorities and the public in Scandinavia have become increasingly concerned about the pressure on welfare inflicted by the immigration of people with low skill levels from countries in the South. A large proportion of these newcomers have proven difficult to integrate in the Scandinavian labour market, which is characterised by high demands for skills and a compressed wage structure that makes low-skilled labour comparatively expensive. The universalistic welfare approach, implying a generous inclusion of legal newcomers from day one, in combination with the highly regulated and knowledge-intensive labour market has made the three states, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, particularly exposed to disincentive challenges as concerns the absorption of immigrants in gainful work. This article discusses the current development in the immigration/welfare nexus in the Scandinavian region.

Innvandringens velferdspolitiske konsekvenser : Nordisk kunnskapsstatus

Samfunnsforskningen i Norden har i veldig liten grad tematisert koplingen mellom velferdsstat og utviklingen av flerkulturelle samfunn. Dette er pa mange mater bemerkelsesverdig, gitt de ...

‘But they are Norwegians!’ Talking about culture at school

Although heavily debated and sometimes rejected in the scholarly debates, notions of culture and identity have to a large extent become the framework through which to understand the realities, effects and implications of transnational migration for European societies as well as for migrants themselves. Drawing on ethnographic data from a Norwegian primary school which presents itself as multicultural and on textual data from the wider political debate in Norway, the author aims to explore the understandings of culture that are at play in such a context and the possibilities and restrictions these are providing for practices of inclusion. At the same time as teachers are proud of their efforts to ‘make cultural diversity visible’, there is also a significant frustration with a multiculturalist language that tends to equal identity with primordial spatial belonging. In response, new understandings of culture and identity that are more focused on commonality are emerging.

Welfare State, Nation and Immigration

‘Scandinavia’s holiest cow’ is what the welfare state was called by the Danish Weekendavisen in April 2007: ‘Islam has sharia. Denmark has the welfare state. It is not something that can be discussed among believers.’ 1 Scandinavia is the area where trust in political institutions and the role of the state is greatest in the world. Political actors in all three countries now compete for the honour of having created and developed the welfare state. But the writer choosing to compare Denmark’s relation to the welfare state with Islam says something about the upheavals that have taken place in Danish — and Norwegian and Swedish — society over recent decades. Considerable sections of the populations of the Scandinavian countries now have an immigrant background. The countries have become multicultural and multireligious. Social inequality has acquired a new dimension: ethnicity and immigrant background. It is here, in the meeting between two, now central, societal functions — the welfare state and immigration — that the main focus of this book and this research project lies.

Comparison: A Model with Three Exceptions?

It took 100 years to create the collectivist culture of the welfare state, historian Anne Lise Seip writes, with reference to Norwegian welfare development.1 In all three Scandinavian countries, the welfare state framework emerged during a long process that really took off after World War II. The new security system was based on a positive concept of freedom linked to public responsibility. Security allowed individual freedom to develop, and it was basically this interaction between freedom and security that motivated the collective renunciations, thereby initiating the development of social integration via the allocation of rights. ‘Freedom is greatest where the state rules’, claimed Lars Moen, Minister of Education in Norway from 1948 to 1953.2 Much of the stock of ideas in the post-WWII welfare states was inspired by the ‘productive social policy’ concept of Gunnar and Alva Myrdal. The security system, and thus the social expenditure, was regarded as an investment in people and their productivity: what created security also created growth.3

Norway: The Land of the Golden Mean

Differences between Norwegians and immigrants did not initially preoccupy the founders of the welfare state. In the post-WWII period, the immigrant proportion of the population was extremely small, and, with the exception of returning Norwegian–Americans and a few scattered refugees from eastern and central Europe, practically no one came to Norway from outside northern Europe. In 1967, 400 employed inhabitants from Africa and Asia were registered for the entire country.1

‘Changing teams’: a participant perspective on citizenship ceremonies

Several European countries of immigration have recently introduced citizenship ceremonies on either a mandatory or voluntary basis. Yet, little is known about how the target group for such ceremonies experiences them, and to what extent citizenship ceremonies achieve their goals of contributing to a greater sense of belonging. In this article, we analyse interviews with more than 50 newly naturalised Norwegian citizens about their reasons to attend or to not attend the voluntary ceremony in Norway. We find little resistance to the idea of citizenship ceremonies. For some participants, the ceremony seems to have great emotional value; the majority, however, chooses not to participate.

The activating profession: coaching and coercing in the welfare services

Purpose Activation policies are key elements of contemporary welfare reform throughout Europe. The purpose of this paper is to explore the consequences of more active and individualised welfare policies for conceptualisations of professionalism and competence in the welfare services. Design/methodology/approach The primary data are 25 qualitative interviews with street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) conducted in two local offices in The Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV). These data were supplemented by relevant policy documents. A distinction between the authorities discourse of organisational professionalism and the SLBs discourse of occupational professionalism is applied to structure the analysis. Findings Efforts to professionalise activation work takes place in the absence of a specific professional knowledge base to guide daily work. The paper explores how relevant competence and skills are defined in such a context, both from the perspective of the authorities and from the front-level workers themselves. A key finding is that such competence tends to be defined in terms of the ability to manage communicative processes and relations. Paradoxically, the active turn in social policy with its emphasis on work and activity seems to entail a competence ideal that is inward looking and psychologised. Research limitations/implications The qualitative approach implies limited generalisability in terms of statistical representativity. Furthermore, the results invite closer studies of the practical effects for social security users of the identified patterns. Practical implications Policy makers who aim to make welfare services more work orientated should look for ways of increasing SLBs concrete relations with and practical experience from collaboration with employers. This may entail reviewing the practice of outsourcing the implementation of active measures to private actors. Originality/value The paper adds to a small literature on the implementation of activation policy in contemporary welfare states.