Christian Kroll

Social workers’ perceptions of the causes of poverty in the Nordic countries:

Street-level bureaucrats have been given an increasing role in the implementation of policies aimed at the poor. The article analyses: (1) how social workers in the Nordic countries explain the causes of poverty and whether there are variations between countries in social workers’ perceptions; and (2) the nature of the impact, if any, of various individual- and municipal-level factors on social workers’ perceptions of the causes of poverty. Survey data gathered from social workers in four countries are analysed and combined with data from the municipalities in which the respondents work. The results illustrate that social workers display a surprisingly large variation in perceptions: there are differences between countries and also differences related to individual-level factors, while municipality-level factors do not appear to influence the perceptions of social workers in an obvious way.

Minimal and Massive! Politicians’ Views on the Media’s Political Agenda-Setting Power Revisited

Different methods have yielded different results regarding the media’s political agenda-setting power: Time-series studies comparing agendas in the media and politics have pointed to a minimal and surveys of politicians to massive media influence. Inspired by these findings and the suggested explanations for them, this article studies in detail politicians’ views on the media’s political agenda-setting power: How do politicians assess media’s power over different types of agendas, do they distinguish between different forms of media power, and does their individual political power position or trust in the media affect how they perceive the media’s power? A survey of Finnish members of parliament (MPs) shows that politicians perceive the media’s power to be massive regarding symbolic but minimal or moderate regarding substantial political agendas. However, many politicians do not clearly distinguish between the media’s political agenda-setting power and its political framing power. Neither experiences of being a minister nor the tendency to use the media as a scapegoat affect politicians’ views on media power in politics. The findings improve empirical knowledge on the media’s power in politics, strengthen the foundations for interpreting existing survey results, and provide a basis for further improving future surveys on media power.

Problemen förgår, lösningarna består. Organisering av kommunala insatser för unga arbetslösa med försörjningsproblem

One consequence of the growing emphasis on various forms of ‘activation’ policies aimed at the (long-term) unemployed and receivers of social assistance in Sweden, as in other Nordic countries, has been an increasing organizational integration of social work and labour market policy measures at the local level, especially concerning young unemployed persons (van Aerschot 2011). Considering that the outcomes of such policies can be assumed to be affected by the ways in which services are organized, it is surprising that the organizational aspects of the social services, especially when it comes to comparisons of the varying solutions in different municipalities, has generally been considered an under-researched subject area (see Johansson 2005). However, a recently growing research interest in organizational issues within the social services at large – within a Swedish context – can be detected, both regarding the organization of activation measures and other policies, at least at the Department of Social Work at Lund University. Katarina Hollertz’s doctoral thesis can clearly be regarded as a further welcome and timely contribution to this type of research at Lund. Hollertz’s study aims at detecting the societal mechanisms which seem to have resulted in an increase in local intervention programmes for activating young unemployed people in a selection of four Swedish municipalities, during a time period (1993–2005) that is characterized by decreasing numbers of unemployed and social assistance recipients aged 18–24 years. The theoretical perspective of the study focuses on factors and processes that can be assumed to affect the application of certain technologies, or types of intervention, within human service organizations. These include, in particular, the processes of institutionalization for certain ways of organizing services as a consequence of various perceived normative, cognitive and regulative demands placed on the organization(s) mainly from the ‘institutional environment’, but also from within the organization itself. The issues discussed, which are thought to be important in this respect are, first, the historical ideational legacies of poor relief: these are, at least implicitly, assumed to have been influencing the perceptions of the poor and unemployed within the social services up until the present day, even within the context of the Swedish/Nordic welfare state. Second, changes in legislation relevant to the position of municipalities in issues related to young unemployed people during the period studied, and some general trends in the development of the municipalities’ prerequisites for organizing interventions, are presented. This theoretical framework seems relevant, but considering the comparative local approach, a more detailed discussion of the Nordic Social Work Research Vol. 1, No. 2, November 2011, 159–164