Kristian Kongshøj

Chinese developmentalism and Nordic universalism – or the other way around? Points of convergence in Sino-Nordic income protection

China is usually placed within the East Asian family of welfare states in the emerging literature in the field, most often denoted by the labels of ‘productivist’, ‘developmental’ or ‘Confucian’ social policy. The Nordic countries are traditionally perceived as welfare states within the universal or Social Democratic family of welfare, supposedly radically different from the East Asian countries. An in-depth conceptualization of universalism and developmentalism reveals how the welfare regime characteristics connected to these concepts are each other’s ideal-typical polar opposites. Yet, taking recent welfare reforms into account, particularly within income protection, the Nordic countries appear to be moving in a more developmental direction, while China is universalizing its welfare schemes to a certain extent. The convergence is in the end quite limited, illustrated here mainly by the fields of unemployment and pensions, but nevertheless interesting in the light of established welfare regime demarcations. A historical appraisal also reveals how the Chinese experience echoes some previous Nordic ones. While the Chinese reform process of course is and will be very different, it is greatly interesting that the Nordic experience can shed new light on current problems faced by contemporary Chinese social policy-making.

Do Shared Values Promote Social Cohesion? If so, Which? Evidence from Denmark

Social scientists and political theorists often claim that shared values are conducive to social cohesion, and trust and solidarity in particular. Furthermore, this idea is at the heart of what has been labeled the ‘national identity argument’, according to which religious and/or cultural diversity is a threat to the shared (national) values underpinning social cohesion and redistributive justice. However, there is no consensus among political theorists about what values we need to share to foster social cohesion and indeed, for example, nationalists, liberals, and multiculturalists provide different answers to this question. On the basis of a survey conducted in Denmark in 2014, this study empirically investigates the relation between, on the one hand, commitments to the community values of respectively conservative nationalism, liberal nationalism, liberal citizenship, and multiculturalism, and on the other, trust and solidarity. First, we investigate in what ways commitments to these four sets of values are correlated to trust and solidarity at the individual level and, then, whether the belief that others share one’s values is correlated to these aspects of social cohesion for individuals committed to these four sets of values. We find that conservative and liberal nationalism are negatively correlated to our different measures of trust and solidarity, whereas liberal citizenship and (in particular) multiculturalism are positively correlated. In broad terms, this picture remains when we control for a number of socio-economic factors and ideology (on a left-right scale). Finally, individuals who believe that others share their values do not, in general, have higher levels of trust and solidarity. Rather, this belief works in different ways when associated with different sets of community values.

China’s welfare reform: An ambiguous road towards a Social Protection Floor

China’s recent efforts in extending social protection resonate with the goals of the Social Protection Floor, even if Chinese policy-makers have not explicitly incorporated the Floor in the reform process. However, as this review of developments in the fields of social assistance, unemployment insurance, pensions, and health insurance suggests, major challenges persist, namely inadequate and declining benefit levels, funding issues, and fragmentation of the system, which to some degree have perpetuated existing inequalities. These challenges reflect a strong institutional heritage from the pre-reform era, which poses the biggest obstacle to the development of a coherent national social protection system.

New trajectories of unionization in the Nordic Ghent countries: Changing labour market and welfare institutions

Unemployment insurance funds (the ‘Ghent system’), subsidized by the state and controlled by the labour movement, have contributed to high trade union densities in the Nordic countries. However, dependence on these funds as a recruiting mechanism makes trade union membership sensitive to institutional changes to unemployment insurance benefits and the institutional set-up surrounding and regulating them. In this article, we investigate recent institutional changes in the three Nordic countries following the Ghent model, Finland, Sweden and Denmark, and analyse the consequences for union and fund membership. These countries have witnessed different combinations of two types of reform, less attractive unemployment benefits plus new institutional alternatives to the traditional union-run funds, and this has led to different outcomes in each country. Benefit retrenchment and increased contributions led to a sharp decline in fund membership in Sweden, whereas this trend is less pronounced in Finland and Denmark. Instead, the main trend here has been a shift from union-led to alternative forms of fund membership, but in different ways.

Acculturation and expectations? Investigating differences in generalized trust between non-Western immigrants and ethnic Danes

Abstract This article investigates different sources of generalised trust among ethnic Danes and non-Western immigrants together with the gap in trust levels across the two groups. New survey data from Denmark were utilised, and the variables included socioeconomic resources, interethnic contact, perceptions of institutional fairness, timespan in Denmark, national identification and language proficiency. The results showed that interethnic contact and institutional fairness matter less for immigrants than for Danes vis-à-vis trust and that these variables alone do not explain the trust gap. The results also showed that their interactions with ethnicity reduce the trust gap for respondents with little interethnic contact or negative perceptions of institutions. Share of lifespan spent in Denmark also correlated negatively with social trust for immigrants. The results are discussed as the reflection of dynamic acculturation and changing expectations rather than socialisation or distinctly personal experiences.

The undeserving poor in China: The institutional logic of the minimum living standard scheme and the Hukou system

ABSTRACT In tandem with hukou, the Chinese household registration system, the Minimum Standard of Living Scheme (MSLS) may create an institutional melting pot from which negative perceptions continue to inform Chinese attitudes towards the poor. The theoretical point of departure for this paper connects the concept of deservingness with policy institutions. Based on the ISSP 2009 survey, and an examination of country-level differences in the association between perceptions of the poor on the one hand and perceptions of the unemployed and attitudes towards redistribution on the other, it is argued that the theory finds empirical support. The results stress that hukou reform and more inclusive welfare provision are important for improving social cohesion in China.