Stein Kuhnle

Government and voluntary organizations : a relational perspective

Examines the role of voluntary organizations in the welfare sector and their relations to public welfare schemes. The text also examines voluntary organizations and their relations to government and public policies.

The Nordic welfare state in a European context: dealing with new economic and ideological challenges in the 1990s

Within the framework of a general discussion of ‘the state of the welfare state’ in economically advanced West European democracies, this paper offers an account and interpretation of how the Nordic welfare states, often perceived as the most comprehensive and ‘generous’ welfare states, met a number of challenges in the 1990s. Economic problems were most critical in Finland and Sweden in the early 1990s, and social policy reform activities with the aim of modifications of programmes and cutbacks in expenditure have been most pronounced in these countries. A single common denominator for Nordic welfare state development in the 1990s is a somewhat less generous welfare state, but Norway is generally an exception. The basic structure of the welfare systems has been preserved, and social, health and welfare issues are consistently of high priority for governments and voters. The welfare state is highly valued in Scandinavia, but more space for market and other non-governmental welfare solutions is likely to grow in the future.

The Nordic Welfare Model and the European Union

None of the Scandinavian countries was invited to participate in the early European integration attempts after 1945 — attempts which resulted in the establishment of the West European Union in 1954. Neither were Scandinavian countries involved in negotiations over the European coal and steel community, or over the abortive European army. When Britain declined to join the EEC at its inauguration in 1957 such membership was definitely not a topical option for the Nordic countries. These quick historical notes are included to keep in mind that Scandinavia belongs to the periphery of Europe.

The Norwegian conservative party: Setback in an era of strength

After a period of unprecedented electoral growth, the Norwegian Conservative Party experienced a setback in the 1985 election. These shifts in Conservative electoral fortunes are explained in the context of socio‐economic changes in postwar Norway, organisational developments within the Conservative Party, its relationships to the other non‐Socialist parties, and the context of Norwegian public policies. A variety of favourable circumstances contributed to the success of the Conservative Party in the 1970s, but none of these could protect the party against recent losses while in office. The analysis particularly illustrates the weakness of explanations based on social determinism.

Old Age Pensions, Poverty and Dignity Historical Arguments for Universal Pensions

AB STRACT The article refers to studies indicating that universal old age pension programmes alone or in combination with earnings-related schemes are conducive to poverty alleviation and less income inequality. Universalism matters, but few countries in the world have introduced universal old age pension programmes. The article does not research this apparent paradox, but asks the empirical question of whether poverty was a prime concern and reflected in arguments used in favour of universal old age pension when such programmes were introduced historically. What were the pro-arguments? The article looks at the arguments for establishing universal old age pension in three selected countries, all belonging to the group of pioneer countries in this respect: Canada, Mauritius and Norway, which all introduced universal pensions in the 1950s. Historical arguments for universal pension systems in these countries are presented and compared. The ambition to reduce poverty was an important motivation in two of the countries, but the main consideration cutting across all three countries was the moral aversion to means-testing and the desire to achieve fairness and respect to human dignity. Another argument found in all three countries was the pragmatic one that a universal scheme would lead to a reduction of the administrative cost of old age provision compared with a system based on means testing.

Towards a Nordic–East Asian welfare dialogue?

There exist different kinds of welfare states in the world. This article briefly discusses in what way welfare states differ and raises the question whether the idea and phenomenon of a ‘welfare state’ is globalizing, and if so, in which directions welfare states are moving. More specifically, the article draws attention to characteristics of the so-called Nordic and East Asian welfare models and reflects on the question whether the two ‘welfare models’ are on converging paths. To say that the two models are converging would be imprecise or an overstatement, but it can be claimed that some of the East Asian countries have moved in a ‘Nordic’ direction as to more universalistic policies and ambitions, while the Nordic countries are moving towards less exclusive reliance on state or public welfare, although this is a trend made with reference to challenges and developments in Western welfare states and not to characteristics of East Asian welfare states since they hardly appear in the Nordic social policy discourse. The globalization of social policy discourses may lead to more convergence in terms of policy responses to similar challenges.

National Equality and Local Decision- making: Values in Conflict in the Develop ment of the Norwegian Welfare State

The values of national equality and local decision-making are discussed on the basis of two official Norwegian reports on the organization of social services. It is shown that the reports include a number of inconsistent goal formulations. Both values are. and always will be, in conflict, but it is argued that these goal conflicts may be made more explicit, and that a discussion of kinds and scope of acceptable inequalities should be started. The possibility of creating a cyclical process in which one or the other of the values has priority over the other in different time periods is suggested, though no practical solutions to the dilemmas are offered.1

Commentary: What Role for the Third Sector in European Public Policy-Making?

A public and theoretical interest in the relationship between the state and civil society has a history spanning many centuries in Europe, but only in the recent three to four decades has there been a significant growth of scholarly and political attention to organizations between the market and the state—appearing under a variety of labels: the third sector, voluntary organizations, non-profit organizations, non-governmental organizations and (organized) civil society. The attention is reflected through the establishment of many new academic journals; creation of international associations for third sector researchers and practitioners; establishment of specialized research centres within and beyond universities; funding of large international and comparative research projects; and many national government studies and reports on the historical and current—actual and possible—role of the third sector in public policy. This increased attention manifested itself first in Europe and North America, and perhaps not coincidently at around the time when Western economies and welfare states experienced severe new challenges induced by the political, economic and social fallout of the ‘oil crises’ of the 1970s. The early 1970s saw the publication of the first of many books to come during the subsequent 30–40 years dealing with ‘the crisis of the welfare state’—variously focusing on financial, political, social and moral dimensions of an alleged crisis. If the development of the welfare state was, at least partly, a response to ‘market failure’, the crisis of the welfare state was by many scholars and commentators regarded, although not exclusively, as an example of ‘government failure’: democratic governments responding to popular demands and taking on too many welfare tasks leading to a ‘government overload’. The expansion of the European welfare state during ‘the golden era of the welfare state’ (approximately 1945–1975) took place in a period of sustained economic growth, and in a period when a hybrid of an inter-governmental and supra-national European (economic) community was slowly emerging from a community of originally only six Member States to nine Member States in 1973—and before this increasingly important community in Journal of Civil Society Vol. 6, No. 1, 71–74, June 2010

Beyond poor solutions

The social sciences have no magic formula for addressing these issues. We know that there is a mismatch between, on the one hand, the geographical range of the impacts of climate change, population dynamics and global trade, and, on the other hand, the reach of the institutions that try to cope with them. We know that we have to redesign economic policies and political arrangements and change fixed mindsets as well. The social sciences develop and test models and interpretations of individuals and society in order to explain how humans interact with each other and with the natural world. Social scientists devise models not just of society, but also for society – what can be done for better futures. Yet the social sciences themselves are fragmented. Indeed, some argue that the disciplines are in disorder – that there is not one social science, but many. Rather than one paradigm, there are competing schools: if there is one planet with worlds apart, there is also the problem of the social sciences not being on the same map. So, in order to address the state of the world it is also necessary to address the state of the art. In order to make social science relevant, social scientists have to scrutinize their own concepts about how society works, and engage in vigorous self-examination of how their approaches fare in order to define common tasks and set a shared agenda.

Global Social Policy Forum: Global Ideas Matter, Local Power Decides? Guest Editor’s Introduction

The title of this focused issue plays on a famous phrase coined by the late Stein Rokkan: ‘Votes Count, but Resources Decide’ (Rokkan, 1966: 105). Rokkan was concerned with how, in national politics, citizens persistently opposed to the government can keep up their partisan enthusiasm when their votes seem to make so little difference; how can the values and interests seen to be threatened by the government be defended when the opposition parties are continuously outnumbered in the fight for electoral votes? His major point was that the parliamentary notions of one member, one vote and majority rule are balanced against the outcome of other political processes of negotiations among corporate units outside of the channel of ‘numerical democracy’. Whether Rokkan’s concepts of ‘votes’ (i.e. ‘government’) and ‘resources’ (i.e. corporate interests – business, unions, etc.) can be substituted with, respectively, ‘global ideas’ (i.e. ideas originating from the international community, international organizations) and ‘local power’ (i.e. national political actors and institutions) is a matter of discussion and research. Rokkan’s catchy phrase served as an inspirational idea for the workshop from which this collection of articles arose. The workshop was organized in Bergen in May 2004 as part of a project on ‘Globalization, Welfare, Labour and Legitimacy’ at the Stein Rokkan Centre for Social Studies, University of Bergen. The project is jointly directed by Olav Korsnes (Department of Sociology) and Stein Kuhnle (Department of Comparative Politics). The title of the workshop was ‘Varieties of Globalization: Global Ideas Matter, Local Power Decides?’ and participants were invited to discuss questions such as: Can we identify ‘global ideas’ that affect national and local politics, and if so, to what extent and in what way do such ideas have an impact on national policy making, policy reforms, and institutional changes in the fields of welfare and work? What ideas float around, and who in terms of actors and institutions promote specific ideas? How do actors at the national and local level encounter ‘global ideas’? And how are local ideas made – and, or, how do local ideas become – global? A general assumption is that any new ‘global’ G S P F O R U M 5