Download or read book The Rise and Fall of the Miraculous Welfare Machine written by Carly Elizabeth Schall and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-06 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sweden is well known for the success of its welfare state. Many believe that success was made possible in part by the country's ethnic homogeneity and that the increased diversity of Sweden’s population is putting its welfare state at risk. Few, however, have suggested convincing mechanisms for explaining the precise relationship between relative ethnic homogeneity/heterogeneity and the welfare state. In this book Carly Elizabeth Schall acknowledges the important role of ethnic homogeneity in Sweden’s thriving welfare state, but she argues that it mattered primarily because political elites—especially social democrats—made it matter. Schall shows that diversity and the welfare state are related but that diversity does not undermine the welfare state in a straightforward way. Tracing the development of the Swedish welfare state from the late 1920s until the present day, she focuses on five historical periods of crisis. She argues that the story of Swedish national identity is a story of elite-driven hegemony-building and that the linking of social democracy and national identity colored the integration of immigrants in important ways. Social democracy could have withstood the challenge posed by immigration, but the faltering of social democratic hegemony opened a door for anti-immigrant sentiment. In her deft analysis of the relationship between immigration and the welfare state in Sweden, Schall makes a compelling argument that has relevance for immigration policy in the United States and elsewhere.

Download or read book The Rise and Fall of the Miraculous Welfare Machine written by Carly Elizabeth Schall and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-14 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sweden is well known for the success of its welfare state. Many believe that success was made possible in part by the country’s ethnic homogeneity and that the increased diversity of Sweden’s population is putting its welfare state at risk. Few, however, have suggested convincing mechanisms for explaining the precise relationship between relative ethnic homogeneity/heterogeneity and the welfare state. In this book Carly Elizabeth Schall acknowledges the important role of ethnic homogeneity in Sweden’s thriving welfare state, but she argues that it mattered primarily because political elites— especially social democrats—made it matter. Schall shows that diversity and the welfare state are related but that diversity does not undermine the welfare state in a straightforward way. Tracing the development of the Swedish welfare state from the late 1920s until the present day, she focuses on five historical periods of crisis. She argues that the story of Swedish national identity is a story of elite-driven hegemony-building and that the linking of social democracy and national identity colored the integration of immigrants in important ways. Social democracy could have withstood the challenge posed by immigration, but the faltering of social democratic hegemony opened a door for anti-immigrant sentiment. In her deft analysis of the relationship between immigration and the welfare state in Sweden, Schall makes a compelling argument that has relevance for immigration policy in the United States and elsewhere.

Download or read book Marginalized Groups Inequalities and the Post War Welfare State written by Monika Baár and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-10-22 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining the ways in which societies treat their most vulnerable members has long been regarded as revealing of the bedrock beliefs and values that guide the social order. However, academic research about the post-war welfare state is often focused on mainstream arrangements or on one social group. With its focus on different marginalized groups: migrants and people with disabilities, this volume offers novel perspectives on the national and international dimensions of the post-war welfare state in Western Europe and North America.

Download or read book Embattled Europe written by Konrad H. Jarausch and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-10-29 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bracing corrective to predictions of the European Union’s decline, by a leading historian of modern Europe Is the European Union in decline? Recent history, from the debt and migration crises to Brexit, has led many observers to argue that the EU’s best days are behind it. Over the past decade, right-wing populists have come to power in Poland, Hungary, and beyond—many of them winning elections using strident anti-EU rhetoric. At the same time, Russia poses a continuing military threat, and the rise of Asia has challenged the EU's economic power. But in Embattled Europe, renowned European historian Konrad Jarausch counters the prevailing pessimistic narrative of European obsolescence with a rousing yet realistic defense of the continent—one grounded in a fresh account of its post–1989 history and an intimate understanding of its twentieth-century horrors. An engaging narrative and probing analysis, Embattled Europe tells the story of how the EU emerged as a model of democratic governance and balanced economic growth, adapting to changing times while retaining its value system. The book describes the EU’s admirable approach to the environment, social welfare, immigration, and global competitiveness. And it presents underappreciated European success stories—including Denmark’s transition to a green economy, Sweden’s restructuring of its welfare state, and Poland’s economic miracle. Embattled Europe makes a powerful case that Europe—with its peaceful foreign policy, social welfare solidarity, and environmental protection—offers the best progressive alternative to the military adventurism and rampant inequality of plutocratic capitalism and right-wing authoritarianism.

Download or read book Handbook on Migration and Welfare written by Crepaz, Markus M.L. and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2022-01-14 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together prominent scholars in the field, this Handbook provides an interdisciplinary exploration of the complex interrelationship between migration and welfare. Chapters further examine the effects of emigration on sending societies exploring issues such as the impact of remittances, diasporas, and skill deterioration as a result of human capital flight on capacity building and on economic and political development more generally.

Download or read book Democracy Capitalism and the Welfare State written by Peter C. Caldwell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-14 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracy, Capitalism, and the Welfare State investigates political thought under the conditions of the postwar welfare state, focusing on the Federal Republic of Germany (1949-1989). The volume argues that the welfare state informed and altered basic questions of democracy and its relationship to capitalism. These questions were especially important for West Germany, given its recent experience with the collapse of capitalism, the disintegration of democracy, and National Socialist dictatorship after 1930. Three central issues emerged. First, the development of a nearly all-embracing set of social services and payments recast the problem of how social groups and interests related to the state, as state agencies and affected groups generated their own clientele, their own advocacy groups, and their own expert information. Second, the welfare state blurred the line between state and society that is constitutive of basic rights and the classic world of liberal freedom; rights became claims on the state, and social groups became integral parts of state administration. Third, the welfare state potentially reshaped the individual citizen, who became wrapped up with mandatory social insurance systems, provisioning of money and services related to social needs, and the regulation of everyday life. Peter C. Caldwell describes how West German experts sought to make sense of this vast array of state programs, expenditures, and bureaucracies aimed at solving social problems. Coming from backgrounds in politics, economics, law, social policy, sociology, and philosophy, they sought to conceptualize their state, which was now social (one German word for the welfare state is indeed Sozialstaat), and their society, which was permeated by state policies.

Download or read book Nordic Nationalism and Penal Order written by Vanessa Barker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-08 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In late summer 2015, Sweden embarked on one of the largest self-described humanitarian efforts in its history, opening its borders to 163,000 asylum seekers fleeing the war in Syria. Six months later this massive effort was over. On January 4, 2016, Sweden closed its border with Denmark. This closure makes a startling reversal of Sweden’s open borders to refugees and contravenes free movement in the Schengen Area, a founding principle of the European Union. What happened? This book sets out to explain this reversal. In her new and compelling book, Vanessa Barker explores the Swedish case study to challenge several key paradigms for understanding penal order in the twenty-first century and makes an important contribution to our understanding of punishment and welfare states. She questions the dominance of neoliberalism and political economy as the main explanation for the penalization of others, migrants and foreign nationals, and develops an alternative theoretical framework based on the internal logic of the welfare state and democratic theory about citizenship, incorporation, and difference, paying particular attention to questions of belonging, worthiness, and ethnic and gender hierarchies. Her book develops the concept of penal nationalism as an important form of penal power in the twenty-first century, providing a bridge between border control and punishment studies.

Download or read book Entrenchment written by Paul Starr and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-21 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation into the foundations of democratic societies and the ongoing struggle over the power of concentrated wealth Much of our politics today, Paul Starr writes, is a struggle over entrenchment—efforts to bring about change in ways that opponents will find difficult to undo. That is why the stakes of contemporary politics are so high. In this wide-ranging book, Starr examines how changes at the foundations of society become hard to reverse—yet sometimes are overturned. Overcoming aristocratic power was the formative problem for eighteenth-century revolutions. Overcoming slavery was the central problem for early American democracy. Controlling the power of concentrated wealth has been an ongoing struggle in the world’s capitalist democracies. The battles continue today in the troubled democracies of our time, with the rise of both oligarchy and populist nationalism and the danger that illiberal forces will entrench themselves in power. Entrenchment raises fundamental questions about the origins of our institutions and urgent questions about the future.

Download or read book The Nordic Civil Sphere written by Jeffrey C. Alexander and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The civil sphere is a distinctively democratic field in modern societies, one that sustains universalizing cultural aspirations and organizational structures and that has tense and uncertain boundaries with other spheres of social life, like the economy, religion, family, and state. Unlike the latter, which are more particularistic and hierarchical in character, the civil sphere defines itself in terms of solidarity – the feeling of being connected with every other person in the collectivity. The utopian ideals of democratic solidarity shape every modern society, even if they are often compromised by the messy realities of social life. This volume uses the theory of the civil sphere to shed new light on Nordic societies, while at the same time drawing on the distinctive experiences of the Nordic nations to reflect on and advance the theory of the civil sphere. Nordic societies have long been admired for creating a distinctive form of social democracy, but this admirable achievement has not been well conceptualized theoretically. Most attempts to explain Nordic social democracy focus on material and organizational factors. This volume, by contrast, emphasizes the cultural foundations and characteristics of social democracy, demonstrating how civil sensibilities are necessary for the creation of an egalitarian and democratic state. Nordic civil spheres, however, are not only pro-civil but also white in color, European in ethnicity, secular in character and gender-equal in a subtly restrictive manner. Such primordialization of state civility is vividly on display in the sometime tense relationships that develop among natives and “foreigners” in Nordic countries, relationships that expose the primordial undersides of the social democratic codes and civil values that constitute the Nordic civil sphere. A major contribution to the theory of the civil sphere and to our understanding of the cultural and normative underpinnings of social and political life, this volume will be of particular interest to students and scholars of sociology and politics.

Download or read book The Politics of Social Democracy written by Rob Manwaring and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-05-12 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses the meaning of contemporary social democracy and how the centre-left is navigating through its current identity crisis, through a series of cases of social democratic and labour parties across Europe and the Anglosphere. The book examines the ideological, policy, electoral and organisational dilemmas facing the centre-left. Taking in cases including those from the UK, Austria, France, Germany, Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand, it outlines and explores the current and future trajectories of the family of centre-left parties. This text will be of key interest to students, scholars and interested readers of labour and social democratic politics, centre-left political parties, trade unions, the future of the centre-left, and more broadly to those studying political parties, European and comparative politics.

Download or read book The Nordic Populist Radical Right written by Ann-Cathrine Jungar and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-08-05 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume examines populist radical right parties in the Nordic region. Somewhat surprisingly given the image of a consensual, egalitarian, and progressive region of Europe, the Nordic countries have been fertile ground for the radical right. Not only have radical right parties persisted for many decades, but they are currently much stronger in this region than in most other European countries today. In this book, the contributors analyse the electoral, ideological, and organisational aspects of the radical right in the Nordic region: The Progress Party in Norway (Fremskrittspartiet, FrP), the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna, SD), Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti, DF), and the Finns party (Perussuomalaiset, PS). It also explores how mainstream parties and the media have reacted to the rise of the radical right, whether the radical right is integrated into mainstream politics, the extent to which they challenge the dominant ideological paradigm of Nordic politics and whether they mobilise and organise differently to other parties. Understanding the Nordic radical right is crucial to comprehending the transformation of Nordic politics but also changes in European politics more generally. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Scandinavian politics, populism, the radical right, and comparative party politics.

Download or read book Would Democratic Socialism be Better written by Lane Kenworthy and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interest in democratic socialism is on the rise, but this wide-ranging comparison of two systems shows that the Nordic model of capitalism achieves virtually everything that contemporary democratic socialists say we should want. Socialism is back in the conversation, and recent polls suggest the share of young Americans who have a favorable impression of socialism is about the same as the share that have a favorable view of capitalism. The case for a modern democratic socialism is that capitalism is bad, or at least not very good, and that socialism would be an improvement. To fully and fairly assess democratic socialism's desirability, Lane Kenworthy argues in Would Democratic Socialism Be Better?, we need to compare it to the best version of capitalism that humans have devised: social democratic capitalism. Kenworthy offers a close look at the evidence about how capitalist economies have performed on an array of outcomes. He finds that social democratic capitalism achieves virtually everything that contemporary democratic socialists say we should want.

Download or read book Social Democratic Capitalism written by Lane Kenworthy and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the configuration of institutions and policies most conducive to human flourishing? The historical and comparative evidence from the world's rich democratic countries suggests that the answer is capitalism, a democratic political system, good elementary and secondary schooling, a big welfare state, employment-conducive public services, and moderate regulation of product and labor markets. This set of policies and institutions, which sociologist Lane Kenworthy calls social democratic capitalism, improves living standards for the least well-off, enhances economic security, and very likely boosts equality of opportunity. And it does so without sacrificing the many other things we want in a good society, from liberty to economic growth and much more. While the Nordic nations have been social democratic capitalism's chief practitioners, there is good reason to think other affluent countries, including the United States, will move in this direction in coming decades.

Download or read book European Politics written by Tim Bale and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-04-28 with total page 863 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fully revised fourth edition of a popular introduction to the comparative politics of Europe, written by a highly respected authority on the subject. This lively and thematically organised text provides an accessible guide to the institutions and the issues that matter in a continent where the boundaries between East and West, and between domestic and European affairs are increasingly breaking down. Covering a wide array of countries it is a concise yet comprehensive overview of one of the world's most important and fascinating regions. Written in an approachable style and packed with up-to-date, real-world examples and information, this is the ideal place for students to begin and to deepen their understanding of Europe's politics. It can be adapted as a standalone text on modules on Comparative European Politics and will be of use as a key reading on undergraduate courses on Comparative Politics more broadly, as well as European Union Politics. New to this Edition: - Updated throughout to provide coverage of developments such as the Eurozone crisis, the growth of left and right-wing populism, the rise of nationalism and Europe's on-going immigration challenge - Includes a short concluding chapter, rounding up and considering the future of the book's core themes of Europeanization and multilevel governance - Additional country profiles on Croatia and Greece to ensure representative treatment of the key countries in Europe today

Download or read book What s in it for me written by Thomas Prosser and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This punchy and provocative book asks a simple but overlooked question: why do we have the political views that we do? Offering a lively and original analysis of five worldviews – conservatism, national populism, liberalism, the new left and social democracy – Thomas Prosser argues that our views tend to satisfy self-interest, albeit indirectly, and that progressive worldviews are not as altruistic as their adherents believe. But What’s in it for me? is far from pessimistic. Prosser contends that recognition of self-interest makes us more self-reflective, allowing us to see humanity in adversaries and countering the influence of echo chambers. As populist parties rise and liberalism and social democracy decline, this timely intervention argues that to solve our political differences, we must first realise what we have in common.

Download or read book Social Theory after the Internet written by Ralph Schroeder and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2018-01-04 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The internet has fundamentally transformed society in the past 25 years, yet existing theories of mass or interpersonal communication do not work well in understanding a digital world. Nor has this understanding been helped by disciplinary specialization and a continual focus on the latest innovations. Ralph Schroeder takes a longer-term view, synthesizing perspectives and findings from various social science disciplines in four countries: the United States, Sweden, India and China. His comparison highlights, among other observations, that smartphones are in many respects more important than PC-based internet uses. Social Theory after the Internet focuses on everyday uses and effects of the internet, including information seeking and big data, and explains how the internet has gone beyond traditional media in, for example, enabling Donald Trump and Narendra Modi to come to power. Schroeder puts forward a sophisticated theory of the role of the internet, and how both technological and social forces shape its significance. He provides a sweeping and penetrating study, theoretically ambitious and at the same time always empirically grounded.The book will be of great interest to students and scholars of digital media and society, the internet and politics, and the social implications of big data.

Download or read book In Defense of Liberal Democracy written by Manuel Hinds and published by Charlesbridge Publishing. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Defense of Liberal Democracy is a clarion call for today's divided time: a bold reaffirmation of the liberal democratic principles that have carried America through each crisis in its history--and can do so again. Merging expert historical, political, and economic analysis, In Defense of Liberal Democracy shows how our recent technological revolution--what high-profile economist Manuel Hinds calls the Connectivity Revolution--has led to a crisis of divisiveness. Assessing the angry rhetoric and polarization of current political and social discourse in the US, Hinds considers the dangers of seeking populist solutions to our current upheaval and shows how the traditions and institutions of liberal democracy restored prosperity, freedom, and social equity during the Industrial Revolution, the Great Depression, and other periods of political instability. Hinds examines our national past and present (up to and including the 2020 presidential election) to illustrate how current events can be as dramatic as any historical legacy in warning us of the danger of abandoning our democratic principles.