Identity, Empathy and Argument: Immigrants in Culture and Entertainment Journalism in the Scandinavian Press

Cultural and entertainment journalism deals with aesthetic experiences, advice on cultural consumption, as well as reflection and debate on ethical and moral humanistic issues. Does this sub-field of journalism systematically represent immigrants and integration differently than the other news and commentary articles? Comparing immigration discourse in a representative sample of six Scandinavian newspapers between 1970 and 2016 using content analysis we find that cultural journalism, while clearly reverbing with the dominant national issues at the time, did provide alternative perspectives. It not only brought up themes like racism, multiculturalism, national identity and religion more often, but was also more positive, more gender-balanced and more often gave a voice to immigrants than other news did. A closer qualitative reading further suggests a typology of ten main story-types, varying relatively little over time and across national borders. Cultural journalism in this case illustrates how the cultural public sphere can positively contribute to the debate of complicated issues in the public sphere by offering resources for identification, empathy and arguments for specific points of view.publishedVersio

From economic incentives to dialogic nudging - The politics of change and inertia in Norwegian sickness insurance

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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.acceptedVersio

Change and Resilience in Welfare State Policy : The Politics of Sickness Insurance in Norway and Sweden

This article compares the processes of reforming sickness insurance in Norway and Sweden. Despite the many similarities between the Norwegian and Swedish welfare states, they have taken different paths when it comes to reforming their sickness insurance systems. In the period between 1990 and 2010 Sweden changed its wage replacement levels and levels of employer financing several times, while in Norway they remain basically unchanged since 1978, notwithstanding many reform initiatives by political authorities. Why have the two cases evolved so differently? We address this question by using Peter Starke’s review of the retrenchment literature which outlines four major strands of theorizing the politics of welfare reform: neo-functionalism, conflict theories, institutionalist theories and discourse theory. Rather than treating these as providing competing explanations, the article suggests that elements from all perspectives bring insights to the case. The need for policy reform must always be communicated in a way that can be understood and approved in order to materialize as actual policy change. But discursive change and apparently seductive frames will not always be enough. This comparative analysis illustrates that the chance of success for new frames or discourses depends on the institutional, political and functional context into which they are inserted. Similar attempts at framing the need for reform and cutbacks have had different effects in the two countries depending on the character of the counter forces and extant frames reformers are up against. On the other hand, over time discourses and frames also shape institutions and political relations.publishedVersio

After the refugee crisis: public discourse and policy change in Denmark, Norway and Sweden

The refugee crisis of 2015 can be characterised as an exogenous shock, an immigration shock, which according to institutional theory may create a window of opportunity for path-breaking policy change. In all three Scandinavian countries a range of new policy proposals were made in order to stem the incoming migration. Although the direction of policy change pointed in a similar restrictive direction, the choice of policy instruments differed, as did the style and content of policy actors’ legitimizing and coordinating discourses. Drawing on the analytical framework of discursive institutionalism, the three cases illustrate how a similar kind of external shock (the refugee crisis) was construed differently in different national public spheres, and generated different kinds of policy responses – in particular with respect to the social rights of refugees. The emphasis on legitimizing communicative discourse and coordinating discourse differed between the countries. In Sweden, the need to legitimize policy change normatively was acute. This mattered less in Denmark, where emphasis was on creating stable political support for a range of specific measures. Norway takes a mixed position between the two. Data includes a selection of media texts from six newspapers in 2015 as well as policy texts from 2015 and 2016

Build your own pension: Framing pension reform and choice in newspapers

Recent pension reforms in Norway mean that old-age pensions to a greater extent are a function of adaptations made and decisions made throughout the lifetime. How much you work, who you work for, when you retire, and how you invest will influence your standard of living as an old-age pensioner. This article investigates one important source of information about retirement and pension, namely service journalism in main national newspapers. How is the issue of pension framed in these articles? And what kind of advice is presented by which kind of actors? Findings indicate that service journalism is dominated by pension industry sources, and old-age pension is framed as a function of individual investment choices rather than as citizens’ rights.acceptedVersio

When metaphors become cognitive locks: occupational pension reform in Norway

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Innvandringens velferdspolitiske konsekvenser : Nordisk kunnskapsstatus

Samfunnsforskningen i Norden har i veldig liten grad tematisert koplingen mellom velferdsstat og utviklingen av flerkulturelle samfunn. Dette er på mange måter bemerkelsesverdig, gitt de nære forbindelser som eksisterer mellom velferdsstaten og innvandring i de nordiske landene. Denne litteraturgjennomgangen og tilstandsanalysen har gjort det klart at temaområdet innvandring og velferdsstat rommer et vell av interessante og viktige problemstillinger, men også til dels uløselige spenninger. Forskere i Norden begynner nå å stille spørsmålet om det kan være egenskaper ved selve velferdsstaten som i praksis motarbeider integreringsmålene. Er det med andre ord noe ved velferdsstatens struktur og virkemåte som i seg selv motvirker eller hemmer innlemming av nykommere? Er det passivitet - det vil si mangel på tiltak - eller er det feil tiltak som har skylden for dårlige resultater? Skjer det en (strukturell) utestengning eller er det snakk om en klientifisering? Hvordan har de siste tiårs reformer i velferdsordninger i Norden virket inn på innvandreres muligheter til integrasjon? Hvordan har skiftningene i satsing på særtiltak versus universelle ordninger slått ut når det gjelder innvandrerbefolkningens levekår og tilknytning til arbeidslivet? Temaet Innvandring og den nordiske velferdsstat åpner seg som et stort og utfordrende forskningsfelt innenfor Norden som regional enhet, på tvers av landegrensene i Norden og mellom Norden og verden utenfor - det være seg resten av EU eller områder utenfor Unionen

Frivillighet, innvandring, integrasjon : En kunnskapsoversikt

Denne rapporten presenterer en kunnskapsoversikt over, primært norsk, forskning om innvandreres og etniske minoriteters deltakelse i frivillig sektor. Den første delen tar for seg såkalte innvandrerorganisasjoner eller etnisk baserte organisasjoner. Den andre handler om innvandreres deltakelse i det allmenne organisasjonslivet med særlig vekt på idrettsorganisasjoner, barne- og ungdomsorganisasjoner og fagbevegelse. Hensikten er å sammenstille den forskningsbaserte kunnskapen vi har på feltet, slik at vi bedre kan identifisere viktige problemstillinger for videre forskning på feltet

Cooperation and Conflict the Nordic Way. Work, Welfare, and Institutional Change in Scandinavia

The Nordic model attracts attention in a mixture of applause and disbelief. Among its merits, but also a precondition to its future survival, is its capacity to modify and adapt to changing circumstances. This book scrutinizes Nordic – in particular Norwegian – working life and welfare states from the perspective of institutional change. The analyses range from property rights, boardroom politics and wage formation to old-age pensions, care work and childcare policies. What emerges is a picture of societies characterized by ongoing, often incremental, social and political reform processes. Tripartite relations of coordination and negotiation in the labor market and beyond, give shape to power relations and political processes in particular ways. The close connections between labour market, welfare state, family and gender policies work to create institutional bundles – in an even stronger way than assumed in the Varieties of Capitalism literature.The book is written for students and scholars with an interest in Nordic societies, in corporatism and political processes, as well as readers interested in theoretical debate on varieties of capitalism and institutional change