The worries of wealth: what Monday's election might mean for the future of Norway

On 11 September, Norwegians will head to the polls to elect a new government. Mi Ah Schoyen and Are Vegard Haug preview the vote, writing that alongside the choice between a centre-left and centre-right administration, the country must also make a number of important strategic decisions in the coming years that will set its future trajectory

A Comparative Analysis of People’s Views on Future Policies for Older People

Starenje stanovništva jedna je od najvećih strukturnih promjena koje trenutno utječu na razvoj svih europskih socijalnih država. Različite države se suočavaju s tim promjenama na različite načine. Kao odgovor na svjetsku gospodarsku krizu, mnoge su države reformirale svoje mirovinske sustave i način na koji odgovaraju na rastuće potrebe za skrbi. Te promjene znatno utječu na stavove ljudi o perspektivi socijalne države i na njihova očekivanja u budućnosti vezano uz buduću raspodjelu odgovornosti u pružanju skrbi za starije osobe. Temelj za analizu su podatci prikupljeni u poredbenom europskom projektu uz metodu korištenje demokratskih foruma. Stavove i očekivanja sudionika – kao i razloge i argumente koje su iznijeli – upotrijebili smo kako bismo rasvijetlili čimbenike koji će vjerojatno oblikovati buduće oblike skrbi za starije osobe i mjere mirovinske politike. Analizirali smo četiri države koje imaju različite socijalne režime – Norvešku, Sloveniju, Njemačku i Ujedinjeno Kraljevstvo – i usredotočili se na podjelu odgovornosti između države, tržišta i obitelji, kao i na sličnosti i razlike u prioritetima i proizlazeće argumente iznesene u te četiri države.Population ageing is one of the biggest structural changes currently affecting the development of all European welfare states. Countries have tackled these changes in different ways. In reaction to the global economic crisis, many countries have reformed their old-age pension systems and how they address the rising care needs. These changes are bound to influence how citizens view the welfare state’s prospects and what they expect from it in the future in relation to policies for the elderly. The paper explores citizens’ attitudes and expectations with regard to the future division of responsibilities for the provision of welfare for the elderly. The basis for the analysis is data gathered in a comparative European project adopting coordinated democratic forums as a methodology. We use the participants’ views and expectations – as well as the reasons and arguments they presented – to shed light on the factors likely to shape future elderly care and old-age pension policies. We analyse four countries – Norway, Slovenia, Germany and the UK – belonging to four different welfare regimes and focus on the division of responsibilities between the state, the market and the family and the differences and similarities in priorities and subsequent arguments put forward in the four countries

What and whom are family policies for? Unpacking the meaning of citizens’ support for family policy across Europe

The paper provides a comparative investigation into public attitudes to family policies. It shows that citizens’ support for family policies is diverse across different welfare regimes with respect to four countries belonging to distinct regimes: the UK, Germany, Norway and Slovenia. Using qualitative data, we unpack the ways individuals view the need for family policies, the rationale they use to explain their support for family policies and for imposing restrictions on access to family policies – i.e. why, for whom, and under which conditions. We find that social rights narratives are common in Norway; a social investment logic is prevalent in Germany and Slovenia; while in the UK the dominant view is closer to the work-central individualized responsibility narrative of neoliberalism. In addition, we find differences across regimes in who family policies should target. In the UK and Germany, the focus is much more on providing support to activate parents, while in Norway and partly Slovenia the focus is on providing well-being for children. The findings show that despite some convergence in family policies across Europe in recent times, we still find clear diversity in what and for whom family policies are for, its rationale largely embedded in the larger institutional normative structures of the welfare state. The results not only contribute to the literature on the relationship between public attitudes and welfare institutions, but also point towards shifting ideas about the role of family policies in the context of societal change

Moral economies of the welfare state: A qualitative comparative study

This paper uses innovative democratic forums carried out in Germany, Norway and the UK to examine people’s ideas about welfare state priorities and future prospects. We use a moral economy framework in the context of regime differences and the move towards neo-liberalism across Europe. Broadly speaking, attitudes reflect regime differences: a distinctive emphasis on reciprocity and the value of work in Germany, on inclusion and equality in Norway and on individual responsibility and the work-ethic in the UK. Neo-liberal market-centred ideas appear to have made little headway in regard to popular attitudes, except in the already liberal-leaning UK. There is also a striking assumption by UK participants that welfare is threatened externally by immigrants who take jobs from established workers and internally by the work-shy who undermine the work-ethic. A key role of the welfare state is repressive rather than enabling: to protect against threats to well-being rather than provide benefits for citizens. UK participants also anticipate major decline in state provision. In all three countries there is strong support for continuing and expanding social investment policies, but for different reasons: to enable contribution in Germany, to promote equality and mobility in Norway and to facilitate self-responsibility in the UK

Policy frameworks for sustainability transitions : mapping approaches in the European Union and the global south

Published online: November 2023The general objective of the report is to map – quantitatively and qualitatively – the main existing policy frameworks and strategies for sustainable development (SD) and sustainability transitions (ST) in the EU. In other words, the main research question to address in this regard is how the EU policies integrate and articulate the notion of sustainability transition. Furthermore, a brief overview of regional challenges and transition policy frameworks in the Global South is provided. This is done in recognition of the fact that the 2030 Agenda is global in scope, and sustainability transitions are crucial in the Global South and Global North regions alike.Project funded by European Union’s Horizon Europe Programme under Grant Agreement No. 101094551

Sustainability

Consideration of sustainability in the comparative welfare state literature over recent decades has mainly focused on economic and demographic parameters. This chapter draws on an emerging literature which suggests an ecological dimension, especially the global climate crisis, must be brought into these discussions. This literature includes efforts to conceptualise eco-social states, political economies that aspire to reconcile social and ecological considerations, and theoretical work on transitions to such arrangements. The chapter delineates three approaches to sustainability and their policy recommendations for a transition to future low-carbon welfare states - ecological moderni¬sation or green growth, the Green New Deal or egalitarian growth, and post-growth approaches. In the context of these three approaches, it reviews the literature on transitions to an eco-social state, focusing particularly on whether some types of welfare state are better placed than others to achieve this. The chapter finishes by briefly outlining the future research agenda. It suggests that most important in this respect are: (i) the need for theoretical innovations to develop new models of sustainable institutional arrangements; and (ii) the development of a better theoretical and empirical understanding of how countries or governments can manage eco-social state transitions.</p

The political sustainability of the NDC pension mode : the cases of Sweden and Italy

Since the early 1990s we have seen pension reforms in a large number of advanced welfare states, and the most impressive reforms have happened in countries with Bismarckian pension systems. Some of these countries have adopted a particularly innovative pension model which is based on pay-as-you-go financing and benefits that are a function of lifetime contributions. The approach is known as the notional defined contribution (NDC) model. This article examines what has happened to the public pension systems in Sweden and Italy after they were among the first to adopt the NDC model in the mid-1990s. By focusing on the degree of political consensus and conflict in the national pension policy debate since the NDC formula was introduced, the article offers an empirical assessment of the degree of political sustainability enjoyed by these landmark reforms. The paper shows that reform processes do not end with legislation. For reforms to have a lasting impact, whether they are left to work as intended also matters. The 'post-adoption' policy trajectory depends on a number of factors related to policy design, economic context and political ownership

Has the European Social Fund been effective in supporting young people?

The European Social Fund (ESF) constitutes a somewhat exceptional and paradoxical part of European Union policy. The division of decision-making powers or jurisdiction between EU-level bodies and the member states has meant that national governments have been reluctant to let the EU increase its powers in the wide area of employment and social policies. For many observers, the EU’s primary contribution in the realm of social protection and employment has been one of ‘social regulation’, rather than ‘social redistribution’. Nonetheless, policymakers perceived such redistribution of resources not as a goal in itself but mainly as an instrument for achieving macro-level goals: economic growth, modernization, restructuring and enhancing the four EU freedoms. Currently, the ESF contributes to the achievement of ‘a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth in the EU’, as defined in the Europe 2020 strategy. Still, high unemployment and increasing poverty risks put the individual social welfare of vulnerable sub-groups in the population under pressure. In particular, young people have been hit hard by the economic crisis, and the ghost of a ‘lost generation’ is threatening their future employment trajectories. This chapter looks at what existing research says about the role of the ESF in dealing with labour market and social integration issues. We further examine available EU documents, existing comparative and time-series data about the role of ESF measures in the past, and ongoing efforts to strengthen the position and employability of young people in the seven countries. We then discuss the relevance of the ESF in the seven countries − how strongly young people have been involved in ESF measures, and how this involvement has varied across countries. We also investigate whether the involvement of young people has been proportional to the share of NEETs in the country. We finally draw lessons based on available cross-national data from the previous (2007–13) and the current (2014–20) ESF funding periods at the national level; and identify lessons for further policy developments to improve the impact of ESF measures on the employment situation of young people in Europe

Dividing the pie in the eco-social state : Exploring the relationship between public support for environmental and welfare policies

Recent theoretical literature in social policy argued that climate change posed a new risk to the states and called for transformation from a traditional welfare state to an ‘eco’ state. From a theoretical point of view, different welfare regimes may manage environmental/climate change risks in a similar way to social risks. However, not much has been done to explore the issue empirically. To this end, this paper aims to investigate public attitudes towards environmental and traditional welfare policies given that environmental change is a new social risk the welfare states have to address. Do individuals that care for one area also care for the other? That is, do the preferences in these two policy spheres complement or substitute one another? We test these hypotheses both at the individual- and country-level, using data from 14 countries included in all three waves (1993, 2000, and 2010) of the environmental module in the International Social Survey Programme. Specifically, we investigate the relationship between attitudes towards income redistribution (indicator of support for welfare policy) and willingness to pay for environmental protection (indicator of support for environmental policy). Our findings suggest that attitudes in the two areas are substitutes in the total sample, but that the relationship is very small and only statistically significant in some specifications. When we explore country differentials, we observe clear heterogeneity in the relationship, which can be explained by differences in political and historical contexts across countries