Abstract
The first volume is a reprint of a text first published in 1990, which I reviewed briefly in CSP No. 11. It consists of four essays, exploring respectively the early development of social insurance and social services; mid twentieth century pension reform; post-war developments across a range of services and benefits; and, finally, a discussion of decentralisation and the absence of privatisation prior to the 1990s. There is a lot of detail and some interesting reflections, but it is not that easy to navigate, nor that clear what the author wants to say. It is certainly an important benchmark text in English.
The second volume brings the story up to date, covering the impact of the major financial crisis in the early 1990s and, to a lesser extent, that of the post-2008 crisis. The latter does not seem to have been very significant. Like the first volume it takes the form of a series of essays, five in all, which to some extent stand alone. This is definitely not a textbook – it is written for an audience of social scientists at postgraduate level and beyond. The first essay is a concise review of the whole comparative social policy field, but it does not offer an interpretation or new theoretical insight.
The second essay is an overview of Swedish social policy over the past quarter century, ranging across benefits, pensions, social and health care services, and housing. This is very useful, giving quite a lot more detail than can be found in book chapters and journal articles in English. Like most commentators, the author demonstrates that the welfare state in Sweden both is sustainable (in terms of its political and tax base) and has survived, after a rocky moment during and immediately after the banking/fiscal crisis of the early/mid 1990s. The big shift has been towards much higher levels of unemployment alongside marketisation and other forms of privatisation and decentralisation in housing, health care and schooling. All this is usefully documented though perhaps not with as much systematic evidence as might be hoped.
The third chapter is built around the decline of the social democratic party in the context of sociological change. Aspects of the latter include ageing, women’s politics and immigration, but how this translates into the social movements and politics around social policy on the ground does not come across that well. There is some interesting detail on the restructuring of the active labour market and social insurance apparatuses, which seems to symbolise the weakening of union power. But there is little on the changes in the union movement, the working class and the labour market which lie behind this. This chapter perhaps tries to integrate a very wide range of topics, not really pulling it off.
The fourth chapter addresses a number of theoretical/conceptual topics identified earlier in the book, with more discussion of ‘imagined welfare communities’ and of marketisation/privatisation. The binding concept here is ‘civil society’. The author explores the very challenging and prescient matter of how progressive, secular welfare organisations can develop (within local and national civil society) alongside powerful church and commercial organisations in the meeting of human needs, particularly at the local level. The latter organisations seem to be gaining ground in Sweden, but on the evidence cited here, all is by no means lost. This chapter raises lots of relevant issues around how contemporary welfare citizenship is being shaped.
The fifth chapter is more upbeat, visiting Denmark, Finland and Norway. It suggests that the Nordic model has surged back in recent years, despite continuing high unemployment and financial corruption within politics and the public sector. The model comprises ‘a transnational imagined community of four ethno-national “tribes” [which] subsumes thousands of imagined local welfare communities’ (p. 164) sustained by both the churches and lay movements in which the ‘central state is obsolete’ and the notion of a national welfare community is disappearing.
But how does this articulate with increasing inequalities of income and wealth, to say nothing of persistent gender and ‘race’/ethnic inequalities, and growing income poverty? While the Nordic states perform comparatively very well on all the indices of human welfare, they are not immune from processes seemingly affecting all capitalist societies. Although the book touches on class, gender and ‘race’ issues, they are not foregrounded here perhaps as much as CSP readers would hope. Nevertheless, although this is not a particularly easy read, it is certainly an original and thought provoking exploration of issues around the Swedish model.