The five challenges of the Welfare State Sven

The five challenges of the Welfare State Sven Hort Previously SNU 2017 -10 -20

Introduction • Five challenges: Swedish Welfare State and the Nordic Welfare Model • Economic and Financial • Demographic • Organizational • Political • Ideological • Prospects for the Future: after 2018?

Research by Walking Around • Methods: documents – debates, policies, laws, statistics, evaluations, etc. • Administrative statistics • Traditional surveys & opinion polls • Ethnographic methods: participant observation, more or less structured interviews, etc. • ”Triangulation”

Economic challenges • The Financialization of the Welfare State • Private Debt Burden – saving banks, suffering citizens and families (Korea simil) • Taxation and (false) promises • Privatization of welfare obligations and services • New modes and sources of financing • Demographic pressures

Demographic challenges • Recent sudden increase in the size of the population: migration • Long-term trends: a new baby boom? • Long-term trends II: the aged and aging society • Long-term trend III: an increase in the labor force – simple jobs/cheap labor

Organizational challenges • The supra-state/state division of labor: EU – migration, regional support and agriculture (cf. Alestalo et al 2017) • Central/local: taxes and social security • Health services and county councils • Financial pressures on local authorities: young and old people, migrants • Local authorities and private providers

Political challenges • A new political landscape after 1988 • The Lost World of Social Democracy: 30% • Many parties, professional politicians and few activists/members (no ’Momentum’) • Right-wing populism finally arrived 2010 and today attacts a fifth of the electorate • Welfare populism? Or a second-class version of Blue Labor? Xenophobic antiimmigrantion (cf Hort, Kings & Kravc 2016)

Ideological challenges • Neoliberalism and its discontents after 2008: Compassionate (Neo-)conservatism – Blue Labor (small state; tax-deductions) • Right-wing populism: between Blue and Red Labor (nostalgic welfareism) • Climate change denials vs Greens • Beyond the present dilemmas: generational ”isms” (”individualism”, ”feminism”, etc. )

After 2018: Prospects for the Future • The Actuality and Importance of the Nordic Welfare Model (Hort 2014) • Local importance: some municipalities better than others – some have harder challenges than others (NIMBYism) • EU? No ’Social Europe’ • Central State – neolib and slimmed down • Private-public alternatives: The Church? • Other congregations?

Global Futures • The Bismarckian Model in a Chinese version? • Stability – and change? • Europe: are we all Americans? • East and South(east) Asia: from Japan to Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand Vietnam?

Thank you • For listening

Sources • Alestalo, M. Hort, S & Kuhnle, S (2017) in Kuhnle et al (eds) The Nordic Welfare Model: Still Sustainable. Tokyo: Minerva • Hort, S, Kings, L. , & Kravchenko, Z. (2016) ”Still awaiting the storm” in Schubert et al (eds) Challenges to the European Welfare System. Berlin: Springer • Hort, S (2014). Social Policy, Welfare State and Civil Society in Sweden. Lund: A