Democratic State and Democratic Society: Institutional Change in the Nordic Model

book: Democratic State and Democratic Society

Open Access Published by De Gruyter Open Poland 2018

Democratic State and Democratic Society

Institutional Change in the Nordic Model

Edited by: Fredrik Engelstad , Cathrine Holst and Gunnar C. Aakvaag

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110634082

Overview
Contents

About this book

After the optimism following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world has seen more of a democratic backlash. But despite the backlashes, in some societies the stability of democracy does not seem to be threatened. Why is this so? One common answer points to civic culture, a shared feeling of responsibility for the common fate of citizens. An alternative, to be explored in this volume, is that the stability of democratic rule is anchored in its integration in the large set of social institutions with both direct and indirect relationship to politics. These are linked to, give input to and are affected by democratic processes. Where these relations are ubiquitous and strong, democracy is stable. At the same time, institutions are slowly but constantly changing. Hence, in order to understand changes in the functioning of democracy at the level of the state, it is necessary to explore the changes in surrounding institutions and the way they shape a democratic society.
The empirical focus of the book is institutional change in the Nordic model, with special emphasis on Norway. There are many reasons to pay closer attention to the Nordic, and Norwegian, case when it comes to analyses of changes in the functioning of democracy. On a par with the other Scandinavian countries, Norway is in the forefront in the world in the quality of democratic governance, as well as social trust and quality of life. As an extreme case, the most corporatist society within the family of the “Nordic Model”, Norwegian society offers an opportunity both for intriguing case studies and for challenging and refining existing theory on processes of institutional change.
From a theoretical perspective this invites reflections which, to some extent, are at odds with the dominant conceptions of institutional change. Neither models of path dependency nor models of aggregate, incremental change focus on the continuous social bargaining over institutional change. Despite recent processes of differentiation and liberalization, common to the Western world as a whole, corporatism implies a close connection between state, economy, public sphere, cultural life, and knowledge production. This also means that institutions are intimately bundled, in a stronger, subtler and more wide-reaching way than typically assumed in the literature on varieties of capitalism.
The volume draws on, but transcends, two prominent theoretical strands: the civil society perspective (a locus classicus being Cohen and Arato 1992), and the more recent work on well-functioning civil service as a precondition for good governance (Rothstein 2011) pointing out the “road to Denmark”, (Fukuyama 2014). By embracing more social fields than these two approaches, the institutional approach opens a broader space for democratic reflection. Moreover, institutional-historical case studies situated within Nordic societies as a specific social structural framework, demonstrate the diversity of links between democracy and social life outside of politics in a narrow sense, such as:
• Policies of citizenship as a limitation to democracy
• Democracy in working life
• Democracy and policies of gender relations
• Expertise and democratic governance
• Social elites – a threat to democracy?
• Welfare state institutions as core elements in modern democracy
• Institutional perspectives on the emergence of capitalism and democracy

A detailed outline of contents and contributors is attached. The book rests on and further develops the former two volumes on institutional change. The first volume is centered on corporatist institutions, with emphasis on negotiations by civil society actors in interplay with the state. Concentrated on the public sphere, the second volume sought to locate processes of social deliberation within the contexts of a public sphere that embraces not only the media, but also fields such as voluntary associations, the arts, and religion. This third volume synthesizes these contributions by bringing them explicitly into the realm of democracy, without mainly focusing on the political institutions as such, but on the surrounding infrastructure.

Author / Editor information

Fredrik Engelstad, Cathrine Holst, Gunnar C. Aakvaag (Eds.)

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	V
Preface Fredrik Engelstad, Cathrine Holst and Gunnar C. Aakvaag Publicly Available Download PDF	XIII
1 Introduction: Democracy, Institutional Compatibility and Change Fredrik Engelstad, Cathrine Holst and Gunnar C. Aakvaag Open Access Download PDF	1
2 Social Institutions and the Quality of Democracy Fredrik Engelstad Open Access Download PDF	22
3 A Democratic Way of Life: Institutionalizing Individual Freedom in Norway Gunnar C. Aakvaag Open Access Download PDF	48
4 Welfare State Discourse and Citizenship Politics: From ‘Silent’ Policy to Steering Logic Espen D. H. Olsen Open Access Download PDF	76
5 Redistributing Knowledge? How Institutions Affect Citizens’ Political Knowledge Levels: The Scandinavian Case Compared Stine Hesstvedt Open Access Download PDF	94
6 Old and New Social Movements in the Nordic Countries: History and Future in an International Perspective Lars Mjøset Open Access Download PDF	118
7 Committee Governance in Consensus Cultures: An Exploration of Best Practice Cases in Germany and Norway Eva Krick and Cathrine Holst Open Access Download PDF	151
8 Translation and Institutional Change: What Happened when Participatory Budgeting Came to the Nordic Countries? Sveinung Legard Open Access Download PDF	175
9 Can Descriptive Representation be Justified outside Politics? Mari Teigen Open Access Download PDF	193
10 The Battle over a Fair Share: The Creation of Labour Market Institutions in Norway Åsmund Arup Seip Open Access Download PDF	213
11 Workplace Democracy: Representation and Participation Gaps in the Norwegian Labour Market Model Kristin Alsos and Sissel C. Trygstad Open Access Download PDF	232
12 Bowling Alone and Working Together? Social Capital at Work Jon Rogstad and Kaja Reegård Open Access Download PDF	255
13 Stability and Change in Scandinavian Welfare: The Nonprofit Sector as a Buffer against For-Profit Expansion Håkon Solbu Trætteberg Open Access Download PDF	273
14 No Factory for Dreams: Street-Level Bureaucrats between Activation Targets and User Orientation Anniken Hagelund Open Access Download PDF	296
15 The Demand for Work-Family Policies in Advanced Capitalist Democracies Øyvind Skorge Open Access Download PDF	312
16 Business Elite Confidence in Political Institutions: The Case of Norway Trygve Gulbrandsen Open Access Download PDF	343
17 Elite Compromise as a Mode of Institutional Change: The United States and Norway Compared Fredrik Engelstad Open Access Download PDF	363
18 Afterword: Institutional Differentiation and Change Fredrik Engelstad Open Access Download PDF	389
About the Authors Open Access Download PDF	401

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter Open Poland
Audience: scholars interested in theoretical debate on democracy, on the corporatist strands in Scandinavian
Pages
- Main content: 415
Keywords: democracy; institutions; nordic model

eBook

Published: July 8, 2019
ISBN: 9783110634082

Hardcover

Published: December 27, 2018
ISBN: 9783110634075