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Trouble in Paradise: Exploring Patterns of Research and Policy Response to Men's Violence in Denmark and Sweden
Abstract
This article compares the situation in Denmark and Sweden regarding research and policy-making around the issue of men's violence to women and children. Although the emerging picture is complex, the overall conclusion is that in Sweden in recent years one finds many more examples of a critical, power-oriented approach than is the case in Denmark. A potential multidimensional explanation for this divergence is suggested, with an emphasis placed on institutional factors—in particular the possible impact of contrasting dominant discourses of collectivism and individualism on welfare and other social institutions in the two countries.
... Over the past ten years a number of studies have suggested that comparisons between the Swedish welfare system and other systems that are considered less generous (such as the English and UK systems) are often not to the former's advantage as regards policy responses to issues associated with what we might call 'bodily integrity'. For example, violence to women and sexual violence to children (Hearn and Pringle 2006b; Balkmar et al. 2009;Pringle et al. 2010; Pringle 2016), child protection (Pringle 2005), rights of children within the childcare system (Eriksson and Pringle 2010) and racism (Pringle 2010). In a similar vein, Ruth Lister (2009), in an overview that focused specifically on gender policies, has asked whether the glass is half full or half empty in relation to Sweden as a model for gender equality. ...
... This latter focus on work stands in contrast to issues of bodily integrity associated with ethnicity, ability, gender, sexual orientation and age, which have received far less emphasis in Swedish social policy. Other factors relevant to the development of the specific nature of Swedish policy have been described as 'situational' and 'organizational' ( Pringle et al. 2010). This context has shaped the frame of interpretation we have applied to Sweden here. ...
... This context has shaped the frame of interpretation we have applied to Sweden here. Many Swedish social institutions (including governmental social policy) are influenced by a very top-down - rather than bottom-up -form of collectivism/solidarity, combined with a form of narrow individualism which is highly limited to individual 'projects' that do not challenge the 'collective good' ( Pringle et al. 2010). This is similar to the Swedish 'statist individualism' which Berggren and Tr?g?rdh (2006) have identified. ...
... Similarly, usage of social democratic and (neo)liberal is similarly more confined in welfare regimes than in gender regimes. Second, nations located within the same welfare regime, such as Denmark and Sweden, can have extremely different policies on violence (Balkmar, Iovanni, and Pringle 2009;Pringle, Balkmar, and Iovanni 2010), and countries in different welfare regimes, such as France and Sweden, can exhibit contradictory features in anti-violence policies (Delaunay 2019). Third, feminist critiques of welfare regimes show that a wider range of issues needs to be included in theorization and comparison of gender regime, and violence is one of them. ...
What happens when we focus primarily on violence as a central question—either within the gender regime approach or by making violence regime an approach in itself? The article first interrogates gender regimes theoretically and empirically through a focus on violence, and then develops violence regimes as a fruitful approach, conceptualizing violence as inequality in its own right, and a means to deepen the analysis of gender relations, gender domination, and policy. The article is a contribution to ongoing debate, which specifically and critically engages with the gender regime framework.
... Some questions of potential relevance to the Nordic Paradox are the following. How is it that while Sweden has placed a stronger emphasis on the link between IPVAW and gender inequality than many other countries (European Commission, 2010;Hearn et al., 2016;Langvasbråten, 2008;Pringle, Balkmar, & Iovanni, 2010), conflicting explanatory models and resistance to understanding IPVAW as related to gender are not only present but have been seen as an obstacle to IPVAW intervention and prevention (SOU 2004:121)? And how is it that attention towards particularly vulnerable groups co-exists with research results suggesting that IPVAW occurs across demographic and socioeconomic strata (Lundgren et al., 2002;Nybergh et al., 2013) and that IPH perpetrators are less socially disadvantaged and more 'conventional' than other homicide perpetrators ? ...
The global public health problem of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) is typically tied to gender inequality. Contrary to what would be expected, however, a 2012 survey conducted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) showed lifetime prevalence rates of IPVAW in the Nordic countries which were among the highest of the 28 EU member states, despite these countries being rated as some of the most gender‐equal in the world. The aim of this article is to enable a furthered understanding of this Nordic Paradox through providing an overview of knowledge about IPVAW in Sweden in relation to the apparent paradox. It assembles information on IPVAW prevalence, on Sweden's legal and policy framework, on perceived remaining challenges and limitations in responses to IPVAW, and on potential explanations for the Nordic Paradox as expressed in previous research. We conclude that a clear resolution to the Nordic Paradox has not yet been established. Further research is therefore needed.
... Yet, recent scholarly attention is moving beyond the trope of homogeneity towards addressing historical discontinuities, and the distinct features of Nordic countries. In emerging research on gender and violence, a study on policy-makers and research responses to male violence in Sweden and Denmark (Pringle et al., 2010) finds that the collective influence of Swedish anti-violence organizations allows for swift state interventions into domestic abuse. On the other hand, a 'gendered power perspective is absent from research in Denmark' both in the realms of policy-making and research efforts (Pringle et al., 2010: 109). ...
In 2014, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights ranked Denmark as the European Union country with the highest occurrence of male physical violence and sexual assault against women. This report was described as ‘grotesque’, ‘misguided’ and ‘untrustworthy’ in the Danish mainstream media, which cited a number of prominent political commentators and expert researchers who debunked these findings. Using this case of overt public rejection of violent and white masculinity as a central analytical thread, this article explores how the invisiblization of Danish male violence, as well as the projection of sexual aggression onto minority communities, produces a peculiar politics of denial and denialism in Denmark. The authors argue that the nationalist myth of gender equality branded within the Danish mainstream media and society is a variety of gender exceptionalism; which in turn generates racist, reactionary and suppressive ideologies on violence, racial discrimination and social inequality.
... There are certain differences in how the Nordic countries conceptualise and address the forms of violence covered by the Convention. Some researchers, such as Keith Pringle, Dag Balkmar and LeeAnn Iovanni 185 have pointed to these differences, in particular between Sweden and Denmark. They argue that in Sweden there is a tendency towards a more critical, power-oriented approach than in Denmark. ...
Summary
1. Introduction
Violence against women, domestic violence, and gender-based violence are some of the most serious inflictions of human rights in Europe. These forms of violence are also largely silenced. The Nordic countries have expressed a zero tolerance for violence against women and domestic violence. But despite this, and despite the Nordic countries being among the most gender equal in the world, there is nevertheless a high prevalence of violence against women and domestic violence. This paradox suggests that there is still substantial work to be done to combat these forms of violence, also in the Nordic countries.
A key part of this work is the ratification and implementation of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (hereafter ‘the Istanbul Convention’ or ‘the Convention’). The Nordic countries have all signed the Istanbul Convention. Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have also ratified it, and partly started reporting to GREVIO, the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence. In other words, substantial work is currently being carried out all over the Nordics to combat the forms of violence covered by the Convention.
This report discusses some of this work, and looks closely at what is currently being done in the Nordics with direct reference to a selection of Articles in the Convention. The report presents policy work and specific measures carried out in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, along with the autonomous territories of Åland, Greenland and the Faroe Island.
This project covers the following articles of the Istanbul convention:
Under Chapter 2 of the Istanbul Convention on integrated policies and data collection:
• Article 10 – Co-ordinating body
• Article 11 – Data collection and research
Under Chapter 3 of the Istanbul Convention on Prevention:
• Article 12 – General obligations
• Article 13 – Awareness-raising
• Article 14 – Education
• Article 15 – Training of professionals
• Article 17 – Participation of the private sector and the media
This project is funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers, and carried out as a part of the Norwegian presidency in 2017. The Norwegian Ministry of Children and Equality and the Norwegian Ministry of Justice and Public Security are the awarding authorities, and the project is led by KUN.
2. Methodology and theoretical approach
Chapter 2 outlines the methodology for data collection and theoretical approach used in the project. This report consists of a substantial collection of data, describing some of the work that the Nordic countries are doing to prevent violence against women and domestic violence. Data have been collected through questionnaires sent out to relevant ministries in the Nordic countries, a Nordic workshop with representatives from relevant ministries, interviews with public administrators and others in the public sector, as well as civil society organisations and researchers. The material has been collected by the project group and each country has read through and approved the material. The country overview presented here is not a full overview of everything the respective countries are doing in relation to each article of the Convention, but a reorganised and partly supplemented version of what the countries themselves have reported. The report has some limitations in terms of scope and the particular articles covered, and these limitations are discussed here.
Finally, we present the theoretical and analytical strategies we use in this report. The Istanbul Convention is in itself very specific in how it frames the forms of violence that are covered. In this regard, we discuss a theoretical and methodological approach that takes as a starting point the representation of policy problems, and how representations of political problems and their solutions contribute to the ways in which problems are understood.
3. Country overview
In chapter 3 we present the work of each of the Nordic countries in relation to Articles 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 17 in the Istanbul Convention. The overviews are based on reports provided by each country, and vary somewhat in presentation. For each country we go systematically though all the Articles covered by this project. The country overviews include separate information on Åland, Greenland and the Faroe Island.
4. Gender and domestic violence: exploring the problem
In this chapter we take a comprehensive look at how the various types of measures in each of the Nordic countries suggest something about the underlying understanding of domestic violence, gender-based violence and violence against women. Carol Bacchi notes that behind every policy measure lies a specific understanding of the problem. In this chapter we examine some of the measures that are taken in the Nordic countries more closely, and how these measures also have an impact on what the problem is represented to be. Specifically, we discuss how gender plays a part in the understandings of these forms of violence.
The policies that are developed and the measures that are taken suggest something about the underlying understanding of violence against women and domestic violence. This is not an attempt to evaluate the various measures in the Nordic countries, or their effectiveness. This would require looking closely at prevalence studies over time and seeing these in relation to various measures taken, along with examining other factors that may influence the rate of violence, such as economic instability. The aim of this chapter is rather to take glance across the Nordic countries at the work that is being done, as highlighted in the previous chapters. In addition to the material presented throughout the discussions in this chapter, we also base our analysis on a general overview of some of the Articles (see Appendix 1).
We start by analysing the work reported by the Nordic countries under Article 10 and 11 under Integrated policies and data collection, and comment on similarities and differences in how the countries have chosen to fulfil their obligations (for those these obligations apply to).
Following this, we look more closely at the work that falls under the heading of Prevention, and the ambition to change society which we argue lie underneath the way the Convention frames this. We examine how the convention defines the different forms of violence, followed by a discussion of various understandings of intimate partner violence. In research as well as in policy making, there are different ways of understanding the phenomenon. Some of these understandings involve a more gender-neutral approach, and some define the problem as explicitly gendered. We look at the academic debates on these issues, with reference to the work that is currently being done in the Nordic countries.
However, there may also be a need to move beyond gender. Using Bacchi’s approach to policy analysis requires us, not only to look at what the problem is represented as in policy documents, but also at what is being left out. While gender, as discussed above, is central both in the Convention and in the work being done by the Nordic countries, it can be argued that the Convention, and the Nordic countries, to some extent builds on gender essentialism, or the assumption that women have some experiences in common independent of race, class, sexual orientation and gender identity, and other realities of experience. Violence may take different forms depending on who you are, and we examine more closely some aspects of the work that is partly missing in the Nordic countries’ reporting.
Finally, we look at some structural aspects of preventive work, both in terms of time (short and long-term efforts), and in terms of some key institutions that are particularly well placed for doing preventive work. Both shelters, and schools and kindergartens are institutions which are in a particularly good position to do preventive work. We end the chapter by pointing towards what could be an ambition for the Nordic countries, namely to keep making more inclusive policies that take into account different forms of lived realities.
5. Highlighted practices
A key task in this project has been to define highlighted practices, as a part of the overall goal, namely to facilitate learning across the Nordic context. We have systematised all the information from the Nordic countries, and have picked out a range of practices. As we are not evaluating the effectiveness of measures in this report, we have picked practices that appear to be particularly interesting, that provide a new take on an old problem, or that involve e.g. utilising existing resources in different ways. The practices are organised according to the selected articles in the Convention. The highlighted practices contain examples from all levels, from overarching policies to small projects carried out by civil-society actors.
... Pringle, K., Balkmar, D., Iovanni, L. (2010), 'Trouble in paradise: exploring patterns of research and policy response to men's violence in Denmark and Sweden' , NORA -Nordic Journal ofFeminist and Gender Research, Vol. 18(2). ...
... I jämförande studier av välfärdsstater framstår Sverige tillsammans med de andra nordiska länderna som förhållandevis homogena och med en hög grad av jämställdhet i förhållande till andra länder. Om fokus i jämförelserna läggs på exempelvis institutionaliserad rasism istället för på jämställdhet på arbetsmarknaden så står sig Sverige (Norden) sämre än exempelvis Storbritannien (Hearn & Pringle 2006;Pringle 2010Pringle , 2011Pringle, Balkmar & Iovanni 2010). 67 Detta ingår inte lika självklart i den svenska självbilden. ...
... Istället för att exempelvis lägga tyngden på enskilda medborgares lika rättigheter och kroppsliga integritet medför det svenska jämställdhetsprojektet att en heteronormativ logik också reproduceras. Det lämnas desto mindre utrymme för potentiellt konfliktskapande frågor om intersektionalitet, rasism och mäns våld (Keskinen et al. 2009, Pringle, Balkmar & Iovanni 2010. Just konfliktfrånvaron har blivit ett utmärkande drag för svensk jämställdhet. ...
Sverige är världens mest jämställda land, med världens mest jämställda män. Åtminstone framställs det ofta så, både i offentlig debatt och i vardagliga samtal. Denna bild av den normale svenska mannen upprätthålls dock genom att något annat – eller någon annan – skapas som avvikande, annorlunda, obegriplig eller sjuk.
I den här antologin diskuteras hur det som uppfattas som goda handlingar används för att representera det gemensamma, medan våldsbrott, kvinnomisshandel och sexism förklaras som ett verk av Andra män. Är det därför som män som misshandlat kvinnor har så svårt att se sig själva som kvinnomisshandlare? Är det därför som fördomsfulla stereotyper av invandrarmän används som förklaring till brott eller sexism?
Hur kommer det sig i så fall att även feministiska män skapas som avvikande? Och vilka föreställningar utmanas egentligen när äldre män beskriver sina växande bröst som sexuellt laddade och njutbara? Varför kan män med funktionsnedsättning inte debattera hjälp till sex utan att ses som kvinnoförtryckare? Eller varför är pedofilen så närvarande i samtal mellan unga män på ett behandlingshem, medan mäns sexuella våld mot barn är så frånvarande i svenska diskussioner om mäns föräldraskap och män i barnomsorg?
I Andra män diskuterar forskare från antropologi, genusvetenskap, socialt arbete, sociologi och ungdomsvetenskap hur Andra män pekas ut som avvikande, men också hur dessa män hanterar utpekandet.
This paper seeks to gain insight into the experiential dimensions of sexual consent as the basis for distinguishing sex from a sexual violation. Based on focus group and individual interviews with young people in Denmark we seek to explore how sexual experiences are co-constituted by discourses and experiences. We do this by exploring how young people interpret, what we conceptualize as consenting vis-à-vis non-consenting to sex and analysing how these notions are present in, or resisted by, experiences of unwanted sex. Drawing on Andrew Sayer’s needs-based conceptualization of human beings with a capacity for “emotional reason”, we show that young people’s notions of consenting is conditioned by a situated “sensing” based on care for the other. Secondly, we show that when and for whom to care for may be related to the relational context, the opportunity for individual pleasure and homosocial recognition. This leaves room for two inconsistent notions of non-consenting. Finally, we suggest that sexual violations may not be based on miscommunication but a lack of commitment to “sensing,” informed by gendered dispositions to act on opportunism.
Sweden represents a particularly interesting case when considering how one challenges oppression in men’s practices. For no society in the world today has been lauded as much as Sweden for its gender equality policies and broad cultural attitudes. For instance, the 2009 Social Watch Gender Equity Index1 places Sweden first in this aspect, as it did in both 2007 and 2008. This “progressive” profile also extends to other dimensions of welfare such as child care (Micklewight and Stewart 2000), and indeed to mainstream comparative welfare measures more generally (Esping-Andersen 1990; 1996; 2003).
The question addressed by this chapter is not so much “In relation to what?” but rather “In relation to whom?” For the chapter suggests that if we really want to understand how men perform gender – and especially how they perform gender oppressively – then studying the relations between children and men is as important as studying the relations between women and men or those between men and men. Yet, gender research on men (with a few exceptions) has woefully failed to accord this equal importance to child-men relations. In exploring this worrying state of affairs, the author demonstrates clear ageist tendencies in gender research on men regarding the position of children – both in Sweden and internationally. Where children do appear in gender research on men, the focus is largely on boys in the process of becoming men or on what men would like to do to make themselves into “more involved” fathers. By contrast, in such gender research, there is very little focus on children as children in relation to men from an age perspective and minimal focus on children as they are now “in the present” rather than as the gendered adults that they will “become” in the future. This chapter then suggests how this considerable lacuna in gender research on men can be addressed. Finally, the author offers some reflections on why scholars in this field, as in many other fields, seem to have been reluctant to listen closely to the voices of children.
Women's position as informal carers has been taken for granted in social policy and social professions, while relatively few discussions have elaborated on caring as a later life activity for men and the impact on family care. This study explores the processes connected to informal caregiving in later life through the position of adult daughters of older fathers engaged with long-term caregiving responsibilities for a partner. A sample of eight daughters, with fathers having primary caregiving responsibility for their ill partners was recruited and in-depth interviews were carried out and analysed according to qualitative procedures. The daughters' descriptions of their relationships with their fathers show that being an older man who engages in caring can have a positive outcome on relations. Even if some of the daughters have doubts about their fathers masculine authenticity, all of them appear to cherish his helping hands as a carer and closer more intimate relationships with their fathers. Caring for an old and frail spouse may potentially present alternative ways of being a man beyond traditional male activities' and that caring might also sometimes involve a re-construction of gender identities. It is suggested that social work professionals may use a gendered understanding to assess and work strategically with daughters and other family members who support caring fathers.
There have been major shifts in the framework of social policy and welfare across Europe. Adopting a multi-level, comparative and interdisciplinary approach, this book develops a critical analysis of policy change and welfare reform in Europe. The book applies a dynamic and change oriented perspective to shed light on policy changes that are often poorly understood in the welfare literature, and contributes to a further development of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks for understanding social change. Using citizenship as a focus, several dimensions of change are analysed simultaneously: changes in the discipline of social policy itself; the changing character of social problems; changes in social policy and citizenship; and the emergence of new forms of social integration. The book also speculates on how different dimensions of change are interlinked. © Jørgen Goul Andersen, Anne-Marie Guillemard, Per H. Jensen and Birgit Pfau-Effinger 2005.
In Denmark, as in the other Nordic countries, we have witnessed a number of changes over the past couple of decades or so in feminist analysis, from focusing on women’s exclusion to highlighting women’s inclusion in modern democracy (Bergqvist et al., 1999; Siim, 2000; Christensen and Siim, 2001). The inclusionist perspective will be one of the focal points of this chapter. In particular, I shall focus on the discussion surrounding various types of political strategies evolved by women as elements in their collective mobilisation in Denmark over the past 30 years.
This chapter draws on research co-directed by the author between 1990 and 1996 in England and Denmark examining arrangements for children's contact with parents after separation or divorce, in circumstances of domestic violence, and a smaller follow-up study. It examines in particular some of the shifts and changes apparent since the mid-1990s with regard to custody and contact in Denmark. To understand these shifts, it is important to consider changes in legislation as well as the apparent impacts on professional practice in recent years. It should be noted that in Denmark the law is considered a vehicle of social reform and social engineering to an extent that is not usual in the UK, where legal change usually reflects rather than pre-empts change in social practices.
This chapter discusses the different policy logics of childcare policies in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and the visions of gender equality underpinning them. It also reports whether the notion of one coherent Scandinavian welfare model should be challenged, and critically addresses the term ‘woman friendliness’. The underlying visions of gender equality of day-care policies, parental leave, and home-care cash benefits are explored. Moreover, the chapter provides some perspectives on the political construction of the equality–difference dilemma in the Scandinavian countries, and how woman-friendly policies are presented in a European context. It is stated that the political construction of the gendered division of care and breadwinning is the salient character of the problem. The three countries have adopted at least three types of care policies: maternity and parental-leave schemes, day-care services, and homecarer allowances. The Scandinavian welfare states have weakened Wollstonecraft's dilemma.
This chapter looks at the performance of the Swedish welfare system in terms of the way it responds to violence against children. Such a broadening of the critique also further problematises the idea of the Nordic welfare regime being, in any simple sense, ‘welfare progressive’. The chapter explores how oppressive power relations associated with age, ethnicity, and gender interact and shape responses to men's violence in families. It brings together many of the themes addressed in the previous chapters, places them within a broader welfare perspective, and links the contributions in this book to current international discussions on welfare regimes and power relations.
This book compares the state of knowledge on men and masculinities in 14 countries across Europe, examining the effects of social change, Europeanization, globalization and new post-socialist configurations of Europe for men. Special attention is given to home and work, social exclusion, violence, and health.
Why should we rethink the socialist project today? In Hegemony and Socialist Strategy we pointed out some of the reasons. As participating actors in the history of our time, if we are actually to assume an interventionist role and not to do so blindly, we must attempt to wrest as much light as possible from the struggles in which we participate and from the changes which are taking place before our eyes. Thus, it is again necessary to temper 'the arms of critique'. The historical reality whereof the socialist project is reformulated today is very different from the one of only a few decades ago, and we will carry out our obligations as socialists and intellectuals only if we are fully conscious of the changes and persist in the effort of extracting all their consequences at the level of theory. The 'obstinate rigour' that Leonardo proposed as a rule for intellectual work should be the only guideline in this task; and it leaves no space for complacent sleights of hand that seek only to safeguard an obsolete orthodoxy. 79 Since we have referred in our book to the most important of these historical transformations, we need do no more here than enumerate them: structural transformations of capitalism that have led to the decline of the classical working class in the post-industrial countries; the increasingly profound penetration of capitalist relations of production in areas of social life, whose dislocatory effects—concurrent with those deriving from the forms of bureaucratization which have characterized the Welfare State—have generated new forms of social protest; the emergence of mass mobilizations in Third World countries which do not follow the classical pattern of class struggle; the crisis and discrediting of the model of society put into effect in the countries of so-called 'actually existing socialism', including the exposure of new forms of domination established in the name of the dictatorship of the proletariat. There is no room here for disappointment. The fact that any reformul-ation of socialism has to start today from a more diversified, complex and contradictory horizon of experiences than that of fifty years ago— not to mention 1914, 1871 or 1848—is a challenge to the imagination and to political creativity. Hopelessness in this matter is only proper to those who, to borrow a phrase from J. B. Priestley, have lived for years in a fools' paradise and then abruptly move on to invent a fools' hell for themselves. We are living, on the contrary, one of the most exhilarating moments of the twentieth century: a moment in which new generations, without the prejudices of the past, without theories presenting themselves as 'absolute truths' of History, are constructing new emancipatory discourses, more human, diversified and democratic. The eschatological and epistemological ambitions are more modest, but the liberating aspirations are wider and deeper.
Mediation has been introduced at the Centre for Victims of Sexual Assault in Copenhagen as one way of helping women exposed to sexual coercion regain control over their lives. Many women do not feel that justice is being restored in the aftermath of sexual coercion. Mediation can renew their sense of justice. The article presents the way mediation is conducted at the centre and points out possibilities and obstacles.
Violence against women in Greenland tends to be perceived and explained within a discourse that emphasizes the rapid social change that has occurred since the 1950s. This means that this phenomenon is usually seen as one of many social problems that spring from a society out of balance, caught between tradition and modernity. This article questions the dominant discourse, arguing that rapid social change does not in itself account for men's violence against women and that we need to focus on social agency. It is also suggested that the Arctic tradition could profit from engaging the general body of literature on violence against women.
This article compares the situation in Denmark and Sweden regarding research and policy making around the issue of men’s violence to women and children. It does so by drawing on two comprehensive reviews of academic and policy data in those countries that were part of a broader European Union—funded project. Although the picture emerging from this comparison is complex, the overall conclusion is that in Sweden over recent years many more examples can be found of a critical, power-oriented approach than is the case in Denmark.
This article focuses on issues of racism and ethnic discrimination in the operation of the Swedish child welfare system and the broader societal context. It draws primarily upon a qualitative study which explored discourses about ethnicity, gender and age within the Swedish child welfare system but also uses some data from several recent transnational European studies. It suggests that the Swedish welfare system may be far less benign in challenging racism and ethnic discrimination than it is when assessed along more 'mainstream' comparative measures associated with poverty alleviation or issues of work in the labour market and home. The article notes that very similar findings occur when gendered violence to women and children is placed in focus rather than ethnicity. Finally some tentative possible explanations for these welfare patterns are suggested as the basis for future research and elaboration.
The Nordic model has emerged as some kind of exemplar in much center-left political debate. This overview article starts with a brief account of this political positioning and of the values underpinning the Nordic model. The main focus, however, is the extent to which the Nordic welfare states have been successful in promoting a women-friendly, gender-inclusive model of citizenship, taking account of the differences between the Nordic countries. It offers both a “half-full” and a “half-empty” analysis and ends with the challenge posed to the Nordic model by growing ethnic diversity.
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