Scandinavian Civil Society And Social Transformations

This book aims at presenting a conceptual apparatus and empirical analysis of the ways Nordic civil society is affected by social transformations by focusing on the Norwegian case. The Norwegian empirical focus allows identifying processes and factors of change that are relevant outside this context and enable us to understand, on a more general basis, the relationship between social transformations and transformations affecting the voluntary sector. This book will make an original contribution to the field of comparative civil society studies both by increasing the available knowledge on the Nordic civil society model and by analyzing the societal transformations affecting civil society over time.

Scandinavian societies have been noted for the combination of political stability and extensive social progress. During the 20th century, influential popular movements constituted a crucial factor in this equation. The benevolent welfare states of the North have been backed by active civil societies of which membership organizations working in close proximity with the welfare state administrations constituted the hallmark. With this civil society model as an important backdrop, the contributions of the volume track and analyze a number of changes identified both at the very center and at the margins of Scandinavian civil societies and their membership organizations which are traditionally embedded in a so-called popular movement marinade. Professionalization, transnationalization and marketization are major trends that increasingly put the traditional Scandinavian civil society approach of doing things into question. The contributions of the volume focus on drivers, processes and outcomes of change affecting the traditionally membership based civil societies in Scandinavia. Amongst the authors of the volume are Lars Tragardh, Marta Reuter, Apostolis Papakostas, and Victor Pestoff.

Since the 1990’s, a number of studies have documented a remarkable high and stable amount of popular engagement in civic organizations in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Often these countries have been considered deviant cases against the proliferating decline of social capital studies. However, despite great international interest in the Scandinavian region, the volume argues that the civil societies and the civic engagement of these countries remain poorly understood. Most interest in the Scandinavian welfare models addresses the balance between state and market, but under communicates the role played by civil society and popular engagement in associations and voluntary organizations. The contributions offer a coherent portrait of stability and change in formal and informal forms of civic engagement over the past 25 years as well as offering contextualized knowledge of the history and institutional design in which Scandinavian civil societies are embedded.

In the current neo-liberal political and economic climate, it is often suggested that a large and strong state stands in opposition to an autonomous and vibrant civil society. However, the simultaneous presence in Sweden of both a famously large public sector and an unusually vital civil society poses an interesting and important theoretical challenge to these views with serious political and policy implications. Studies show that in a comparative context Sweden scores very highly when it comes to the strength and vitality of its civil society as well as social capital, as measured in terms of trust, lack of corruption, and membership of voluntary associations. The "Swedish Model," therefore, offers important insights into the dynamics of state and civil society relations, which go against current trends of undermining the importance of the welfare state, and presents autonomous civic participation as the only way forward.

The main focus of the book is institutional change in the Scandinavian model, with special emphasis on Norway. There are many reasons to pay closer attention to the Norwegian case when it comes to analyses of changes in the public sphere. In the country’s political history, the arts and the media played a particular role in the processes towards sovereignty at the beginning of the 20th century. On a par with the other Scandinavian countries, Norway is in the forefront in the world in the distribution and uses of Internet technology. As an extreme case, the most corporatist society within the family of the “Nordic Model”, it offers an opportunity both for intriguing case studies and for challenging and refining existing theory on processes of institutional change in media policy and cultural policy. It supplements two recent, important books on political economy in Scandinavia: Varieties of Liberalization and the New Politics of Social Solidarity (Kathleen Thelen, 2014), and The Political Construction of Business Interests (Cathie Jo Martin and Duane Swank, 2013). There are further reasons to pay particular attention to the Scandinavian, and more specifically the Norwegian cases: (i) They are to varying degrees neo-corporatist societies, characterized by ongoing bargaining over social and political reform processes. 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. (ii) Despite recent processes of liberalization, common to the Western world as a whole, corporatism implies a close connection between state, public sphere, cultural life, and religion. This also means that institutions are closely bundled, in an even stronger way than assumed for example in the Varieties of Capitalism literature. Furthermore, we only have scarce insight in the way the different spheres of corporatism are connected and interact. In the proposed edited volume we have collected historical-institutional case studies from a broad set of social fields (a detailed outline of contents and contributors is attached): • Critical assessments of Jürgen Habermas’ theory of the public sphere • Can the public sphere be considered an institution? • The central position of the public sphere in social and political change in Norway • Digital transformations and effects of the growing PR industry on the public sphere • Institutionalization of social media in local politics and voluntary organizations • Legitimation work in the public sphere • freedom of expression and warning in the workplace • “Return of religion” to the public sphere, and its effects

In thirteen chapters, the contributors to this volume analyse the different dimensions of a new form of collaboration, termed collective co-production, in the Scandinavian countries. It is a characteristic of the Scandinavian countries – Sweden, Norway and Denmark - that they have both a large public and voluntary sector. For decades, the dominant type of collaboration between the two sectors has consisted of the public sector providing financial support to organisations in the voluntary sector, while the activities are undertaken by the organisation itself. In recent times, however, a new discourse has emerged, with a strong political focus on developing closer collaboration between the two sectors. The book analyses collective co-production between the voluntary and public sectors, and identifies what distinguishes this form of collaboration from others. It looks at the scope of collective co-production, how and why it differs between welfare areas, as well as the political vision for co-production and the extent to which it lives up to those expectations. This discourse promotes a type of collaboration wherein organisations, associations and volunteers can participate in the implementation of tasks for which public institutions are responsible. The book is a valuable resource for professionals in voluntary organizations and public welfare units working with co-production and for researchers and students in the fields of civil society, voluntary sector and welfare policy.

This volume is a collection of original essays prepared by colleagues, collaborators, and former students on the occasion of Helmut K. Anheier’s 65th birthday and retirement from the University of Heidelberg. An internationally recognized pioneer of nonprofit and civil society studies, Anheier focused his work on providing clarity around (1) civil society, local and global, observing its origins and trajectory and developing theories to explain it; (2) the nonprofit sector and institutions within and extending from it, including nonprofit organizations, philanthropy and social investment; and (3) culture as it relates to democracy and back to civil society. The essays in this volume refer to these concepts and position them in the context of developments over the last two to three decades. The volume is arranged in three sections. The first section comprises essays that elucidate concepts and probe theories in the field. The second section presents chapters discussing current global challenges and trends in the focal areas. The third and final section then comprises country and regional case studies illustrating important aspects of the global challenges or theoretical issues of the two preceding sections. A fascinating and up-to-date overview of key issues and trends in civil society and nonprofit research by an international collection of eminent scholars in these fields, this book will be attractive to civil society and nonprofit sector researchers as well as a broader academic community of political scientists, sociologists, economists, and cultural experts.