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Rustamjon Urinboyev

Associate professor

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Welfare as a means for political stability : a law and society analysis

Author

  • Måns Svensson
  • Rustamjon Urinboyev
  • Karsten Åström

Summary, in English

There have been extensive discussions in academic circles of why some countries develop into welfare states while others do not. Two main factors mentioned in these discussions are economic growth and the need for political stability. In these discussions, the example

of Sweden, where the welfare state allegedly emerged from a ‘culture of consensus’, has often been treated as an historic exception. In this article we discuss the relevance of the two main factors suggested in the literature, and investigate whether Sweden is a rare

case of a country where welfare arose out of a culture of consensus or if welfare in Sweden emerged as a product of strategies that aimed at promoting political stability, and thereby followed a similar pattern to other Western European countries. In undertaking this

task, we have conducted a review of the literature and used Migdal’s ‘state-in-society’ perspective and the ‘institutional approach’ as a theoretical framework. Our results can be summarised under three headings: (a) until the mid-twentieth century, Sweden was a highly unstable, conflict-ridden class society, and thereby a followed similar pattern to other Western European countries; (b) welfare reforms in Sweden were introduced as a means of addressing political and social instability; (c) Sweden is therefore no exception

to the theory that deep political crises trigger welfare reforms.

Department/s

  • Department of Sociology of Law
  • Centre for Work, Technology and Social Change (WTS)

Publishing year

2012

Language

English

Pages

64-85

Publication/Series

European Journal of Social Security

Volume

14

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Topic

  • Work Sciences
  • Law and Society

Keywords

  • labour history
  • law and society
  • political stability
  • social policy
  • Sweden
  • welfare

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1388-2627