University of Helsinki
CALL FOR PAPERS
Labour Markets and Welfare States. The Nordic Model in Comparative and Transnational Historical Perspectives
Date: 13–15 May 2009
Place: Stockholm
Organizers: The Nordic Centre of Excellence: The Nordic Welfare State – Historical Foundations and Future Challenges (NCoE NordWel) in cooperation with the Department of History, Stockholm University.
Since the 1930s, the Nordic countries have been singled out as a special case in international politics. In comparative welfare state research the concept The Nordic Model has become a standard term. However, the Nordic model is often and inadequately described in terms of distinct social policy configuration when it is better seen as a particular complex of welfare policies, labour market institutions, and gender relations which has emerged in the Nordic countries over the last century. According to this interpretation, two principles characterize the model. On the one hand, a universalist idea of social rights based on citizenship, and on the other hand, the normalcy of wage work as the social form of labour. The second international conference organized by the NCoE NordWel is devoted to the historically contingent interconnectedness of welfare states and labour markets.
We invite proposals for papers that analyze these complex relations in a broad historical perspective covering the period from ca 1900 to the present. Papers can be both theoretical and empirical in their approach. They can deal with particular cases, focus on national themes or have a comparative/transnational perspective.
Among the suggested themes are
* Comparative analysis of labour markets and welfare states
* Gender, wage work, family policies and welfare states
* Labour market policies and activation policies – continuities and discontinuities
* Sectorialized wage work (health care, social services) in the making of welfare states
* Unions, employers and welfare states
* Migration, global labour markets and national welfare policies
* Changing and competing concepts, images and definitions of work and welfare
Paper proposals (1/2 page) should be submitted to the following e-mail address: nils.edling@historia.su.se. The deadline for submissions of abstracts is December 15, 2008. Authors of submitted abstracts will be notified not later than January 15, 2008.
NCoE NordWel will provide accommodation for all participants with accepted papers. Travel grant can be applied for in connection with abstract submission.