Social change and health in Sweden: 250 years of politics and practice

This remarkable book, written by Jan Sundin and Sam Willner, is an history of Public Health in Sweden, extremely detailed and interesting for the foreign (and Swedish) reader. I hope that you will be interested and buy it, it is worth it.

Introduction
This book is a shorter version of a recently published anthology in Swedish, with certain amendments and additions to make the contents more accessible to an international audience [1]. It is a historical journey
through 250 years of Swedish public health (epidemiological and demographic evidence, ideas, politics and practices) following the transition of Sweden from a traditional agricultural society to the “post-industrial”
world. Although based on Swedish experiences, the book also puts the country’s history into a wider international perspective. Sweden was of course not isolated from the rest of Europe and public health ideas and policies were formulated and practised in a European context.

End of Equality? The Welfare State Model Beyond the Crisis

The last delivery of Framtider, the magazine of the Swedish Institute for Future Studies, is extremely interesting as, beyond the usual critics and opponents to the Swedish model, it is a well documented analysis on the real situation in Sweden. Joakim Palme, Director of the Institute for Futures Studies, Johan Fritzell is Professor of sociology and director of research at the Institute, and Åke Bergmark, Professor of social work and research director at the Institute have an interesting approach about the real Swedish situation. And of its dangers.

What shape is the Swedish welfare state model in following the austerity measures of the 1990s? Since the model is so intrinsically connected to the concept of equality, any assessment of changes in the model should also consider how equality in people’s living conditions has been affected. From an analytical perspective, the Swedish tradition of welfare research further implies that we should make a distinction between the welfare state institutions as such and the resources that make it possible for individuals to control their own lives, i.e. what ultimately determines their welfare. How, then, is inequality changing in the beginning of the 21st century after a decade of economic growth above the European average?

From welfare states to partnering societies – the new framework for changing welfare

There are different views on welfare in our world. It does not exist or is very limited for a large majority of our fellows human beings in the world, It is restricted voluntarily to a living minimum (some would say less) in the US and some European countries, and it is extremely developped in some central european countries, such as France and Germany, and in the Nordic European countries. This working paper, written in 2006 by Elina Palola, Taina Rintala and Annikki Savio, insists on the necessity of renovating welfare policies by introducing the notion of partnership, and thus developing democracy … and efficience. It is part of a global concept that I personally call the next step of (social) democracy, after the failure of the british third way.

Conclusion

The concept of partnership as a means of social description suggests a crumbling of old social structures, a constant flow of messages and a resultant reconstruction of social reality (Allardt 1998, 93). A sign of the change of social structures and practices is that we have increasingly moved from representative democracy to deliberative democracy: With the emergence of various partnership networks, there is no longer any need to make traditional distinctions, divisions and categorisations – for instance, between the public and the private or the economy and the social – but different processes and dimensions intertwine to an ever greater degree; at the same time the arenas of impartial communication disappear.

Growth and equity in Finland

Inequalities increase, profits grow, poverty increase… Is it unavoidable? Conservatives consider that it is necessary for our societies to progress, but there is no absolute evidence. Look at this paper written by the finnish researchers Markus Jäntti (Åbo Akademi University, Turku and WIDER, Helsinki), Juho Saari (University of Turku) and Juhana Vartiainen (Trade Union Institute for Economic Research, Stockholm) in November 2005: equity has supported the finnish growth, or at least has not prevented it.

Abstract

This paper reviews Finnish economic history during the “long” 20th century with a special emphasis on policies for equity and growth. We argue that Finland developed from a poor, vulnerable and conflict-prone country to a modern economy in part through policies geared at both growth and equity, such as land reform and compulsory schooling.