Description
Book SynopsisThe book aims to explain the emergence of the Norwegian—and to some extent, the Scandinavian—welfare state in historical and anthropological terms. Halvard Vike argues that particular forms of political grassroots mobilization contributed heavily to what he calls “a low level of gravity state”—a political order in which decentralized institutions make it possible to curtail centralizing forces. While there is a large international literature on the Nordic welfare states, there is limited knowledge about how these states are embedded in local contexts. Vike's approach is based on an ethnographic practice which may be labeled “in and out of institutions.” It is based on ethnographic work in municipal assemblies, local bureaucracies, political parties, voluntary organizations, and various informal contexts.
Table of Contents1. Local Politics in the Welfare State: Patterns of Conflict and Political Practice2. Cross Cutting Cleavages, the Politics of Resistance – and Social Control3. Local Politics in Historical Perspective4. Culminations of Complexity: Practicing Bureaucracy in Local Worlds5. The Welfare Municipality: Universalism, Gender, and Service Provision6. Post-Liberal Horizons: Conceptions of Freedom in the Northern Periphery7. The Future of the Welfare State in an Age of Centralization
