Premium
The Danish Welfare State under Bourgeois Reign: The Dilemma of Popular Entrenchment and Economic Constraints
Author(s) -
GreenPedersen Christoffer
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
scandinavian political studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.65
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-9477
pISSN - 0080-6757
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9477.00015
Subject(s) - bourgeoisie , welfare state , danish , state (computer science) , welfare , political economy , dilemma , economics , political science , politics , market economy , law , philosophy , linguistics , epistemology , algorithm , computer science
From 1982 to 1993, a decade of tight economic constraints, the Danish welfare state was governed by bourgeois parties. The expectation of the power resources model, the most prevalent theory about the Scandinavian welfare states, was that the Danish welfare state would be turned further in a residual direction. Those expectations were, however, never fulfilled – on the contrary, the Danish welfare state was further expanded in a social democratic direction. A focus on how the bourgeois governments, often in a difficult parliamentary situation, tried to adapt the popular Danish welfare state to less favorable economic conditions accounts for important aspects of this development. The bourgeois governments relied on a combination of increased benefits to large groups of voters and well‐hidden measures to strengthen public finances.