Welfare Principles and Reform Trends in Norway:Towards More Conditional Social R

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Ⅰ.Introduction

The geographical area of the five Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, norway, and Sweden, constitutes almost one-third of the total area of western Europe, but, with ca 25 million inhabitants, only 5% of its population. The Nordic countries have developed many institutions and cultural patterns of their own, and have in recent decades attracted particular attention world-wide for the kind of welfare state they have developed since the Second World War［12］.

A primary function of welfare states is to protect citizens against social risks. Obviously, this protection varies in scope and generosity over time and according to political constellations and national institutional traditions. Nonetheless, welfare states may be clustered in distinct types based on their similar institutional designs. The Nordic countries make up one such cluster in most academic research on welfare state typologies, subsumed under the label the ″Nordic welfare model.″

This model is characterized by five essential features： (1)social policy is comprehensive in terms of needs covered; (2)there is high legitimacy for public welfare provision; (3)social rights are of a universal nature, based on residence; (4)redistribution makes for relatively equal income distributions;and (5)work orientation is strong.

During the last hundred years an increasing number of risks such as sickness, unemployment, disabilities, old age, etc., have been recognized as matters of public responsibility and matters of individual rights. Some social risks though, such as loss or lack of income caused by diverse reasons, have never been granted this recognition as a right in the same sense-they are subsumed under residual social assistance acts that provide benefits only after a means-test, benefits which are far less generous than what are offered through the general social security system for the risks mentioned above.

The Nordic welfare states not only form a distinct type of welfare states in terms of their institutional characteristics, but also frequently appear to serve as a positive model for reforms and developments in other countries. The reason seems to be that this model put more emphasis on certain political values and welfare principles that are highly regarded by many, such as generally high level of well-being, social equality, and social peace, and have clearly, in comparison with most other countries of the world, been quite successful in these respects. A high degree of egalitarian outcomes such as limited poverty, income equality, and social stability are achieved through the inclusiveness of social policies and the universal allocation of public welfare benefits. Studies show that the design of the welfare policy institutions and the outcome of policies enjoy high legitimacy in the population, i.e., both in terms of procedural legitimacy (how decisions are made) and outcome legitimacy (results of decisions and implementation). Comparative research has shown relatively high citizen trust in government and political institutions and also high levels of trust between citizens in the Nordic countries. Thus, both ″input″ and ″output″ legitimacy appear to be high and can be considered vital to the stability of the Nordic democratic systems.

Although we claim that a notion of a distinct Nordic welfare model can be argued for, we should also be aware that it is not static. In fact, a number of researchers have started to question its uniqueness; e.g., Greve states that ″The Nordic welfare state has now been changed in such a way that it raises the question whether a distinct Nordic model is still in play″［3］111; Haynes questions whether Scandinavian countries are ″different″： ″Recent research has cast some doubt on the consistency of models that isolate Scandinavian countries as different to other nations in terms of egalitarian welfare states″［4］114; and Kvist and Greve sweepingly say that ″The Nordic welfare model is undergoing a fundamental transformation. Using Denmark we show how a universal welfare state model is gradually being transformed into an emergent multi-tiered welfare state″［5］146.

As other welfare states, advanced as well as emerging, the Nordic welfare states are phased with a number of more or less common challenges, such as ageing of the populations, (im)migration, internationalization or globalization of the economy, and-during the last three years-financial and debt crisis. It can be argued that the Nordic welfare states have so far weathered these challenges better than most Western countries, and research has also shown that welfare states in rich democracies ″have not converged around an Anglo-liberal model of modest benefits, extensive means-testing, and significant private insurance and services; welfare state trajectories in developing political economies also exhibit substantial variety″［6］318. Yet, welfare states, including the Nordic ones, have been subject to market-oriented reforms in the field of social insurance and service provision, and to new policy initiatives for labour market activation, ″flexicurity″(a concept said to be invented in Denmark), and variants of ″workfare.″ We shall not analyze the challenges to Nordic welfare states or to what extent these are conditioned mostly by domestic (especially demographic) factors or external (European or global) factors, but limit ourselves to discuss whether the highly praised and characteristic principle of universalism is currently under threat in Nordic welfare states. We shall primarily refer to Norwegian examples of reforms or reform efforts.

Ⅱ.Research Question： Is the Principle of Universalism Threatened?

All welfare states are expressions of norms, values, and principles, which are more or less explicitly articulated, and which appear more or less ambiguous, mixed and even contradictory. Yet, three welfare principles which are less complicated to identify have been matters of discussions since the first development of social security and welfare policies in Europe from the end of the 19th century. They have come to be attributed to three central welfare state models, described by Titmuss as institutional, achievement-oriented, and residual, based on the way citizens gain entitlements to state social security and thus on the way in which the state distribute or allocate welfare benefits［7］. The dividing lines between them are determined by membership in the welfare state. Fundamentally, the question is whether all members of society are beneficiaries, or whether welfare provisions only comprise the poor, or whether they only cover those who have made a contribution to society in the form of paying income taxes and contributions to social security. The normative principles expressed in these three types of allocation of benefits may be described as universalism, targeting, and reciprocity, respectively. Even if they exist next to each other within the same welfare state, they are competing principles of allocation that, in their own way, based on the relative emphasis on each of them, has contributed to the design of welfare states. Accordingly, these principles throw light on the normative logic in various states, and on values and interests that are given priority.

No welfare state has implemented any of these principles in a pure form. Nevertheless, many researchers seem to agree on the characterization of the Nordic welfare states as first and foremost universalistic. Almost 70 years after the implementation of the first universal benefit in Norway, the child allowance scheme in 1946, the ideas of reciprocity and targeting increasingly seem to have received a far more essential position in the discussion and implementation of social policy reforms, not only in Norway, but all over the Western world. After a brief review of the three key principles, we shall give an account of recent social policy reforms, primarily in Norway, and thereafter throw light on the arguments that once were used to justify universalism. These will be compared with today’s arguments for implementing means-testing and achievement-oriented social policies.

Ⅲ.Welfare Principles

1.Universalism

The principle of universalism ideally distributes welfare benefits to all members of a society; they are all, as a matter of right, beneficiaries of the same benefits and services, rich as well as poor and no matter how they live their lives. The term ″all members″ is vague, though, in the sense that it refers both to ″all citizens″ as well as to ″all residents.″ In the Nordic countries, benefits and services are often described as ″citizenship-based,″ but are in fact based on residence. Residence is obviously more comprehensive than citizenship, and also the most generous to immigrants, guest-workers, etcTo qualify for citizenship a person must have resided in Norway for a total of seven years during the last ten years. A ″resident″ is in Norway a person who has resided in the country 12 months or more..

The principle of universalism is, however, restricted in all known welfare states. Firstly, benefits and services are categorical and related to certain politically defined need situations, like old age, sickness, unemployment, etc. Secondly, most benefits are related to work-achievements.

Child allowances, old age and disability basic pensions, and health care are the most universal schemes in the Nordic countries. Many other countries have universal schemes within one or several of these policy areas. These are examples of benefits that are distributed equally to all members of the welfare state that belongs to a certain group of the population. Until 2004, everyone in Norway was entitled to funeral support,- a more universal scheme than this can hardly be imagined.

Other income-securing schemes are less universal. For instance unemployment benefits are not distributed to every unemployed person, but only to those who have been gainfully employed, and who, as of recent years, actively seek jobs and can document that activity. Others can apply for means-tested social assistance. With increasing and high levels of employment one might say that income-related unemployment benefits become more universal in the sense that the large majority of the working-age population will be covered.

Clearly, the idea of universalism is closely related to egalitarianism［1］. Egalitarian doctrines tend to express the idea that all human persons are equal in worth or moral status. People should get the same, or be treated the same, or be treated as equals, in some respect［8］. There are of course several types of equality, or ways in which people might be treated equally and enjoy equal opportunities. In modern democratic societies, however, the term ″egalitarian″ is generally used to refer to a position that favors a greater degree of equality of income and wealth across persons.

In terms of income security, the ideal-typical universal allocation is an unconditional, flat-rate ″basic income″ unconditionally paid to every member of society-a benefit which no country has yet introduced. Although no country has yet implemented a fully developed basic income grant, Alaska has established The Alaska Permanent Fund Program (1982) Website： ?id=432894,20110110. ［Norwegian White Paper(20062007):Work, Welfare and Inclusion,?id=432894,20110110.］

［15］E.Nilssen & N.Kildal,″New Contractualism in social Policy and the Norwegian Fight against Poverty and Social Exclusion,″Ethics and Social Welfare,Vol.3,No.3(2009), pp.303321.

［16］A.Gutmann & D.Thompson,Democracy and Disagreement,Cambridge,MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,1996.