Public policy

Kalle Kustaa Topias Könkkölä was an environmental activist, politician and key figure of the Finnish disability rights movement. Having been physically disabled since birth, Könkkölä attracted nationwide attention when he was elected as one of the first members of the Finnish parliament for the then still young environmental movement in 1983 - which also made him the first MP with a disability. Today, Könkkölä is mostly known for his longstanding commitment to the promotion of disability rights, including his role in initiating the first Finnish disability organization with a human rights approach, the Threshold Association in 1973, as well as supporting people with disabilities in developing countries and humanitarian contexts.

Maintaining high quality welfare organizations is tough even in the Nordic countries with a myriad of unforeseen challenges to contend with, including budget cuts, personnel issues and reorganization. The focus of New Public Governance on how to govern networks between public and private actors is useful. However, the managerial, organizational and constitutional levels need to be connected in a legal framework where more organic and democratic collaborative processes can also be forged – leading to ‘co-production’. Research from Denmark can be helpful here: It has highlighted how collaboration between municipalities and independent day care institutions can meet both contractual issues as well as more unforeseen demands which come from society, parent-led boards and interest organizations. It is possible to achieve successful co-production through new ways of regulation which also safeguard public value, but it is crucial that it is developed and nurtured on both an operational and political level.

Danish nurses still receive 10-20% less in pay than male-dominated professions requiring a similar level of education. There are many contributing factors to unequal pay, but a recent report from the Danish Institute for Human Rights found that one key reason is the effect of the 1969 Public Servant Reform Act which saw nurses and other female-dominated professions placed at a lower pay level. In recent national negotiations, Danish nurses voted ‘no’ to a pay offer of up to 5% which was set to preserve real wages for public workers over the next three years. A citizens' petition to reform the law in respect of many traditionally female professions has also received the requisite 50,000 signatures for it to make it to parliament.

Listen to a podcast on the educational systems of the Nordic countries.

During the last century, the situation of people with disabilities in the Nordic welfare states has changed dramatically. For a long time disability was regarded as an issue for the national welfare services, which had a marginalizing effect from a legal point of view, characterized by medical diagnostics, accommodation in mass institutions and exclusion from education and employment. But, following the social and economic transformations after World War II and the ambitious promises of the Nordic welfare model, this absence of rights for disabled people was no longer deemed acceptable. Nordic disability rights activism (consisting of parent associations, self-advocacy organizations, public and political supporters) reached its peak in the 1970s and early 1980s, when protests and awareness campaigns led to a new social and rights-based understanding of disability as well as legal reforms. Today the movement is somewhat fragmented, but maintains an important role in policy-making and monitoring the implementation of disability rights.

The Nordic Model’ is a concept that appears frequently in scholarship, media reports, and public debates to refer to the socio-political organization…

Listen to a potted history of the Danish immigration policy, 1970-1992 in either English or Danish! This podcast is part of a series where existing material on nordics.info is read out in assorted languages by colleagues and friends. Great for learning Danish or English. / Lyt til historien om Dansk indvandrings- og udlændingepolitik, 1970-1992 på engelsk eller dansk! Denne podcast er del af en serie af podcasts hvor materiale fra nordics.info bliver læst højt på forskellige sprog af venner og kollegaer.

Widespread economic transformations, such as increasing automation, tend to negatively affect some groups more than others in the Nordic countries, as elsewhere. Workers who risk losing their jobs to machines or other means are a societal concern; it is, after all, not their fault that society is changing. Importantly, not only are these workers at risk of unemployment, but there appears to be a correlation between employment vulnerability due to automation and voting habits. A recent study of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and other western European countries has shown that workers whose jobs are vulnerable to automation are most likely to vote for radical right-wing parties. However, initiatives to help people into other types of work must be treated with caution as they are not always successful, and further research is required.