Exploring social policy ideas and language

Béland, Daniel; Petersen, Klaus

doi:10.4337/9781783476466.00008

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Likely owing to the Anglophone orientation of present-day academia, one critically important dimension of security is systematically overlooked, namely, that 'security' does not necessarily simply mean 'security' across language spheres. This is of course not a new idea in itself, and conceptual history has done much to trace the origins and changing meanings of a great number of political concepts and has generally tended to find that apparently universal terms (including 'security') contain meanings that are hard to translate and transfer between contexts (Béland and Petersen, 2017;Koselleck, 2002). Paying attention to the emic meanings of security adds not just comparative empirical nuance, but potentially also theoretical substance: it implies not only the central constructivist impulse of securitization -that any object could, in principle, be framed under the headline of security -but also that the very yardsticks for what security even means are themselves situated and produced within specific social realities (Bubandt, 2005;Eriksen, 2010;Holbraad and Pedersen, 2013).…”

Section: The Meanings Of Security and Why They Mattermentioning

confidence: 99%

Registers of security: The concept of tryghed in Danish politics

Elbek,

Starke

2024

Security Dialogue

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On the face of it, existing theoretical and empirical work on the politics of (in)security takes language and speech acts seriously, yet often actually fails to problematize how the very meaning of ‘security’ and related terms can differ across social, political, and linguistic contexts. This article demonstrates the consequences of context-specific registers of security for the dynamics of political debate and policymaking. Such registers of security combine the local meanings and specific emotional connotations of security terms. In this article, we focus on the role of the term tryghed in Danish politics, especially its use by the Danish Social Democratic Party since 2019. Ostensibly just another word for ‘security’, we argue that, in contrast to sikkerhed (security/safety), tryghed evokes a very different emotional register, centered around warmth, motherliness, and the home. Based on official documents, speeches, and interviews with key politicians, the article shows how this rhetoric allowed the Danish government to put forth a policy mix of welfare expansion, immigration restrictions, and tough law-and-order policies, often effectively targeting male immigrant youths. Tryghed has been the term that binds these different elements together, supporting both welfare nostalgia and insider bias. While this formula has led to electoral success, the article also discusses its inherent limitations. The case highlights the blind spots of a certain Anglocentrism in security studies.

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Section: The Meanings Of Security and Why They Mattermentioning

confidence: 99%

Registers of security: The concept of tryghed in Danish politics

Elbek,

Starke

2024

Security Dialogue

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“…In comparative social policy scholarship, the emergence of certain aspects of social policy language, and its core concepts, have been scrutinized and reflected upon as historically contingent, identifying the ‘ideational baggage’ particular concepts may carry. Underlying this is the insight that ‘the emergence of new terms and concepts, such as “social insurance”, “welfare state” and “social security”, has played a key role in shaping both policy decisions and the political battles over them’ (Béland and Petersen, 2017: 21). For instance, Nowotny (1991) and O’Connor (2001) both demonstrate that how European societies have generally treated the poor has changed historically in accordance with changes in dominant social ideas.…”

Section: Scholarship: the Reflexive Groundworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflexivity in global social policy: Introduction to the special issue

Berten,

Wolkenhauer

2023

Global Social Policy

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This introduction sets the scene for the five papers of the special issue on ‘Reflexivity in Global Social Policy’. It argues that a reflexivity lens can deepen a self-critical assessment of the field and its boundaries, and contribute to more conceptual and analytical nuance. The introduction reviews existing approaches that reflect on the key building blocks of the field – ideas, terminology, and theory – and makes a case for addressing the porous boundaries between scholarship and practice. It subsequently suggests the two notions of perspectivity and performativity to inform further reflexive analyses, before introducing the five papers and five forum contributions that constitute this issue.

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“…As the number of actors increases, so too does the complexity of the possibilities for informal and dynamic alliances. Kingdon (1995) goes further, suggesting that, given the number of different ways to define problems and the nature of competition between politicians jockeying for advantage, along with the vagaries of policy-making, the sheer number of possible directions of travel yield a process that can be more accurately described as 'organised anarchy' (referred to elsewhere as the 'garbage can model') (see also Béland and Petersen, 2017).…”

Section: Articulating and Measuring Job Quality In Eu Employment Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

Job quality in European employment policy: one step forward, two steps back?

Piasna

Burchell

Sehnbruch

2019

Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research

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This article analyses the development and use of the concept ‘job quality’ in European Union (EU) employment policy. Using a set of complementary public policy theories, it examines how both political and conceptual factors contributed to the failure to achieve any significant progress in articulating job quality in the EU’s policy objectives and guidelines. Conceptual clarity in defining what job quality is (and what it is not), from whose perspective it should be considered, and which direction of change indicates improvement, are vital prerequisites for an effective integration of job quality into the EU’s employment strategy and into the elaboration of any successful social indicator. A constant political struggle between different stakeholders at EU level, and a need to reconcile the often-contradictory views of the social partners, has precluded the completion of this first step. Instead, attempts to include job quality into the policy formulation process were made without simultaneously adapting the overall narrative, which continued to give prominence to flexibility and deregulation. The outcome has been a rather cursory and inconsistent effort to implement policies and actions aimed at boosting job quality.

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Exploring social policy ideas and language

Abstract: The literature on the role of ideas in public and social policy has expanded dramatically over the last two decades (

Cited by 7 publications

References 37 publications

Registers of security: The concept of tryghed in Danish politics

Registers of security: The concept of tryghed in Danish politics

Reflexivity in global social policy: Introduction to the special issue

Job quality in European employment policy: one step forward, two steps back?

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