This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book analyses the considerable variation in the shares of private provision for core services in education, health and social services, in the Scandinavian countries. The chapters compare countries, service areas, and the for-profit, non-profit and public sectors. Each focuses on different levels of change: the mix of welfare providers, national laws and regulations, governance in municipalities, nursing homes and schools, and finally, the consequences experienced by the users of the services. The authors ask which combinations of governance structures, service sector providers, and user choice give the best results for active citizenship. Promoting Active Citizenship will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including Public Administration and Management, Non-Profit Management, Social Policy, Innovation in Public Service, Social Care and Education and School Research.

This book explores the increasing role of private providers in early childhood education and care (ECEC) as they become a core part of the Nordic welfare model—one that once rejected for-profit involvement in public welfare. Within this context, ECEC has become the key battleground over private providers’ role in the welfare system. Chapters compare five Nordic countries: Iceland, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, to discuss possible benefits from having different types of providers—public, nonprofit, and for-profit—in the welfare mix. To conclude, the authors also provide a comparative perspective on governance of the ECEC sector and on the development and functions of the Nordic welfare model.

Demographic and societal changes are strongly affecting the contexts of childhood and the experience of being children. At the same time, across social groups and across societies, diversities and inequalities in childhood are taking new forms. In the developed world, in particular, children their number, their welfare, their education, the division of power and responsibilities over them among the different social actors have entered the public agenda, at the national and supranational level. Public concern over issues such as fertility rates, mothers working, early childhood education and care as well as solemn international declarations of childrens rights are examples of the ongoing politicization of childhood. Drawing both on micro and macro, national and comparative studies, this volume of Comparative Social Research traces some of the trends and analyses in comparative perspective how they affect images and practices of childhood and transforms responsibilities for children. The volume's focus is mainly on children in the developed countries, but attention is also paid to transnational diversities and to the impact of globalisation through the experiences of migrant children and of children living through the processes of modernisation in the developing world.
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* A comparative look at the experience of childhood
* Contributions from an international group of leading researchers

This book presents a collection of comparative studies of civil society around two main issues: the comparison and analysis of civil society regimes in relation to different constructions of citizenship and welfare states and the role of civil society in governance and active participation of citizens. The first part of the book is concerned with comparisons of civil society institutional frameworks and regimes. In this section the contributions address the ways institutional cross-countries comparisons may be undertaken and discuss the extent to which common trends or divergent tendencies characterize national civil societies. The second part focuses on the role of civil society as a vector of citizens' participation and as an avenue for democracy. Democratic citizenship is often considered as requiring, in addition to a set of formal rights and obligations, a public sphere within which citizens can actively participate within and beyond the state. Building on international comparisons the articles in this section discuss the extent to and the modalities by which civil society is crucial to the functioning of democracy and the plain exercise of citizenship.

This book provides a critical account of the third sector and its future in Europe. It offers an original conceptualization of the third sector in its European manifestations alongside an overview of its major contours, including its structure, sources of support, and recent trends. It also assesses the impact of this sector in Europe which considers its contributions to European economic development, citizen well-being and human development. The Third Sector As A Renewable Resource for Europe presents the findings of the Third Sector Impact (TSI) project funded by the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7). It recognises that in a time of social and economic distress, as well as enormous pressures on governmental budgets, the third sector and volunteering represent a unique 'renewable resource' for social and economic problem-solving and civic engagement in Europe.

This is the only comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of the political economy of the five Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden). Five studies have been written within a project, and are based on thorough discussions on a common framework within which the distinct features of the economic policies of each separate country are analysed in a comparative perspective. The studies are accompanied by an extensive comparative discussion - written collectively by the members of the project team - that locates the Nordic model(s) within the wider map of capitalist varieties in the contemporary Western world. This book emphasizes the variety of experiences within the Nordic realm, from the dramatic collapse of Iceland's economy as the financial bubble burst in 2008 to the full-employment oil-economy of Norway that proved virtually unaffected by the financial instabilities of 2008. It also identifies certain common transformations (particularly linked to the politics of immigration and integration, the persistent role of the unions, and new opportunities created by national systems of innovation).

During the last decade gender equality in business life has become a hot topic. One impetus is the recent reform in Norway, prescribing gender quotas to the boards of directors of public companies. Shortly after the Norwegian reform was enacted, several other European countries have adopted similar reforms. This is the only volume where this gender quota reform is thoroughly discussed from an economic, political and philosophical point of view. It looks at whether the economic performance of companies is influenced, positively or negatively. The reasons why it has been embraced in some countries and rejected in others are analyzed. Moreover, viability of the gender quota reform is assessed by comparisons to other political interventions in business life in Scandinavia, of which some have been a failure whereas others have shown themselves as successful. This specific reform also serves as a backdrop to other themes related to gender and business. This volume provides a broad comparative study of the access of women to top positions in business in Europe. It also gives detailed discussions of gender relations in family businesses both in East Asia and in Europe.

This book contributes to the expanding field of cross-cultural and comparative management, and addresses the issue of whether the main Scandinavian countries - Denmark, Norway and Sweden - exhibit such similarities in management style and practice as to constitute a country cluster. It is based on a qualitative, interview-driven study of managers in companies matched by industry in the three countries and seeks to contextualise the research findings in a general discussion of the Scandinavian countries, showing their intertwined histories and similar institutions and values. The book argues that the central values of these managers are equality, informality, decency, and conflict avoidance; it shows that the behaviour of Scandinavian managers is inspired by these values and that they can be attributed to national culture and not to the peculiarities of any particular industry. Management in Scandinavia will be of interest to students and teachers of international management, as well as practitioners of business and management.

Is the phenomenon of state failure better understood through a focus on the regional context? To what extent may studies of regional security benefit from a focus on the capacities and vulnerabilities of the states involved? These are the questions addressed in this volume of "Comparative Social Research". Substantially, this special issue operates at the intersection of the larger debates on state failure and on regional (in-) security, relating to various perspectives within each of these. State failure, manifesting itself in the inability of a state to maintain its monopoly of violence, has become a widespread phenomenon in several regions of the world. While the weakness of the institutions of the state in question is an obvious dimension of state failure, there is also an important international dimension. In many of these cases, conflicts are interwoven and violence spills across borders.

This book provides a critical account of the third sector and its future in Europe. It offers an original conceptualization of the third sector in its European manifestations alongside an overview of its major contours, including its structure, sources of support, and recent trends. It also assesses the impact of this sector in Europe which considers its contributions to European economic development, citizen well-being and human development. The Third Sector As A Renewable Resource for Europe presents the findings of the Third Sector Impact (TSI) project funded by the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7). It recognises that in a time of social and economic distress, as well as enormous pressures on governmental budgets, the third sector and volunteering represent a unique 'renewable resource' for social and economic problem-solving and civic engagement in Europe.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book analyses the considerable variation in the shares of private provision for core services in education, health and social services, in the Scandinavian countries. The chapters compare countries, service areas, and the for-profit, non-profit and public sectors. Each focuses on different levels of change: the mix of welfare providers, national laws and regulations, governance in municipalities, nursing homes and schools, and finally, the consequences experienced by the users of the services. The authors ask which combinations of governance structures, service sector providers, and user choice give the best results for active citizenship. Promoting Active Citizenship will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including Public Administration and Management, Non-Profit Management, Social Policy, Innovation in Public Service, Social Care and Education and School Research.

Demographic and societal changes are strongly affecting the contexts of childhood and the experience of being children. At the same time, across social groups and across societies, diversities and inequalities in childhood are taking new forms. In the developed world, in particular, children their number, their welfare, their education, the division of power and responsibilities over them among the different social actors have entered the public agenda, at the national and supranational level. Public concern over issues such as fertility rates, mothers working, early childhood education and care as well as solemn international declarations of children's rights are examples of the ongoing politicization of childhood. Drawing both on micro and macro, national and comparative studies, this volume of "Comparative Social Research" traces some of the trends and analyzes in comparative perspective how they affect images and practices of childhood and transforms responsibilities for children. The volume's focus is mainly on children in the developed countries, but attention is also paid to transnational diversities and to the impact of globalisation through the experiences of migrant children and of children living through the processes of modernization in the developing world.