ACADEMIC PROGRAM A SOCIALLY COHERENT SOCIETY: PROSPECTS FOR SOCIETAL DEVELOPMENT IN DENMARK AND THE NETHERLANDS 17 MARCH 2015
INTRODUCTION Historically, Denmark and the Netherlands have both been successful in establishing a socially coherent society. This is e.g. reflected in high levels of subjective wellbeing, trust and social security. At this academic event, leading Danish and Dutch social scientists discuss how these qualities of Danish and Dutch societies are to be maintained in the future. The point of departure is that these qualities cannot be taken for granted as both societies transform both demographically and socially. The family structure gets more fragile and the populations get more ethnically diverse in times in which our societies face the challenges of maintaining a solid economy. At the symposium, the character, the implications and the potential constructive reactions to these societal developments will be discussed. In the general sessions, leading academic scholars will present their research on Denmark and the Netherlands. In the roundtable session, participants will be invited to enter the discussions under the headings of Happiness and wellbeing challenges and solutions. Their Majesties the King and Queen of the Netherlands as well as their Royal Highnesses the Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Denmark and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands will attend selected sessions at the conference. Finally, all participants are invited to take part in a reception hosted by the Netherlands Embassy and Aalborg University following the conference. The symposium will be moderated by journalist and philosopher Stine Jensen and Professor in Scandinavian Language and Culture Henk van der Liet. Venue: Aalborg University Copenhagen, A.C. Meyers Vænge 15, Auditorium ACM15
WELCOME 9.00-9.30 Registration 9.30-9.40 Welcome by Dean Hanne Kathrine Krogstrup, Faculty of Social Sciences, Aalborg University and Professor Christian Albrekt Larsen, Centre for Comparative Welfare Studies, Aalborg University GENERAL SESSIONS Theme I: Wellbeing and family: Demographic changes and societal development in Denmark and the Netherlands 9.40-10.00 Presentation 1 Gender, empowerment and politics: Perspectives on Welfare and Democracy. Professor Anette Borchorst, Center for Comparative Welfare Studies, Aalborg University 10.00-10.20 Presentation 2 Happy children and content women in two almost similar welfare regimes. Professor Trudie Knijn, Centre for Social Policy and Intervention Studies, Utrecht University 10.20-10.40 Break
10.40-11.00 Presentation 3 Time between job and care in Denmark and the Netherlands - How configurations of care policies shape the patterns of informal care for children and older people. Professor Tine Rostgaard, Center for Comparative Welfare Studies, Aalborg University 11.00-11.30 Discussion theme I 11.30-12.20 Lunch break Theme II: Happiness and safety: Trends in happiness and wellbeing in Denmark and the Netherlands 12.20-12.40 Presentation 4 Happiness, social security and small scale democracy in Denmark Professor Jørgen Goul Andersen, Center for Comparative Welfare Studies, Aalborg University 12.40-13.00 Presentation 5 Why are the Danes happier than the Dutch? Professor Ruut Veenhoven, Erasmus University Rotterdam. Erasmus happiness Research Organization EHERO 13.00-13.30 Discussion theme II 13.30-13.40 Break
Theme III: Trust, solidarity and immigration: Building high trust and solidarity in ethnic diverse societies 13.40-14.00 Presentation 6 Trust and solidarity in Denmark and the challenge from migration Professor Christian Albrekt Larsen, Center for Comparative Welfare Studies, Aalborg University 14.00-14.20 Presentation 7 Social trust, in-group solidarity and out-group exclusion in the Netherlands: cross-national and longitudinal comparisons Professor Peer Scheepers, Radboud University Nijmegen 14.20-14.40 Seating for roundtable discussions ROUNDTABLE SESSION Introduction by Stine Jensen Roundtable discussions The Dutch and Danish societies on the move. Summing up by Stine Jensen and Henk van der Liet RECEPTION 16.10-17.00 Reception
ABOUT THE MODERATORS Dr. Stine Jensen is a philosopher, writer, journalist and TV program maker. She has made a documentary series about Scandinavia for Dutch television. One of the documentaries focused specifically on Denmark, the country where she was born. She is also a writer of philosophical and nonfiction books and regularly writes opinion pieces for the Dutch newspaper NRC. Prof. Dr. Henk van der Liet is a professor in Scandinavian Languages and Culture at the University of Amsterdam. He is also a board member of University College Nordjylland and a member of the Advisory Board of the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Copenhagen. Starting in 2012 and for a 4-year period, Henk van der Liet serves as chairman of the Board of the Danish Writers Academy in Copenhagen (Forfatterskolen).
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Jørgen Goul Andersen is a professor at the Center for Comparative Welfare Studies, Aalborg University. MSc Political Science 1977, assistant/associate prof. Pol.Science Aarhus 1977-1995; professor of political sociology Aalborg since 1995 (professor of political science, Aarhus University, 2009-2011). Co-directing the Danish Power and Democracy Study 1998-2003. Jørgen Goul Andersen has published intensively on the Danish and Nordic welfare states; both on political, sociological and economic aspects. Jørgen Goul Andersen has given academic consultancy to a large number of Danish ministries and has been in the scientific advisory board for TrygFonden (2008-present) and the Rockwool Foundation (1997-2010). Anette Borchorst is a professor at the Department of Political Science, Aalborg University. Her research has focused at gender relations and welfare states in a Comparative Nordic and European perspective, and she also works with the impact of Europeanization on welfare states. She is currently the director of two research projects about gender and politics that have obtained funding from the VELUX and Carlsberg foundations. The projects cover historical and recent developments in gender and politics and policy, and they aim at perspectivizing the 100 years of female suffrage in Denmark in June 2015.
Trudie Knijn graduated in sociology at the University of Tilburg (1978) and worked as a lecturer and junior researcher at the department of Cultural Psychology of the Radboud University (Nijmegen). She got her PhD in 1988 on a study on motherhood, self-development and duty. Since 1985 she works at Utrecht University, where she became full professor of Interdisciplinar Social Science in 2003. Currently she is head of the Centre for Social Policy and Intervention Studies (SOPINS), cochair of the board of ESPAnet (since 2007) with Steffen Mau (University of Bremen), and coordinator of the National Associations of ESPAnet. She was one of the founders and researchers of the Netherlands Kinship panel Study, member of the Executive committee of the FP6 Network of Excellence Reconciling Work and Welfare (RECWOWE), and PI of the research programme Pathways to Work. Currently she coordinates master students projects of the Faculty of Social Science in South Africa, visiting professor of the University of Johannesburg, and co-pi of the Ndlovu Research Consortium. She is also member of the executive committee of the FP7 research program beucitizen and PI of the ORA research program Governing new Social Risks.
Christian Albrekt Larsen is a professor at the Center for Comparative Welfare Studies at Aalborg University, which he currently coordinates (2014-2015). He has published a number of books and articles primarily about the Danish and Nordic welfare state. One of his major research topics has been public support for welfare policies in various welfare regimes. In 2006 he published the book The institutional logic of welfare attitudes: How welfare regimes influence public support (Ashgate). From 2009 to 2012 Christian continued this work in a comparative study of the US, UK, Denmark and Sweden (financed by the Velux foundation). In 2013 he published the book The Rise and Fall of Social Cohesion. Constructing and De-constructing Social Trust in the US, UK, Sweden and Denmark (Oxford University Press). From January 2015 Professor Christian Albrekt Larsen is a member of the Danish National Research Council for Social Science. Tine Rostgaard is a professor in social welfare analysis at the Center for Welfare Studies (CCWS), at Aalborg University. Her research contributions have mainly been to the field of social care for children and elderly, and more specifically to the understanding of care regimes, family obligations, welfare mix, consummerism in care and quality in care. She has published widely on family policsy, amongst other as the co-editor of the books Caring Fathers in the Nordic Welfare States - Policies and Practices of Contemporary Fatherhoods and Care Between Work and Welfare in Europe, and is presently editing a Handbook in child and family policy for Elgar.
Peer Scheepers is a full professor of comparative methodology and vice-dean at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Radboud University Nijmegen. He is member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences. His scientific interests are to describe and explain societal phenomena regarding in-group solidarity and exclusion of outgroups from a longitudinal and/or crossnational perspective. He has conducted survey research on these topics in the Netherlands as in Europe, as a national coordinator of the European Social Survey, recently also in south-east Asia. He has published intensely on these phenomena (> 350 contributions) in European Sociological Review, European Societies, European Journal of Political Research, Social Science Research and Social Indicators Research. His studies have been cited frequently (>5100 times, H index=37). According to Thomson Reuters citation index, he was among the 1% most frequently cited scientists, worldwide, in the years 2000-2010, in the domain of general social sciences. Professor Ruut Veenhoven studied sociology. He is also accredited in social psychology and social-sexology. Veenhoven is emeritus professor of social conditions for human happiness at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where he is currently involved in the Erasmus Happiness Economics Research Organization. Veenhoven is also a special professor at North-West University in South Africa, where he is involved in the Optentia research program. He is director of the World Database of Happiness and founding editor of the Journal of Happiness Studies.