On Wednesday, February 19, 2014, visiting exchange scholar Per Selle from the University of Bergen in Norway gave a talk entitled “The Origins of the Scandinavian Welfare State and Its Future in a Neoliberal World.” Prof. Selle focused on the crucial role that civil society organizations played in the formation and protection of the Scandinavian welfare state. In addition, he discussed the impact that the increasingly prominent neoliberal thinking and market logic may have on the future of the Scandinavian welfare state. He argued that the Scandinavian civil society might not be able to buffer the dismantling of the welfare state as actively as it had helped to build it.
Per Selle is Professor of Comparative Politics, University of Bergen and a Visiting Scholar at UW 2013/2014. His main research interest is voluntary organizations and political mobilization, environmental politics, the Welfare State, and the role of civil society in a democracy more in general. Over the last years he has also done extensive research on indigenous politics and especially on how the modern state adapt to this ‘new” type of mobilization.
To download the flyer for the event, please click here.