Welfare State, Nation and Immigration

Abstract

‘Scandinavia’s holiest cow’ is what the welfare state was called by the Danish Weekendavisen in April 2007: ‘Islam has sharia. Denmark has the welfare state. It is not something that can be discussed among believers.’ ¹ Scandinavia is the area where trust in political institutions and the role of the state is greatest in the world. Political actors in all three countries now compete for the honour of having created and developed the welfare state. But the writer choosing to compare Denmark’s relation to the welfare state with Islam says something about the upheavals that have taken place in Danish — and Norwegian and Swedish — society over recent decades. Considerable sections of the populations of the Scandinavian countries now have an immigrant background. The countries have become multicultural and multireligious. Social inequality has acquired a new dimension: ethnicity and immigrant background. It is here, in the meeting between two, now central, societal functions — the welfare state and immigration — that the main focus of this book and this research project lies.