My dissertation examines the question of how foreign direct investment (FDI) affects social welfare spending across countries. To date, there have been three important challenges to studies of the globalization-welfare state nexus. First, most scholars understand market internationalization in terms of the trade of goods and services while minimizing how other aspects of globalization fit into this discussion. Second, scholarly attention to economic globalization has been mistaken when understanding the relationship between demand- and supply-side mechanisms for social welfare provision. Thus, the argument that trade stimulates demand for social welfare has been incorrectly used to oppose the argument that capital mobility significantly undercuts a government's capability to fund welfare states. Lastly, existing studies on this topic mostly center around affluent democracies; various theories of welfare states require further elaborations to increase their external validity. My dissertation aims to overcome these challenges. For this purpose, I focus on one of the most important aspects of globalization, FDI, which bears meaningful implications for both demand- and supply-side functions of social welfare provisions when explaining variations of social welfare spending across countries. I argue that since the late twentieth century, FDI has been a major cause of the "globalization dilemma,'' proposed by (Rodrik1997), who argues that in an age of globalization governments face increased demand for social welfare and decreased capabilities to supply it. In other words, FDI has conflicting influences on welfare states. On the one hand, FDI works for welfare states as the ensuing economic insecurity increases demand for social welfare. At the same time, however, FDI works against welfare states because governments will experience reductions in capital taxation due to competition among themselves to attract and retain production capitals. I further argue that there is an interesting consequence of this dilemma. Due to the conflicting influences of FDI on welfare states, the expansion of social welfare provisions requires governments to secure additional revenues. Governments will address this concern through a strategy that is both effective and politically less expensive: an increased reliance on indirect taxation. As indirect taxes are mostly born out of labor and thus notoriously regressive, the very effort to supply social welfare provisions goes against the fundamental principle of welfare states: the redistribution of income from the rich to the poor.

<p>Postmodernism and neo-liberalism is often thought of as two opposite conceptions of the reality and the world. This thesis takes on a critical view of this assertion and the main purpose was to perform a correlation between postmodernism and neo-liberalism. With different theoretical assumptions about constructions of thoughts, agency and structure and the welfare-state a theoretical framework was created. According to this framework the two isms were correlated to each other and the welfare-state to see if there where similarities or dissimilarities between the isms. The assumptions of this thesis are that there are correlations between postmodernism and neo-liberalism in the constructions of thoughts, namely similar view on epistemology. The two isms also show similarity between each other towards the foundations upon which the modern welfare-state rests. This is mainly manifested in their common view of the institutions of the welfare-state, which the isms both finds problematic. This results in a mutual problematic view on positive freedom, the foundation of legitimacy, the means and economic democracy as they are manifested in a given welfare-state. However, the motive for criticism rests mostly on different justifications for the two isms. Anyhow, their views share doubts about the legitimacy of the welfare-state in common. This even though postmodernism is partly a result of the welfare-politics. This thesis also shows why postmodernism and neo-liberalism at least in a theoretical perspective can not continue to develop side by side.</p>

Postmodernism and neo-liberalism is often thought of as two opposite conceptions of the reality and the world. This thesis takes on a critical view of this assertion and the main purpose was to perform a correlation between postmodernism and neo-liberalism. With different theoretical assumptions about constructions of thoughts, agency and structure and the welfare-state a theoretical framework was created. According to this framework the two isms were correlated to each other and the welfare-state to see if there where similarities or dissimilarities between the isms. The assumptions of this thesis are that there are correlations between postmodernism and neo-liberalism in the constructions of thoughts, namely similar view on epistemology. The two isms also show similarity between each other towards the foundations upon which the modern welfare-state rests. This is mainly manifested in their common view of the institutions of the welfare-state, which the isms both finds problematic. This results in a mutual problematic view on positive freedom, the foundation of legitimacy, the means and economic democracy as they are manifested in a given welfare-state. However, the motive for criticism rests mostly on different justifications for the two isms. Anyhow, their views share doubts about the legitimacy of the welfare-state in common. This even though postmodernism is partly a result of the welfare-politics. This thesis also shows why postmodernism and neo-liberalism at least in a theoretical perspective can not continue to develop side by side.

This dissertation consists of three essays on information aggregation in committees and its application. The first essay analyzes how the distribution of votes affects the accuracy of group decisions. In a weighted voting system, votes are typically assigned based on the criteria that are unrelated to the voters’ ability to make a correct judgment. I introduce an information aggregation model in which voters are identical except for voting shares. If the information is free, the optimal weight distribution is equal weighting. When acquiring information is costly, by contrast, I show that the accuracy of group decisions may be higher under some weighted majority rules than under unweighted majority rule. I characterize the equilibrium and find the optimal weight distribution to maximize the accuracy of group decisions. Asymmetric weight distributions may be optimal when the cost of improving signal is moderately high. The second essay analyzes how intergenerational family transfers can be sustained. Why are generous transfers from the younger to the older generations made in some families and not in others? My paper argues that differences in intergenerational dependence are due to variation in community networks. My analysis of the sustainability of intergenerational transfers posits game theoretical models of overlapping generations in which breadwinners make transfers to their parents and children. A novel feature of my models is that there is a local community that may supply information about its members past behaviors. I demonstrate that an efficient level of intergenerational transfers can be sustained if neighbors gossip about each other. The third essay, co-authored with Fuhito Kojima, investigates a jury decision when hung juries and retrials are possible. When jurors in subsequent trials know that previous trials resulted in hung juries, informative voting can be an equilibrium if and only if the accuracy of signals for innocence and guilt are exactly identical. Moreover, if jurors are informed of numerical split of votes in previous trials, informative voting is not an equilibrium regardless of signal accuracy. / Government

Primarily using data from the 2010 European Social Survey, we analyze intergenerational educational persistence in 20 European countries, studying cross-country and cross-cluster differences; changes in the degree of intergenerational persistence over time; and the role of gender in determining educational persistence across generations. We find that persistence is highest in the Southern and Eastern European countries, and lowest in the Nordic countries. While persistence in the Nordic and Southern countries has declined over time, it has remained relatively steady in the rest of Europe. Our analysis highlights the importance of a detailed gender analysis in studying intergenerational persistence, finding that mothers education is a stronger determinant of daughters (instead of sons) education and fathers education a stronger determinant of the education of their sons. For most clusters, declines in intergenerational persistence over time are largely driven by increasing mobility for younger women.

In international humanitarian discourse, gender-based violence against women have long been recognised as a human rights violation and described as the most extreme expression of unequal power relations between men and women (UN 1993). Using a qualitative content analysis to examine the GREVIO reports of Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, the aim of this thesis is to outline the differences between and within these states regarding their response to violence against women. Drawing on insights from feminist political theory, and especially Nordic feminist theorists, these differences are made visible using the three concepts: hegemonic discourse, contradictory effects, and boundaries (Kantola and Dahl 2005). The theoretical background is complemented by theoretical contributions from feminist understandings of violence against women. In analysing the main differences between the states, many of these differences can be derived from the fact that the three states frame the violence differently, with Sweden adopting a gender-based frame while Denmark and Finland adopt gender-neutral frames of the violence. In analysing differences within states, there are two distinct forms of differences: differences due to a gap between principle and practice, and differences between various parts of the country. The findings of this thesis may provide a base for future in-depth studies of the Nordic, women-friendly, welfare states.

Sweden and Hungary both applied for European Union membership in the beginning of the 1990s. The 1990s were also the years of economic deregulation inspired by an ideology: neoliberalism, which affected many policy fields. Since the early 1990s, both countries have transformed aspects of their welfare systems and carried out overarching pension reforms. This paper aims to study whether neoliberalism through the EU has affected the two countries welfare system. The effect of neoliberalism on the welfare system is examined by doing a comparative case study on Hungary’s and Sweden’s pension reforms from the 1990’s all the way to the 2020’s. The EU’s role in this process is presented through a policy analysis of EU directives aimed at regulating the operations of occupational pension providers.

The aim of this study is to compare family policies between three Nordic countries. Specifically, the differences and similarities of family policies between the three Nordic countries – Sweden, Finland, and Denmark – regarding formal childcare, parental leave, and parents’ employment are analyzed through a qualitative research method, document analysis. The government documents of three Nordic countries are analyzed. Along with that, the latest differences in family policies between the three Nordic countries in 2019 and 2020 with regards to these aspects are explored through descriptive statistics. Thus, this study adopts a mixed methods design that combines quantitative and qualitative research. Through analysis, this study found that the family policy of Sweden supports the health and lifestyle of families with children and promotes gender equity the most among the three Nordic countries. Sweden has a high formal childcare enrollment rate, a gender-equal parental leave policy, and a high employment rate of women with children. Denmark’s family policy has performed second after Sweden, with high formal childcare enrollment rates and the highest average number of weekly hours in formal care particularly impressive. Finland’s family policy was somewhat inferior to that of Sweden and Denmark because of the relatively low formal childcare enrollment rate, shorter length of parental leave, and the comparatively low employment rate of women with children. This study is of great significance in that it revealed the differences in family policy between the three Nordic countries that were previously unknown. It is also meaningful in that the qualitative findings and quantitative findings were complemented by using a mixed research method.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to major transformations in education, workplaces, and work-life balance. Though most restrictions have been lifted in Sweden, some processes will likely remain online. This master thesis research collected quantitative data from a sample of university students at Halmstad University regarding the effects the pandemic had on their lives and their personal work preferences. Despite the pandemic leading to major changes both personally and professionally, the results of the study conclude that the pandemic primarily had both good and bad effects on education and did not have a major effect on university students’ outlook on their future in the labor market. Regarding preferences, this study found that there is no consensus. Several of the results are likely the effect of the culture and policies of the Nordic welfare states, which shape and surround this sample. This research contributes to the field of health and lifestyle as it identifies and analyzes potential factors which have strengthened and weakened the sample in focus.

As demographic and economic contexts have shifted, the need for pension systems to reform has increased. Often, however, these systems have proved difficult to change – especially in continental Europe. Despite this, Germany, by many considered particularly reform resistant, succeeded in reforming its pension system; while France, with its strong executive power, has not. As research has yet to find a consensus on what factors makes welfare retrenchment possible, this field requires more attention. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to analyse the developments of the German and French pension systems, from 1990-2010, and to unearth what factors made successful reform possible in Germany while it failed in France. Using a comparative case study, all major pension reforms in the two countries during the time period, are analysed from four institutionalist perspectives. The results point to three main factors explaining Germany’s successful reform. Firstly, the shock brought on by the reunification of East and West Germany forced politicians to act. France on the other hand, experienced no such shock. Secondly, the subduing of the unions removed the main veto player against reform. In contrast, the French unions, whose political power lies in their ability to call for manifestations and shift public opinion, could not be outflanked. Lastly, the new liberal ideas that permeated German politics around the turn of the century provided a locus for change that was lacking in France. These results suggest the importance of external pressure, veto players and ideational factors to major welfare reform.