We would like to invite you to contribute to a workshop we are organising on “The dynamics of the policies of care”.
Please find below a more detailed description of the workshop.
The workshop takes place as part of the Conference of the Nordic Political Science Association in Vaasa in August next year (http://www.nopsa2011.abo.fi/english.html) and the aim of the workshop is to explore the political underpinnings of the policies of care. Here, interests and institutions are subject to a range of sector specific characteristics, including the interplay between local and national levels, the gendered nature of care and the often indirect representation of care recipients’ interests.
The workshop takes the policies of care in Nordic countries as its starting point, but very much welcomes contributions from other countries.
The overall aim of the workshop is two-fold, first to set focus on the political processes underpinning the policies of care as a relatively new field of research, and second, to bring together experts in the field to explore common research interests, with a view to putting together an application for a joint, cross-country comparative research project.
We hope you are interested in contributing to the workshop and look forward to receiving your one page abstract before 15 January 2011.
With Best Wishes
Signy Irene Vabo & Viola Burau
‘The dynamics of the policies of care: institutions, interests and tensions’
Workshop to be held at the XVI Nordic Political Science Congress, 9-12 August 201, Vaasa, Finland
The care of children, the elderly and the disabled is a well established part of the Nordic welfare state, particularly when compared to other European countries. The policies of care are also high on the political agenda not least because of demographic changes.
From the perspective of political science, the policies of care are an interesting field of research: it is characterised by a specific set of institutions and type of actors, which in turn produces a range of tensions.
1. The policies of care to a large extent take place at the local level, while policies are also embedded in a national welfare state. This leads to tensions between local and national levels and between the specific and the universalistic.
2. The policies of care encompass both the formal, for example the regulation of care services, and the informal, for example the support of care in the family. As such, the policies of care are about tensions between the responsibilities of the state and society and also concern the societal division of labour between women and men.
3. The policies of care are subject to a specific type of interest politics, as the interests of citizens often are not very well organized. Instead, interests are represented by ‘proxy actors’ such as professions and service providers and this leads to tensions between direct and indirect representations of interests.
The workshop is inviting contributions, which analyse specific aspects of the policies of care and their dynamics, and thereby help to explore this emerging field of research from both empirical and theoretical perspectives.
Workshop directors
Viola Burau
University of Aarhus
Department of Political Science
Bartholins Alle
DK-8000 Aarhus, Denmark
Telephone: +45 89 42 54 32
Email: [log in to unmask]
Signy Irene Vabo
University College Oslo
Department of Social Science
P.O.Box 4, St Olavs Plass
N-0130 Oslo, Norway
Telephone: +47 22 45 35 16
Email: [log in to unmask]
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