Work in progress comments are welcome Please do not quote! REASSESS Conference 18-20 May 2009 Oslo Diversity and difference in Nordic Welfare Society Liisa Häikiö & Bjørn Hvinden Content of the draft: Diversity and difference... 4 Cultural diversity; a dream of equal recognition... 6 Structural differences: the reality of unequal redistribution... 9 Agency: uniting identity and structure... 10 Immigration policy: excluded agency... 12 Gender equality policy and education policy: differentiated agency within universal framework... 17 Conclusion... 23 1
Introduction An increasingly popular view is that greater diversity and difference represent a challenge for the sustainability and legitimacy of the welfare state in contemporary societies. Diversity and group-based difference seem to be incompatible especially with the encompassing and redistributive provisions associated with the Nordic Welfare Model. This model is characterized by the idea and practices of universalism based on mutual trust, a homogenous norm base and tight social networks (Rothstein 2000, 2001). In social policy this has meant residence-based welfare services and social security for all. In this context residence in the same national territory tends to be seen as synonymous with citizenship. All legal residents have enjoyed the status and rights of social citizenship. Moreover, there has been a tendency to perceive residents (= citizens) as a fairly homogenous group belonging to the same nation state. Like other European welfare states, Nordic welfare model have been constructed around the goal of unity and their politics centred on redistribution (Ashenden 1999) and built on and sustained by a strong sense of community and feelings of trust, reciprocity and mutual obligation (Banting 2005).Diveristy is frequently understood as a criticism, and as such a counter approach against universalist ideas of citizenship and social policy. There are two main sources of the criticism: Universalism can not deal with the diversity which is emerging in society and in any case universal principles do not turn into universal practices (Taylor 1998). Social changes taking place in Nordic societies prepare ground for greater diversity and a new understanding of difference between people. Immigration, more unequal income distribution, structural changes in the labour market, higher levels of education and demographic ageing are examples of these trajectories. The trajectories pose several challenges towards Nordic Model. Many scholars have argued that social heterogeneity, especially if created by a rapid increase in the numbers of immigrants, affects the basis for large-scale redistribution (Kymlicka & Banting 2006). Some authors have argued forcefully that an ethnically heterogeneous population reduces the scope for perceived similarity, mutual identification and trust and hence undermining the conditions for establishing or sustaining collective risk protection through tax-based redistribution (Alesina & Glaser 2004; Sachs 2008). 2
Another problem is the unintended consequences of universalism as a policy principle. In a society characterised by diversity and difference, pursuing universal ideas and policies may lead to unequal and unjust outcomes. Difference-blind rules and institutions may cause disadvantage for minority groups (Kymlicka 2002), but also for women if their specific needs and unequal position in relation to men are not recognized (Anthias 2002; Lister 1998). Furthermore, an increasing diversity and difference demonstrate the limits of traditional definitions of universal citizenship within the Nordic states. The rights and benefits associated with universal citizenship presuppose ability and willingness to contribute to society, especially through participation in work. To the extent that for instance immigrants are prevented from contributing, e.g. because they meet lack of recognition or discrimination, they may be suspected of not being willing to contribute and hence not worthy of sharing the benefits of universal citizenship (Forsander 2004). This chapter aims to construct a theoretical framework for understanding the emerging social diversity and its consequences for social policy in the Nordic countries. First, the framework focuses on the ways diversity and difference is understood as concepts. By analyzing earlier studies it makes a distinction between cultural diversity and structural social differences. The cultural homogeneity-diversity dimension is viewed as closely related to the conditions for gaining recognition, while the degree of structural difference is seen as a basis for redistribution. In the context of cultural diversity, diversity and differences are valued as favourable aims of policy making. By contrast, structural differences are interpreted as a source of inequality. Second, the framework will focus on the practices of policy making. It approaches the ways diversity and difference could be or are taken into account in policy making and the ways in which social policy practices construct diverse identities and structures, e.g. differences degrees of perceived equality and homogeneity between citizens. The chapter argues that universalism and diversity are key features of Nordic society and therefore has to be dealt with in policy making. The challenge for Nordic Model is to find ways to consider and handle both sides simultaneously. 3
Diversity and difference The ideas of post-structuralist and postmodernism have opened up new perspectives on society and social policy accentuating diversity and difference between various groups. During the 1990s there has been a wide discussion about diversity related to postmodernism (Myanard 1994; Williams 1996, Taylor 1998). Within this framework discussion around diversity and difference has been formulated as a shift from Enlightenment to a postmodernist thinking and as a move from a belief in reason, rationality and progress towards a belief in complexity and contingency. The framework of post-structuralism has also been used to challenge the essentialist understanding of social relationships and unity. Joan W. Scott (1988) stated 20 years ago that poststructuralist thinking challenge the dominant/ traditional thinking in academy as well as in society based on masculine universals and female specialties. Poststructuralism rejects essential categories which take identities as fixed (Lister 1998, 74). It emphasizes the process of signifying phenomena by making a difference. The frameworks of postmodernism and poststructuralism have had a great influence on the ways diversity and difference have been theorised. Feminist and multicultural studies have been the main areas of research where the questions of diversity and difference have arisen in social sciences. Some of the studies are explicitly operating within the field of social policy research, but most of these studies are implicitly related to essential topics of social policy and transformation of welfare state. The Nordic welfare states have not been widely studied from the perspective of diversity and difference or within postmodern and poststructuralist frameworks. Debates around diversity have been firmly based on Anglo-Saxon experiences with a flavour of French philosophy. In general the concern with diversity has developed through an emphasis on the concept of difference (Maynard 1994, 9). Besides overlapping differences, single categories also frame differences. Diversity is interlinked with process of making difference. Diversity does not occur naturally outside society; it is always a social construction which is produced by marking differences between individuals or various groups. The base of the difference is not given, even thought some differences are more visible than some others. Features of differences producing 4
diversity are context based, and in relation to particular aspects of differentiation. What aspects are focused upon? How is the meaning of the difference constructed? Therefore difference is articulated in terms of imagined communities or groups by constructing boundaries of belonging. As cultural constructions groups, communities, and even nations, are ways of organizing similarities and differences (Bottero & Irwin 2003, 464). Difference may refer to experiences, social relations, subjectivity and identity (Brah 1996). These categories are intertwined. Cultural differences are usually connected to race and ethnicity relations, but also to individualization and fragmentation of society. Norms, values and world views differ among people. These differences are typically analysed in terms of subjectivity and identity. Differences in capacity are mainly understood in terms of socio-economical relations. Gender, employee position, age and health conditions shape the position of individuals in society, creating on the other hand, diverse needs, and on the other hand, diverse possibilities for agency. These differences are mostly analysed in terms of experiences and social relations. In practice economic and cultural injustices are intertwined (Fraser 1998, 23). Material economical institutions have cultural dimensions, which are found on the norms and beliefs. Discursive cultural practices are related to political-economic dimensions. Cultural norms that are unfairly biased against some individuals and groups are institutionalised in the state and the economy. Economic disadvantage prevent equal participation in public sphere and in everyday life. The discussion around diversity and difference has two faces. In the first place, there is a strong normative assumption that recognition of diversity and focusing on difference is important for pursuing an equal and just society. From this perspective the question is about diversity between people and the need for recognizing the value and meaning of difference in society and in policy making. In this case diversity is about respecting the cultural differences between social groups. In this context the politics are struggle against status hierarchies and may defined as politics of recognition (Frasier 1998). Issues of recognition consider cultural injustice and revaluing marginalized identities, but also establishing unidentified groups of belonging. It aims to affirm group differences. 5
In the second place, there is a view that diversity and differences disadvantage certain groups and individuals. From this perspective the question is about structural differences between people and the need for solve those problems people face on the base of their positioning in society. In this case diversity is connected to conflict because different groups exist in a hierarchy of inequality in terms of power, privilege and wealth. Politics of distribution are struggles against inequalities within the economical hierarchy (Frasier 1998). Issues of redistribution touch on politicaleconomic restructuring and are mainly class based. It is about redistributing income, reorganizing the division of labour or reshaping democratic structures with an aim to reduce group differences. Construction of social difference uses cultural understanding of cultural and material relations within society. The process is dialectical as it also shapes material inequalities and inequalities of recognition (Bottero & Irwin 2003, 465). Next we approach the distinction between of diversity between people and structural differences between people in terms of cultural diversity and structural differences. Cultural diversity; a dream of equal recognition In fluid societies the need for recognition becomes more visible and fixed positions can not be taken for granted (Blum 1998, 75). Claims for recognition by diverse group have challenged the limits of distributive paradigm of welfare with the claim that different ways of life should be recognized within the formulation and delivery of social policy (Ashenden 1999, 236). The diversity within society has been ignored by celebrating the models of normal, universal citizenship promoting national identity (Kymlicka 2002, 327). The universal citizenship has been seen a way to protect the interests of the working class in a wide sense. In many cases this has been a success story, as the working class has become comfortably included in contemporary societies. Those unable to fulfill the demands or duties associated with this citizenship, however, have been subject to exclusion and marginalisation. The understanding of culture and its connections to diversity has widened. Culture is understood as a core element in the production of material relations, of difference and of inequality (Bottero & Irwin 2003, 464). From this perspective it is understandable, 6
that claims for cultural recognition usually aim at ending domination or deprivation (Young 2000, 83). Shared collective identity may form the basis for resistance against the positioning of subordinate identity. The struggle for recognition is a form of political conflict (Fraser 1998). In these struggles group identity with nationality, ethnicity, race, gender and sexuality, supplants class interests as the main source of political mobilization. But this is not the whole picture, as diversity claimed on the basis of a shared collective experience (language, religion, age or nationality) does not have to be related to subordination (Williams 1996). For example the politics of recognition, as framed by Charles Taylor (1994), include both possibilities; a situation of subordination and a situation of equality or parity. The discussions around recognition claims and diversity have stressed the importance of the symbolic, of the role of ideas and values and in the construction of social relations and social diversity (Bottero & Irwin 2003, 464). The basis for social identification is shifting from socio-economic status towards socio-cultural identity. Cultural recognition displaces socioeconomic redistribution as the goal of political struggle. Besides diversity a new understanding of equality and justice is emerging. Reaching equality and justice requires that people should not be treated equally despite their differences but differently because of them (Malik 2005, 366). Universal criteria for equality and justice are the right to make a claim about the case at hand. Universal needs, however, are replaced with the understanding of particular needs. Cultural identity gives individuals bases for belonging to particular communities. Community has coherence by sharing history and culture. Stuart Hall maintains that national states are based on this kind of shared identification. Identity is not, however, stable or fixed, but also a matter of becoming. Struggles over meaning are struggles over different modes of being and identifications. Cultural identities are cultures in process in a given context. Identity is constructed again and again in ongoing interpretations. The cultural identities of minority and majority groups evolve in time (Williams 2000, 347). Cultural identity is a dream of unity. Common identity is unlikely to emerge in a given group, because not all the members of particular group share the same identity. Iris Marion Young (2000) poses this question in relation to women. There is no single 7
and common identity for all the women. Class, age, wealth and religion, for example, differentiate women and might be ignored by focusing on visible unifying elements of women (see Williams 2000). Individuals that are placed in each category may occupy a different position in the other categories (Anthias 2002). Charles Taylor has been one of the most important scholars in stimulating the discussion about diversity in terms of recognition. He separates two basic forms of recognition (Blum 1998). First one is a democratic form of recognition which is directed towards others in regard to their sameness with oneself. Others are seen as equal citizens of shared politics with equal dignity. Second one is recognition directed towards groups or individuals with regard to their distinct identity as different from oneself. Cultural groups and individuals are objects to this form of recognition. The politics of recognition accentuates cultural group affinity and respect for and preservation of their culture as important source of people s identification and formation of self. At the core is the question about equal dignity. An important claim is that groups seek for recognition for its own sake (Young 2000), since to be recognized and valued is a fundamental human need (Honneth 2007). Equal dignity means that social groups of belonging have received public recognition and have equal status with others. Recognition is about justice and humanity. People desired to be recognized by others as equals and of equal worth. However, every culture contains some common, human value (Blum 1998, 89). The politics of recognition is not about enclosing differences between cultural groups, but about accepting and respecting differences as the base of equal society. Nancy Fraser s understanding about recognition might be seen as a criticism of the Taylor s approach (see Blum 1998). Her concern is that the politics of recognition is not concerned with economical injustice. The approach considers cultural injustice as more important than economical injustice. Therefore, cultural injustice is seen as primary in the structures of power producing economic injustice. Yet, Fraser (1998) argues, struggle for recognition occur in a world of material inequality. She understands the problems of recognition as a way of changing society. From her point of view, justice requires both recognition and redistribution. 8
Structural differences: the reality of unequal redistribution Differences approached in terms of structural inequalities focus on the social and material distribution of resources. One main example is concept of the politics of difference. It has a different starting point when compared to the politics of recognition. The politics of difference is introduced by Young. She (2000) argues that the issue of difference is more a matter of structural inequality than a matter of recognition (ibid. pp. 104-105). Unequal differences between social groups are based on social structures which generate patterned contrasts in the access to and control over resources. Structural differences lead to disparities in opportunities and life prospects of similarly positioned individuals (Young 2000, 97). Structural differences have their roots in unequal process of power, resource allocation or discursive hegemony. Social structural groups are constituted by the social organisation of labour and production; the social organisation of desire and sexuality; the institutionalised rules of authority and the constitution of prestige (Young 2000, 94). Structurally differentiated positions have consequences for educational possibilities, occupational prospects, access to resources and political power; and the ways people are treated (Young 2000). Young does not question the existence of cultural groups. The aim of cultural groups like social movements is to politicize structural inequalities. However, she does not consider them as the primary source of difference or base for articulating differentiation. Structural groups are more important in this respect. They are often constructing themselves in relation to cultural differences. Yet, the main point here is that social relations like gender, race and class are structural, not cultural. Positions within these categories do exist in relation to other positions. Therefore, Young denies that social movements or groups are only expressions of identity politics (Young 2000, 92). They have political aspirations to influence on the social structures, which produce inequalities. Indeed, Young states that where there are problem with recognition, these are usually tied to questions of control over recourses, exclusion from political or/ and economical participation, power and opportunities. A politics of recognition is a part of claims for political and social inclusion and an end to structural inequalities (Young 2000, 105). 9
The focus on structural differences means that power is important in studying diversity. Structural differences are relations between dominant group and subordinate group (Young 2000). Dominant groups control political, economic and cultural institutions in society whereas subordinate groups lack the control over such institutions. These power relations are not very visible in society. Those having privileges assume that everybody has the same possibilities they selves do, and in many actual cases privilege is more obvious for those without such privilege (Pincus 2006). Agency: uniting identity and structure In the discussion so far we have treated the issues of cultural groups and differences and structural groups and differences separately. Yet, it is quite clear that these points of views are not contrary approaches, but are complements to each others. Matters of recognition and redistribution are related, but not overlapping situations. Next we bring forward the notion of agency in this context. We argue that the concept of agency has the potential of uniting the idea of identity and structure; and as such agency has a key role in influencing processes of recognition and redistribution. In this respect the participatory concept of citizenship is helpful because it is a meeting point of agency and structure. As Ruth Lister argues, Citizenship as participation represents the expression of human agency in the political arena, broadly defined: citizenship as rights enables people to act as agents. (.) At the same time, understanding agency as embedded in and shaped by social structures and relations reminds us that its expression is constrained by the discriminatory and oppressive political, economical, social and cultural institutions that still treat marginalized groups as lesser citizen (Lister 1998, 73). Processes and practices that systematically disadvantage some groups of people are based on cultural norms which are institutionalised in the state and the economy (Fraser 1998). They treat groups and individuals differently. However, disadvantaged groups, like women, are not only victims of structures but have also agency (Anthias 10
2002). They are social agents with the possibility to avoid and counteract disadvantages. As Jason Glynos and David Howarth (2008) argue agents always find themselves in a system of meaningful practices. These social structures are constituted by the exercise of power and certain forms of exclusion, which construct agents identity and structure their practices. Acting requires a sense of agency and the belief that one can act (Lister 2003: 39). Agency is about the capability to identify oneself as a powerful agent with the capacity to make choices about matters in society, and enact these choices in practice. Consciousness is important for an individual s sense of self-identity but also for collective identity and agency. Collective action, in turn, fosters the sense of agency. This creation of agency is profoundly a process of recognition. It is recognition of oneself and others, in relation to society at large and to significant groups of identification. This recognition is ongoing process. Categories like class, gender and ethnicity can not form permanent fixed groups, but involve shifting constellations of social actors, depending on the ways the boundaries are drawn and categories are constructed (Anthias 2002). In social policy context this identification occurs mainly in relation to citizenship as practice. People interpret in their everyday life and practice what it means to be a citizen when they confront matters that enable or limit their positions in society (Smith et al. 2005). Individuals capacity for agency is related to their position in social structures like resource distributions and power relations. In this sense, capacity and its construction is a question of (re)distribution. Agency requires power, information and diverse intellectual resources. Resources underpin the capacity of social agents and the power relations shape and influence how they exercise this capacity (Held 1987). The capacity for agency enables them to maintain or transform the society intentionally but a precondition is that they believe in their own agency in accomplishing change. Agency is enacted when people feel they can influence the process, they are being heard, and they can make a difference (Newman & Dale 2005, 482). Agency is an ability to create novel circumstances which would not have occurred otherwise. 11
People s political agency depends on their capacity to construct political identities in relation to society. Political identity selects between competing interpretations and subject positions of the agent and articulates this selection (Mouffe 1992). Identities reflect the positions that people occupy in the networks of relationships. Formation of identity takes place in given situations and in relation to the meanings, practices and structural conditions that position us (Young 2000). For individuals, political and societal agency is both about a citizenship status (equal recognition between diverse people) and a practice of involvement and influence in society and its material conditions (equal redistribution between structurally differentiated people). The redistribution-recognition dilemma (Fraser 1996, 69) demonstrates the possible tensions and dynamics between these two sides of agency in social policy. In order to be recognized specific groups need to claim for their difference and focus on their particular features as central parts of their identity. To have influence on redistribution, however, they have to seek unity of some kind with others and deny their own distinctiveness or uniqueness. For this purpose they may apply concepts like justice and equality (Taylor 1998, 332). Agency is about finding difference within unity and unity within difference. Agency is the outcome of an ongoing process of identification and structuration. In the following gender equality policy, education policy and immigration policy are taken as illustrative examples of the way recognition and redistribution mutually construct Nordic Welfare Model. These aspects of governing society define the framework for both citizenship status (equal recognition between diverse people) and practices of involvement and influence in society and its material conditions (equal redistribution between structurally differentiated people). The logic of universalism and diversity underlying these policies has consequences on the agency and material resources different people and groups have in the Nordic society. Immigration policy: excluded agency 12
One of the basic assumptions behind Nordic Welfare Model is that in Nordic countries state has used policies as instruments for creating equal society and therefore as means to overcome differences. During the 90s and afterwards there has been a shift in this respect. Some reformulated policy initiatives have taken diversity as a starting point for policies and new ways of recognition have been advanced. It is fiction, however, that issues of difference are something new within Nordic welfare model. The unique of Nordic Model has been the fact that diversity has not been recognised so much in connection to ethnicity but to issues of class, gender and regional differences and those differences have been articulated within the intention for universal and equal outcomes of public policies. In social policy diversity is basically governed by creating two different forms of relationships. There is either a relation between society/state and individuals or a relation between society/state and groups. The form of relationship has influence on the ways differences are recognized and constructed in society and which differences are interpreted as legitimate source of political and social agency. Most social policy practices treat people as individuals, who belong to particular category on the base of one or two features. Present or future labour market positions are vocal in this recognition process, maybe because financing the Nordic welfare state is generally dependent upon full employment. Citizen is either inside or outside labour markets and this distinction is used as the main base for recognising individuals, groups and their needs. Relation between state and individuals is, however, multiform relationship with emphasis on user, client or customer relation but also having social and political aspects through citizenship rights. In some cases the emphasis on labour market positions leads to social policy practises which undermine certain group or category of people. The question is not necessarily the lack of recognition but the form of recognition that establish barriers to engagement in society. This situation is created by emphasising differences between particular and universal needs, rights and obligations, and by using this distinction for legitimating policy practices which challenge material and social needs of those people outside labour markets. There is also deficiency in recognising new inequalities and for instance the spaces between employment and unemployment. The most revealing case is so called Start Help and Integration benefit for newly arrived 13
refugees and immigrants in Denmark (Kristensen 2007; Liebig 2007; Ghosh & Juul 2008). This new Start Help and Integration benefit system was re-established 2002 (the first version of the system was used between 1998 and 2000) as part of Danish integration policy. The system applies to persons who have lived more than seven of the past eight years abroad. Those with Danish nationality are expected to seek empoyment or study immidiately they arrive and this benefit is used to get them settled and employed. New comers without Danish nationality may have to relay on Start Help and Integration benefit for many years, some even for seven years (Kristensen 2007). Immigrants and refugees are oblicated to take part in three years integration programme under the Introduction benefit and after that to seek employment or study with support of Start Help benefit. Levels of these benefits are 50-70 procentages lower than other social benefits (Liebig 2007). Low level social assistance is expected to enchance work incentives among newly arrived people, especially among immigrants and refugees. Unemployment of these groups is seen as a consequence of the high level of social welfare (Ghosh & Juul 2008). Integration discourse tend to emphasise immigrants costs to the welfare state (Liebig 2007, 65). Integration Act states that the main objective is to make foreigners employed and self-supporting as soon as possible. Therefore labour market oriented immigration is facilitated and family reunifications are restricted. Immigrants with high salary are welcomed without targeted obligations. Family members are required to take more economical responsibility of their arriving family members. Task of this social security system is to enable integration of people settling themselves in Denmark. Integration is defined as a matter of language skills and labour market position. Language training and targeted labour market measures are the main objectives used to facilitate integration. Language training is separated into three different tracks on the base of immigrants and refugees competence and expectations of their possibilities to learn Danish. The skills are evaluated with language test and passing the test will allow to move on the higher level studies. Language training ends with final test. Three different tracks offer different promises for participants. Only the track three (immigrants with at least secondary education) will offer the possibility to gain that kind of language skills which are required for 14
Danish citizenship and for university studies in Denmark. Change of tracks is not possible once the final test in the respective track has been taken (Liebig 2007, 26). Integration policies reflect in many ways the view that immigrants are unwilling to integrate into Danish economy and society (Liebig 2007). However, it is ignored that Nordic societies in general seems to be exclusionary towards immigrants. Especially labour markets are quite closed (Forsander 2004, 208). In practise integration policy does not revoke these obstacles. They even create some new barriers, because participating in language training course and under fulltime activation immigrants have less time to look for a job (Liebig 2007, 46). Their contacts with native Danes seems to be limited and purely coincidental. Integration policy shapes their everyday life in the way that their interact with their families or fellow immigrants and authorities. Beside activation, their cultural and social integration has been advantaged by a new instrument since 2006. In practise this part of integration programme is powerful performance. Immigrants and refugees have to sign an integration contract and declaration on integration and active citizenship in Danish society (Kristensen 2007) with authorities. The aim is to engage arriving foreigner to actively integrate into society and its values. The logic of personal contracts are used to state the importance of individual behaviour. A new chance for every one is a special measure targeted to unemployed ethnic minority individuals. Long term unemployed are treated in the same way. This kinds of personal action plans and contracts are widely used in Nordic countries for addressing the importance of individual willingness to seek employment and to be employed (Hvinden et al. 2007). The aim is to have a commitment of taking responsibility of ones own life. These arrangements define unemployment and lack of integration as individual problems. The behaviour of unemployed causes these problems, not social policies or labour markets. These features of immigration policy remains assimilationism way of dealing with difference and diversity (Hartmann & Gerteis 2005). The aim here is to remove or at least minimise differences. Cultural homogeniuty is valued over diversity. Differences beween people are interpretted as dangerous and threat towards society. Individuals should give up their group identity and adopt the dominant identity. 15
Therefore the connections between individuals and society are accentuated, and the relation between particular groups and society are seen as potential problems. For immigrants it is, however, hard to become conventional members of society. Their opportunities to be full members of the society are minor (Forsander 2004). There are always some criteria to make a difference between true citizens and outsiders. Like Knocke and Herzberg (2000) argue it is impossible for immigrants to become Swedish. Becoming Swedish is connected fulfilling formal requirements of social competence in labour markets. This means the same aspects as in Denmark, namely language skills and decent education. Reaching these requirements does not, however, guarantee inclusion into society because definitions and contents of cultural inclusion are in a constant process of change. On the base of immigrant interviews Ghosh and Juul (2008) question that integration law would advance integration of foreign people, because the law is forbidding new immigrants possibilities to identify as fully included members of the society. Immigrants interpret that the Start Help and lower level social security they receive differentiate themselves from Danes. Law is a symbol of moral disrespect and lower benefits means from immigrants point of view that I am just a refugee ; a member of minority and outsider in Danish society (Ghosh & Juul 2008). Declaration on integration and active citizenship in Danish society symbolise also the marginal position immigrants have in society. The written contract between individual and state include the understanding that those who have to sign it are potentially not aware or do not accept the values Danish society and state have (Kristensen 2007). Integration policies makes it visible that immigrants do not have the same formal or cultural status as the other members of society. The uniting factor between new immigrants is that they are settling in new society and recieve lower benefits that others in Danish society (Ghosh & Juul 2008). In other aspects they are very heterogenious group. By unequal redistribution they are excluded many ways from society. The consequence of unequal redistribution is the feeling of being misrecognized. Misrecognition prevents parity of participation (Fraser 2003 by Ghosh & Juul 2008) and from citizenship as inclusion and participation form universal roots of citizenship (Lister 1998). Those who society defines negatively feel excluded and create identity of outsider with minor connections to society. In the case 16
of immigrants this identity is unlikely enough for building up a political agency against discrimination. The case is also an example how the structures of redistribution cultivate recognizing the others and the self. For immigrants the risk of increasing poverty in the situation of unemployment is not only an economical issue, but an issue of self esteem. Those seeking for security and protection (own recognition) are turned into misusers of social welfare and unwilling to be employed (outsider recognition). Cultural inclusion and public recognition as having equal status with others is needed for the feeling of equal dignity (Stevenson 2003). Recognition which involves understanding of difference and sympathy for addressing structural inequalities builds a sense of mutual cultural and moral commitments (Harmann & Gerteis 2005, 235). Otherwise it is difficult to construct a common ground for addressing structural disparities like those that differences between employment rates of native-born and immigrants is extremely large in Denmark if compared to other countries and not explained with special characteristic of immigrants coming to Denmark. Gender equality policy and education policy: differentiated agency within universal framework The discussion around governing diversity and difference embeds the understanding that procedural norms are vital in policy making. Jürgen Habermas is one of the academics who propose a procedurals solution to the problem of governing diversity (Ashenden 1999, 224). Those subjected to welfare legislation should participate in its formulation. He states that the interpretation of needs cannot be delegated to officials or judges or politicians, but also that the legitimation of welfare provisions requires agreement among all concerned (Ashenden 1999). The ideas of communicative rationality and communicative planning have been powerful in shaping the policy making norms. The principle that all affected parties should participate is included in legislation and policy making in Nordic countries. This feature is most evident in planning, but also social policy legislation and practises contain the idea about participatory rights of affected people (Sutela 2001). 17
Citizen participation is also argued for democratic reasons. For Young (1989, 261-262) the criteria for democratic public are mechanisms which allow effective representation and recognition of the distinct voices and perspectives of those that are oppressed and disadvantage. For her groups autonomy should be publicly supported by advancing self-organisation and collective empowerment of social groups, by supporting group s analysis social policy effects on themselves, by offering possibilities to announce policy proposals for decision making, and finally by giving veto power regarding policies that affect the group directly. These kinds of ideas that Young represents are realised as local councils for young, aged and disadvantage have been established in many municipalities. At national and Nordic level there are bodies for traditional minority people such as Nordic Gipsy Council and Sami Council. These groups have a particular perspective on many issues and their interests are not likely to receive expression without these established arrangements. Representative system based on voting does not guarantee that minorities will have representatives within policy making, because their do not have critical mass to get their own candidate selected (Dryzek 1996). And in many cases minorities do not have a candidate of their own, because elections are mainly based on party divisions and therefore on class cleavages. In the practise the involvement of all affected parties either in policy making or through special councils do not necessarily have major influence on decision making or redistribution of resources. The criteria Young imposes, for example, are not totally fulfilled as various established councils have no decision making power or formal institutionalized position in power structures but are only legitimate to express their views in decision making process and in public discourse. Their agency is more about identification of particular position in society than influencing in societies material conditions and redistribution. Having an impact on society minorities need agency in the political institutions, not only with in special boards (Nordberg 2006). If inequalities are a matter of a set of relations that democratic state has institutionalized, a deliberative response is not enough (Hayward 2003). Institutionalised inequalities are stagnated in places, laws and material structures. Democratic governing of differences requires that institutions and policy processes 18
constituting the base of unequal identification are reshaped. Gender equality policy illustrates the situation of transforming unfair power relations between genders by revising legislation. Education policy shows how differentiated agency is promoted within universal education system by producing new bases for recognition. Both policy fields demonstrate how the recognition of difference is an ongoing cultural process even under legislation which is based on universal definition of citizenship rights. Gender equality policy implies that there are need to recognise two different social and political groups or categories of people on the base of gender (Holli et al. 2008; 2006; Pincus 2002). Recognition is not, however, fixed by legislation. For instance so called Finnish quota law, introduced in 1995, uses gender neutral language and political rights are understood as universal across gender lines. One of the aims is to have equal possibilities for participation in indirectly elected public bodies, national and local committees and boards, for both men and women. This is achieved by guaranteeing at least 40 percentages of seats for minority gender within indirectly elected political bodies. If one gender dominates political bodies, the gender equality policy requires that political power is redistributed more equally between genders. Holli and others (2006; 2008) show in their study concerning implementation of gender equality policy in Finnish municipalities that by implementation differences between men and women become obvious. The recognition of women as others and different from men is intense. Both men and women take part in interpreting differences. From outsiders perspective the recognition of women as political agents under gender equality policy include definitions such as quota women, unqualified women, unsuitable women and missing women. The recognition is also individualised by using individuals as examples of these categories and at the same time making generalisations on the base of these individual cases. This kind of recognition constructs difference and creates discursive power relations between unequal positions in policy making (Häikiö 2007). By this kind of stereotyping a certain group of people is fixed and reduced to a few, simple and essential characteristics (Hall 1997). Stereotypes are cultural beliefs about of particular group and its members placing them in a position as the others. These 19
problematic categories of difference reify group characteristics and may undermine those who are recognised as different (Anthias 2002). Defining differences from outside perspective leads often to negative definitions. Difference is perceived as something undesirable, something that one should exclude, especially if it is viewed as distinct from the dominant group. Difference is about exclusion and marginalisation of those who are defined as others or as outsiders (Pincus 2006; Woodward 1997). When diversity is discussed by focusing on only one group or category at a time, positions tend to simplify the complex situation emerging in society. People may occupy various positions in society in connection with their different status as members of different groups and categories. For example women share their gender. However, their background, economical situation and political values divide seemingly natural gender group into groups of women with very different status, possibilities and desires. The social group called women is divided and differentiated within and across group. Women disagree on political ideology and may have contradictory interests. Some women may even deny the significance of this particular group identity based on gender for themselves (Williams 1996). Within Finnish case some women do not identify themselves with woman category in gender equality policy context. They define themselves as proper politicians in spite of their unsound gender. They make a distinction between themselves and other women on the base of competence and qualifications (Holli et al. 2008, 94). Women placing themselves as representing and protecting women category identify themselves more positive, but find it hard to find ways for accepted agency in politics. The gender equality policy is women s issue and especially issue of those women who are not able to exercise political influence without special legislation. These women feel marginalised not on the base of their socio-economical status, but on the base of their socio-cultural identity which is different from dominant political identity (see Kymlicka 2002). Men, on the other hand, are qualified on the gender neutral manner and their competence is not a matter of discussion locally (Holli et al. 2008). 20
The gender equality policy has universal and gender neutral character by treating both genders in the same way, but at the implementation stage it is interpreted as a policy creating differentiated citizenship. Women have been unrepresented in various boards and committees and the quota law have changed this situation to some extent. The legislation has obligated men to share seats with women, and this has made well known, but culturally hidden power structures visible in some municipalities. Even thought political power has found some new ways to hide from women, this example demonstrates how there are potential conflicts embedded in the structures maintaining existing differences between dominant and subordinate groups within Nordic Model. Recognising new differences in terms of power and privilege within hierarchy of inequality generates alongside new conflicts (see Pincus 2006). Recognising new positions within education policy is another example of revising differences between social groups and individuals. Within education policy the changing patterns of difference penetrates the whole policy process from national planning to local implementation. Within Nordic Welfare Model comprehensive education and school for everyone has been one of the main instruments for producing national unity. Schools have been described as social melting pots where children from different backgrounds meet and work together (Arnesen & Lundahl 2006). The idea of melting pot stand for the very base of the education policy, which has been the aim for equal opportunities regardless of gender, social class, geographical background, religion, ethnicity or special needs. Within this framework the pupils positions are recognised on the base of national identity and collective values (Arnesen & Lundahl 2006; Antikainen 2006; Rinne et al. 2002). Comprehensive education produces citizens to develop society and contribute to equality and justice. Education serves collective needs. This does not indicate that there is no recognised difference between pupils and students. The aim is to overcome predefine differences by giving same opportunities for everyone. The education policy goal is to even up the differences between children and regions. Special support is targeted to those pupils, housing areas and municipalities with some kind of disadvantage. Principle of integration emphasise social rights of excluded groups such as pupils with disabilities. 21
During the 90s and afterwards the identification of differences within education policy has gone through complete transformation within Nordic countries. During that period individual needs have replaced collective need as the base for recognition. Individual ability or gift is used to identify differences between pupils. Ability as a form of difference and base of identity has polarised between two ends. There are those who are talented and those who have medical diagnosis for having a learning or social difficulty. These both cases recognise difference as individual character. These two identities, talented and with medical diagnosis, are not only distinguished from each others, but also from other pupils. Average pupils with unremarkable achievements and difficulties are quite invisible within education policy celebrating individualism. Average pupils represent masses which are difficult to connect with recognition based on individual ability. Education policy framed with individual differences embeds new diversity and opens up novel base for agency. New slogans like parental choice, choice and diversity (Andersson & Nilsson 2000) and free the lead (Rinne et al. 2002) address besides individual freedom and agency the need for diverse solutions on the base of individual needs and ability within comprehensive school system. At the same time children with disabilities face narrower recognition than before. Their needs are recognised through medical diagnosis and these diagnoses define their individual problems and individual treatment of these problems (see Arnesen & Lundahl 2006). Difference recognised on individual terms has redistributive effects in education policy field. Changing patterns of recognition changes also the patterns of redistribution. More resources are channelled for talented and less resources for average children or for those with non-diagnosis learning difficulties. In Finland, for instance, remedial teaching declined at the begging of 90s and has not risen after that (Rinne et al. 2002); extra help is given on the base of diagnosis because only in that case schools will have more funding (Arnesen & Lundahl 2006). Those who are better off do not get more resources because they receive extra funding, but because schools are segregating. For example in Sweden the increase of local responsibility within education policy and individual opportunities for school choice together with increased housing segregation has caused growing differences and divisions between schools (Arnesen & Lundahl 2006). Education as investments in the best (Rinne et 22