The changing conditions for social resilience – Sino-Nordic perspectives on social policy

Venue: The Nordic Centre, Fudan University, Shanghai.

Time: Tuesday, 19 October 2021, 9 – 12 am (CET). Day two of Nordic Centre 25-year anniversary celebration

Session conveners:

Rune Halvorsen, Oslo Metropolitan University and
Stein Kuhnle, University of Bergen

Presentations:

Yuan Ren, Fudan University School of Social Development and Public Policy
“Social Resilience Building in the Post-Pandemic Era”

Ivan Harsløf, Dag Jenssen, and Simon Innvær, Department of Social Work, Child Welfare and Social Policy, Oslo Metropolitan University
“Knowledge for social citizenship: An interview study among social workers employed throughout the Norwegian welfare society”

Ijin Hong and Yapeng Zhu, School of Government, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou)
“Addressing the new demand for care needs in industrialised China: The pioneering experience of the South Guangdong Housemaking Project”

Tianmeng Sun, Nanjing University, Minna van Gerven, University of Helsinki, and Zheng Xin, Nanjing University
“Including the excluded: Digital inclusion policies of the elderly in China and Finland”

Pan Yi, Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
“Social governance and social mobilization of China”

Biao He and Rune Halvorsen, Oslo Metropolitan University: Policy learning and path dependencies in Chinese disability policy: Socialist market economy meeting an international rights regime

Original call for abstracts:

Ongoing economic, political, social and ecological changes call for a new, dynamic and multifaceted understanding of how public authorities may foster citizens’, citizen groups’ and nations’ social resilience; i.e. their “capacity to sustain and advance their well-being in face of challenges to it” (Hall and Lamont 2013). The question involves a broad range of actors, at different levels of governance (global, national, regional and local governments), and across sectors of society (public agencies, market actors, civil society and families).

Chinese and Nordic governments have articulated various normative aspirations to achieve a sustainable social model, economic growth, and social cohesion. However, the countries face a number of structural changes they have to take into account: demographic aging, digitalization of the economy and social services, stronger global interdependencies (migration, transnational enterprises, off-shoring of production), global warming, pollution, and urbanization. Shifting balances in power between the supranational, national, regional and local level of governance affect how social policies are deliberated and implemented. Social policies are increasingly negotiated in a global and multilevel governance system.

The processes have relocated local life chances and job opportunities. However, the effects are asymmetrical in terms of who benefit from such structural changes and where these processes have aggravated significant increases in risks of social inequalities, poverty or social exclusion.

The workshop welcomes presentations that address structural changes as drivers of social policy reforms and/or examine the consequences of reforms in national and/or supranational social policies with consequences for social inequalities, risks of poverty and social exclusion in China and/or the Nordic countries. The presentations may address one or more policy areas and interactions between different governance levels and/or actors in different sectors of society. Cross-national comparative presentations are particularly welcome. Theoretical and conceptual presentations are also welcome.