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AC A D EM IC P ROG RAM
A SOCIALLY COHERENT SOCIETY:
PROSPECTS FOR SOCIETAL DEVELOPMENT
IN DENMARK AND THE NETHERLANDS
17 MARCH 2015
INTRODUCTION
Historically, Denmark and the Netherlands have both been successful
in establishing a socially coherent society. This is e.g. reflected in
high levels of subjective wellbeing, trust and social security. At this
academic event, leading Danish and Dutch social scientists discuss
how these qualities of Danish and Dutch societies are to be maintained
in the future.
The point of departure is that these qualities cannot be taken for
granted as both societies transform both demographically and socially.
The family structure gets more fragile and the populations get more
ethnically diverse in times in which our societies face the challenges
of maintaining a solid economy. At the symposium, the character, the
implications and the potential constructive reactions to these societal
developments will be discussed.
In the general sessions, leading academic scholars will present their
research on Denmark and the Netherlands. In the roundtable session,
participants will be invited to enter the discussions under the headings
of “Happiness and wellbeing – challenges and solutions”.
Their Majesties the King and Queen of the Netherlands as well as their
Royal Highnesses the Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Denmark
and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands will attend
selected sessions at the conference.
Finally, all participants are invited to take part in a reception hosted
by the Netherlands Embassy and Aalborg University following the
conference.
The symposium will be moderated by journalist and philosopher Stine
Jensen and Professor in Scandinavian Language and Culture Henk van
der Liet.
Venue: Aalborg University Copenhagen, A.C. Meyers Vænge 15,
Auditorium ACM15
WELCOME
9.00 - 9.30 Registration
9.30 - 9.40
Welcome by Dean Hanne Kathrine
Krogstrup, Faculty of Social Sciences, Aalborg University and Professor
Christian Albrekt Larsen, Centre for
Comparative Welfare Studies, Aalborg University
GENERAL SESSIONS
Theme I: Wellbeing and family: Demographic
changes and societal development in Denmark
and the Netherlands
9.40 - 10.00
Presentation 1
Gender, empowerment and politics:
Perspectives on Welfare and Democracy.
Professor Anette Borchorst, Center for
Comparative Welfare Studies, Aalborg
University
10.00 - 10.20 Presentation 2
Happy children and content women in
two almost similar welfare regimes.
Professor Trudie Knijn, Centre for Social
Policy and Intervention Studies,
Utrecht University
10.20 - 10.40
Break
10.40 - 11.00 Presentation 3
Time between job and care in Denmark
and the Netherlands - How
configurations of care policies shape
the patterns of informal care for
children and older people.
Professor Tine Rostgaard, Center for
Comparative Welfare Studies,
Aalborg University
11.00 - 11.30
Discussion theme I
11.30 - 12.20
Lunch break
Theme II: Happiness and safety: Trends in happiness and
wellbeing in Denmark and the Netherlands
12.20 - 12.40
Presentation 4
Happiness, social security and small
scale democracy in Denmark
Professor Jørgen Goul Andersen,
Center for Comparative Welfare
Studies, Aalborg University
12.40 - 13.00 Presentation 5 Why are the Danes happier than
the Dutch? Professor Ruut Veenhoven, Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Erasmus happiness Research Organization EHERO
13.00 - 13.30 Discussion theme II
13.30 - 13.40 Break
Theme III: Trust, solidarity and immigration: Building high
trust and solidarity in ethnic diverse societies
13.40 - 14.00
Presentation 6
Trust and solidarity in Denmark and the
challenge from migration
Professor Christian Albrekt Larsen,
Center for Comparative Welfare
Studies, Aalborg University
14.00 - 14.20 Presentation 7
Social trust, in-group solidarity and
out-group exclusion in the Netherlands:
cross-national and longitudinal
comparisons Professor Peer Scheepers, Radboud University Nijmegen
14.20 - 14.40 Seating for roundtable discussions
ROUNDTABLE SESSION
Introduction by Stine Jensen
Roundtable discussions
The Dutch and Danish societies on the move.
Summing up by Stine Jensen and Henk van der Liet
RECEPTION
16.10 - 17.00
Reception
ABOUT THE MODERATORS
Dr. Stine Jensen is a philosopher, writer,
journalist and TV program maker. She
has made a documentary series about
Scandinavia for Dutch television. One of
the documentaries focused specifically
on Denmark, the country where she was
born. She is also a writer of philosophical
and nonfiction books and regularly writes
opinion pieces for the Dutch newspaper NRC.
Prof. Dr. Henk van der Liet is a professor in
Scandinavian Languages and Culture at the
University of Amsterdam. He is also a board
member of University College Nordjylland
and a member of the Advisory Board of
the Faculty of Humanities of the University
of Copenhagen. Starting in 2012 and for a
4-year period, Henk van der Liet serves as
chairman of the Board of the Danish Writers
Academy in Copenhagen (Forfatterskolen).
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Jørgen Goul Andersen is a professor
at the Center for Comparative Welfare
Studies, Aalborg University. MSc Political
Science 1977, assistant/associate prof.
Pol.Science Aarhus 1977-1995; professor
of political sociology Aalborg since 1995
(professor of political science, Aarhus
University, 2009-2011). Co-directing the
Danish Power and Democracy Study
1998-2003. Jørgen Goul Andersen
has published intensively on the Danish and Nordic welfare states;
both on political, sociological and economic aspects. Jørgen Goul
Andersen has given academic consultancy to a large number of Danish
ministries and has been in the scientific advisory board for TrygFonden
(2008-present) and the Rockwool Foundation (1997-2010).
Anette Borchorst is a professor at the
Department of Political Science, Aalborg
University. Her research has focused
at gender relations and welfare states
in a Comparative Nordic and European
perspective, and she also works with the
impact of Europeanization on welfare
states. She is currently the director of
two research projects about gender and
politics that have obtained funding from
the VELUX and Carlsberg foundations.
The projects cover historical and recent developments in gender and
politics and policy, and they aim at perspectivizing the 100 years of
female suffrage in Denmark in June 2015.
Trudie Knijn graduated in sociology at the
University of Tilburg (1978) and worked
as a lecturer and junior researcher at the
department of Cultural Psychology of the
Radboud University (Nijmegen). She got her
PhD in 1988 on a study on ‘motherhood,
self-development and duty’. Since 1985
she works at Utrecht University, where she
became full professor of Interdisciplinar
Social Science in 2003. Currently she is head
of the Centre for Social Policy and Intervention Studies (SOPINS), cochair of the board of ESPAnet (since 2007) with Steffen Mau (University
of Bremen), and coordinator of the National Associations of ESPAnet.
She was one of the founders and researchers of the Netherlands Kinship
panel Study, member of the Executive committee of the FP6 Network
of Excellence Reconciling Work and Welfare (RECWOWE), and PI of the
research programme Pathways to Work. Currently she coordinates
master students projects of the Faculty of Social Science in South Africa,
visiting professor of the University of Johannesburg, and co-PI of the
Ndlovu Research Consortium. She is also member of the executive
committee of the FP7 research program bEUcitizen and PI of the ORA
research program ‘Governing new Social Risks’.
Christian Albrekt Larsen is a professor at
the Center for Comparative Welfare Studies
at Aalborg University, which he currently
coordinates (2014-2015). He has published
a number of books and articles primarily
about the Danish and Nordic welfare state.
One of his major research topics has been
public support for welfare policies in various
welfare regimes. In 2006 he published the
book “The institutional logic of welfare
attitudes: How welfare regimes influence public support” (Ashgate).
From 2009 to 2012 Christian continued this work in a comparative study
of the US, UK, Denmark and Sweden (financed by the Velux foundation).
In 2013 he published the book “The Rise and Fall of Social Cohesion.
Constructing and De-constructing Social Trust in the US, UK, Sweden
and Denmark” (Oxford University Press). From January 2015 Professor
Christian Albrekt Larsen is a member of the Danish National Research
Council for Social Science.
Tine Rostgaard is a professor in social
welfare analysis at the Center for Welfare
Studies (CCWS), at Aalborg University. Her
research contributions have mainly been to
the field of social care for children and
elderly, and more specifically to the
understanding of care regimes, family
obligations, welfare mix, consummerism in
care and quality in care. She has published
widely on family policsy, amongst other as
the co-editor of the books ‘Caring Fathers in the Nordic Welfare States
- Policies and Practices of Contemporary Fatherhoods’ and ‘Care
Between Work and Welfare in Europe’, and is presently editing a
Handbook in child and family policy for Elgar.
Peer Scheepers is a full professor of
comparative methodology and vice-dean at
the Faculty of Social Sciences at Radboud
University Nijmegen. He is member of the
Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences.
His scientific interests are to describe and
explain societal phenomena regarding
in-group solidarity and exclusion of outgroups from a longitudinal and/or crossnational perspective. He has conducted
survey research on these topics in the Netherlands as in Europe, as
a national coordinator of the European Social Survey, recently also in
south-east Asia. He has published intensely on these phenomena (>
350 contributions) in European Sociological Review, European Societies,
European Journal of Political Research, Social Science Research and
Social Indicators Research. His studies have been cited frequently (>5100
times, H index=37). According to Thomson Reuters’ citation index, he was
among the 1% most frequently cited scientists, worldwide, in the years
2000-2010, in the domain of general social sciences.
Professor Ruut Veenhoven studied
sociology. He is also accredited in social
psychology and social-sexology. Veenhoven
is emeritus professor of ‘social conditions
for human happiness’ at Erasmus University
Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where he is
currently involved in the Erasmus Happiness
Economics Research Organization.
Veenhoven is also a special professor at
North-West University in South Africa,
where he is involved in the Optentia research program. He is director of
the World Database of Happiness and founding editor of the Journal of
Happiness Studies.