Why Do We Expect More from Politics at a time when it is supposedly able to do less? : Comparing interwar crisis economics and post-war welfare politics

• Looming crisis, public discontent with privatization, and widening inequalities are factors which have historically set the electorate in favour of social democratic welfare policies. Today,however, these concerns rather appear to support new right-wing populist countermovements, even in the traditionally progressive Nordic countries. This article asks why thereis not more explicit support of progressive policies, despite the presence of socio-economicfactors which would normally favour such a policy shift, at least not just yet. In response to this query, the article first analyses the comparisons between the present crisis and the crisisof the 1930s with regard to alleged political inertia. It then reinterprets the contemporarypolitical consequences of crisis by revisiting three classical social theorists who took pains atanalysing the political responses to the economic crisis of the 1930s: Karl Popper, Gunnar Myrdal, and Karl Polanyi. On the basis of this revisitation of these three classics, the articleargues that the combined eff ects of distrust in politics and the persistence of admittedly rolled-back welfare systems mutes the progressive reform potential of the present crisis.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Statsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Political Science (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

crisis economics

welfare politics

open society

social engineering

double movement

Östersjö- och Östeuropaforskning

Baltic and East European studies

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)