2013-04-04 02:34:33
Sino-Nordic Welfare Research Network Presenting PhD Course 2013 ---- Call for Papers
Analyzing Welfare Institutions, Policies and Politics in China and the Nordic Countries
Venue: Nordic Centre, Fudan University, Shanghai, P.R.C
Date: 17-21 October 2013
Aim: Welfare is in high demand all over the world but different nation states have different institutional social policy archi
tectures. The Nordic countries have gained world-wide attention as representing a special kind of “welfare model” based on a long historical development, and characterized by highly developed social services, tax financing and redistribution, universalism and gender equality. Over the last decades the Nordic welfare states have undergone a number of reforms in order to deal with the challenges of globalization, immigration and demographic change. China has in historical and comparative terms experienced a process of rapid economic and social development over the last three decades. Several hundred million people have been lifted out of extreme poverty, but a so-called floating population of around 250 million people migrating from cities to urban areas, generally with little or no social rights, create an unprecedented social challenge. Many social policies have been introduced since the mid-1990s, and the Chinese Communist Party and the government have formulated and elaborated a vision of a “harmonious society”(xiaokang shehui), with nationwide welfare programs for health care and pensions stipulated to be in place by 2020.
Welfare states have and can be studied from a number of theoretical and methodological approaches, with various chronological perspectives and with a focus on different empirical phenomena. With this PhD course it is our aim to stimulate cross-disciplinary and multi-perspective discussions and we welcome contributions from political science, sociology, history, social policy, economics, demography as well as other relevant disciplines. Our aim is to bring together PhD- students from China and the Nordic countries from different disciplines and stimulate a discussion that will challenge and maybe bring us beyond well established concepts and understandings.
The Teachers:
Professor Stein Kuhnle - Hertie School of Governance & University of Bergen
Professor Pauli Kettunen - University of Helsinki
Docent Åsa Lundqvist - Lund University
Professor Klaus Petersen - University of Southern Denmark
Associate Professor Ann-Zofie Duvander - Stockholm University
Professor Peng Xizhe, Professor Ren Yuan & Professor Fu Hua - Fudan University
Professor Xiong Yuegen - Peking University
Professor Wang Zhikai & professor Lin Ka - Zhejiang University
Professor Kinglun Ngok - Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou
Reading:
The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State; Francis G. Castles, Stephan Leibfried, Jane Lewis, Herbert Obinger and Christopher Pierson (eds) (Oxford: OUP, 2010; paperback edition 2012, 876 pages);
Social Policy in China; Chak Kwan Chan, King Lun Ngok, and David Phillips, (Bristol: Policy Press, 234 pages).
The books will be made available for admitted students. In addition, articles on demographic developments will be made available.
The Format:
The course will mix lectures by senior scholars from both China and the Nordic countries and presentation of papers by PhD-students. The teachers will give lectures on theoretical and methodological topics such as historical institutionalism, comparative welfare state studies, transnational perspectives, key concepts, gender and the welfare state, the politics of welfare state reforms, explaining the historical development of welfare states, and demography. Participating PhD-students are expected to present a paper and to participate actively in the discussions.
Practicalities:
The course is organized by the SNOW-network and is financed by NordForsk and the Nordic Council of Ministers. We will cover accommodation (for a maximum period of 16 October to 23 October) and meals in Shanghai. Students are expected to finance their own travel costs through their home institution.
For PhD-students without funding from home institutions there will be a limited number of travel grants (500 Euro for Nordic Students and 100 Euro for Chinese students).
Certificates and credits:
Each student will be certified by their home institution based on the diploma written by the main organizer and the Nordic Centre. By European standards, the course is estimated to give 7,5 ECTS credits.
Organizing Committee:
The course is organized by the SNoW-network in cooperation with the Nordic Centre at Fudan University. The Organizing Committee consists of: Stein Kuhnle (University of Bergen), Ren Yuan (Fudan University) and Freya Gao (Nordic Centre, Fudan University).
How to apply for participation?
If you want to participate in the PhD-course please send an abstract (1 page outline of the paper you want to present) as well as a short bio (1 page with name, title of PhD-project, affiliation, name of supervisor(s), discipline and contact details) to Freya Gao at the Nordic Centre, Fudan University:
[email protected] no later than 10 June 2013
Within four weeks you will be informed if you have been accepted or not. The maximum number of partly funded (see above) participants is 20, an additionally 5 students can be admitted at own cost. The full paper must be sent to the organizers one month before the course.
Workshop on Welfare Research
On 22 October 2013, following the PhD course, a one-day workshop on Welfare Research in China and the Nordic Countries: The State of the Art will be organized at the Nordic Centre, and will be open for PhD students to attend.
If interested: please contact [email protected]
