Nordic Welfare and U.S. Employment Policy: Public Policies that Reflect Equality as a Normative Political Value

Kvist, Jon, Johan Fritzell, Bjørn Hvinden, and Olli Kangas. 2012. Changing Social Equality, The Nordic Welfare Model in the 21st Century. Bristol, UK: The Policy Press, University of Bristol.Stainback, Kevin, and Donald Tomaskovic-Devey. 2012.

Documenting Desegregation, Racial and Gender Segregation in Private-Sector Employment since the Civil Rights Act. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Two recent books examine Nordic welfare and U.S. employment policies from a historical perspective, asking how these public policies have changed over time, assessing their current status, and considering their likely futures. In Changing Social Equality, The Nordic Welfare Model in the 21st Century, Kvistand others (2012) examine the ways equality characterizes Nordic countries and how this has changed over the last three decades, within and among Nordic countries and also as compared with non-Nordic countries. In Documenting Desegregation, Racial and Gender Segregation in Private-Sector Employment since the Civil Rights Act, Stainback and Tomaskovic-Devey (2012) trace U.S.private workplace integration from the 1960s to 2005.At first glance, these two works appear to have little in common.

Here they are considered as examples of public policies that reflect normative political values, and the contributions of their differing methodologies to the accelerating trend of cross-national comparative analysis are examined. The value of the research reported in each work to academic and practitioner communities is also considered.