JUST SOCIETY webinar series ‘Critical perspectives on the Nordic Model’: Taxation

JUST SOCIETY webinar series ‘Critical perspectives on the Nordic Model’: Taxation

The ‘Nordic model’ captures an encompassing and redistributive welfare system based on free market capitalism, rule of law, inclusive participation, and a strong state. A distinctive trait of the Nordic model is the achievement of universal access to social security policies and equal access to justice. The Nordic model has been glorified with Francis Fukuyama suggesting that all countries should be like ‘Denmark’. However, is all well with the Nordic model? And what would be the relevance of the Nordic experiences to countries in the Global South?

In its webinars, JUST SOCIETY opens for a discussion on these questions and for critical investigations into different aspects of the Nordic model. The webinars facilitate an interdisciplinary and intercontinental dialogue between legal and social science experts on the Nordic model and experts from selected Global South countries.

JUST SOCIETY’s next webinar will be on

Taxation in the Nordic Model

This webinar nuances the often-assumed role of taxation in the Nordic welfare states as highly redistributive based on a solidarity principle. It will discuss implications of recent decades’ tax reforms in the Nordic countries for inequalities and whether these experiences are relevant for the Global South.

The webinar will feature two presentations:

Professor of Tax Law, Åsa Gunnarsson will discuss recent decades’ changes to Swedish and Nordic tax systems and their impact on inequalities and draw lines from here to the SDGs and a human rights perspective.

Professor of Political Science, Michael Baggesen Klitgaard will, based on an overview of who pays how much and who gets what in Denmark, argue that the Danish system is perhaps not a highly redistributive Robin Hood-type model as often assumed.

In reaction to the two presentations, Dr. Anup Pujari, Professor of Public Policy and former Secretary to Government of India, together with Sony Pellissery, Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy (CSSEIP), both from National Law School of India University, Bangalore will provide comparative perspectives from India and discuss the relevance of the Nordic experiences for India.

The webinar will be chaired by Ane Karoline Bak, Assistant Professor at the Danish Centre for Welfare Studies (DaWS), Department of Political Science and Public Administration, University of Southern Denmark.

Find more information and register here.