The political plot in TV series The Killing could be interpreted as a modern confirmation of Prince Hamlet’s statement that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark”.
But things have changed since Hamlet’s days – Denmark has become a welfare state. As in most European countries the social security system has developed over decades and features a mixture of principles, institutions and policies that one probably has to be Danish to really understand.
Most schemes and services cover the whole population.
Full employment and promotion of equality are the most prominent policy goals.
The system is directed towards individual citizens and not families.
Benefits are not related to previous labour market performance.
There is a strong emphasis on social investment strategies preventing social problems.
Many services are delivered by local authorities.
The system is financed mainly through general taxation.
It was only in the 1960s that the Danish welfare state was fully realised.
On the one hand, this unprecedented welfare expansion was tremendously popular. The Danish welfare model had, and still has, a broad popular support in the Danish electorate. Politicians pursuing retrenchment strategies take high electoral risks.
On the other hand, the financial sustainability of the comprehensive Danish welfare state has been on the political agenda since the early 1970s.
Even though the basic principles are still visible there has been incremental change, with ideas such as make work pay, workfare, new public management, free choice and contracting-out getting a foothold.
The Danish old-age pension system today combines a universal flat-rate and partly means-tested pension with comprehensive defined contribution schemes organised along occupational lines and with private individual savings.
Coupled with extensive home care for the elderly this provides the model for senior citizens.
For those of working age the “flexicurity model” denotes lax employment protection and thus flexibility in the labour market working in tandem with social security as unemployment insurance that is combined with strict claimant obligations and encompassing active labour market policies.
But the most distinct part is most likely the existence of almost universal childcare offered at affordable prices, enabling all families to reconcile work and family life regardless of whether they have low or high incomes.
The recent economic crisis has not left the Danish welfare state unharmed.
Unemployment benefit periods have been halved from four to two years, and the public sector has been downsized because of budget freezes in local authorities.
But when compared to draconian measures in many other European countries, these cuts seem a small price to pay.
The explanations are two-fold.
First, the Danish economy was in a comparatively good state entering the crisis. In part this was due to the second factor, namely a high number of reforms, especially in the 1990s leading to the multi-pillar pension model and the “flexicurity” labour market model. Because models are often selected on the basis of their looks it may come as little surprise that the Scots are looking to Denmark and other Nordic countries for inspiration.
But is this model exportable? Of course no model developed over a century can be imported into another historical context lock, stock and barrel, but there might be some elements that are properly adapted to the Scottish context.
Scots need not fear that something will become rotten if they import something from Hamlet’s Denmark.