Public Administration

Public Administration

Public Administration

Introduction

The world is now a global village, and all the activities and happenings taking place in one part of the world undoubtedly spread to other parts of the world, which either receive appreciation or condemnation by the others. Same is the case with social democracy and the social democratic welfare models—these were adopted by some countries the other got to know about them, and adopted a few while rejected the others. The adoption and rejection depend how much these models suit the requirements and demands of that particular state—if methods developed in Britain is suitable for implementation in India, it would be adopted by the Indian people or would be rejected if it does not suit the requirements of the Indian people.

Likewise, the social democratic model of welfare adopted by the Nordic countries has gained immense popularity and appreciation because it suits the requirement of most of the developing countries. It is due to the same reason, that the Nordic welfare system has come to be known as the universal system of development, as it fits perfectly well in the majority of states, and suits the conditions prevailing in almost all of the developing countries. The following paragraphs shed light on the importance and most significant points of the Nordic model of social welfare:

The social democratic model of welfare

Social democracy is the universally accepted and most widely used reformist egalitarian, socialist political ideology, which got accepted and implemented in a number of states. This ideology supports the legal requirements for granted civil access to public services, including workers' compensations, health care facilities, education, child care services and health care services for the elderly individuals.

Social democracy traces back to the trade union labor movement, which succeeded in gaining collective bargaining rights for the workers, who had no rights before the movement. History is full of incidences and movements that started to bring equality and justice to the society and ensure equal distribution of wealth and resources in the society, and also to ensure that everyone gets paid according to the effort he puts in, and not less than that (Pierson, 2001, Pp: 25). With the passage of time, the mode and method of protesting against unequal distribution of resources has changed, and the contemporary social democrats talk about elimination of discrimination on the basis of ability/ disability, age, class, language, ethnicity, gender, religion, race and the sexual orientation. The discriminations are causing a number of pressing issues in almost all parts of the world and thus need to be eliminated.

The concept of social democracy was introduced by the revolutionist Marxist Eduard Bernstein, who was a strong opponent of the orthodox Marxism and supported evolution against revolution. He believed that changes can be bought in the society by bringing about slow and steady changes as against revolution, and the representative democracy can be used to support cooperation between various classes of society. Bernstein proposed his personal version of social development and claimed that private enterprise cannot be achieved before going ...