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Danish Center for Welfare Studies

The Politics of Insecurity (POINS)

We live in an age of insecurity. The core-group POINS wants to know how citizens’ rising subjective insecurity is reflected in social welfare and criminal justice policymaking. 1) How does insecurity affect citizens’ policy attitudes? 2) When and how do political parties respond to insecurity? And, finally, 3) how does insecurity influence policy reforms? The project works with two opposing scenarios: On the one hand, parties and policymakers might respond with more protection, in the form of social welfare or effective crime prevention. On the other hand, exclusion and harsh punishment of outgroups and marginalized populations could be the result. These alternative dynamics will be systematically analyzed by an interdisciplinary team using both quantitative and qualitative methods and data from Denmark and a sample of EU and OECD countries. An Outreach Group with members of civil society will develop concrete policy proposals.

This project is funded by the VELUX foundation and will run from 2020 to 2023.

Project Leader: Peter Starke

Researchers:
Laust Lund Elbek
Queralt Tornafoch Chirveches

Collaborators:
Georg Wenzelburger, TU Kaiserslautern 
Marianne S. Ulriksen, SDU 
Paul Marx, University of Duisburg-Essen 
Vibeke Normann Andersen, CEO, Socialt Udviklingscenter SUS 

Last Updated 15.03.2024