The Redistributive Ethos in Crisis: Three Imaginaries Dismantling the Welfare State
Scholar in Residence Lecture Series 2026
The redistributive ethos that has underpinned the welfare state model appears to be in crisis. The political and fiscal pressures facing European welfare regimes signal not only strains in the capacity of those regimes to provide wellbeing but also a deeper rupture in their moral foundations. This lecture series examines public imaginaries and narratives that challenge some of the basic normative principles of the welfare state and, thus, its ability to redistribute resources.
By exploring three distinct yet intertwined narratives – those of family partiality, tribal belonging, and anti-universalist selectivism – the lectures in the series trace some of the cultural underpinnings behind the contemporary crisis of the welfare model and the parallel rise in economic inequality. They explore how these narratives circulate across society – in research interviews, parliamentary debates, the media, and popular culture. The empirical focus is on Finland – “the happiest country in the world” – where the political parties have recently agreed on a “debt brake,” aimed at cutting more than 10 percent of government spending.
Finally, the lecture series reflects on the importance of shared imaginaries for progressive and redistributive policies, asking how to cultivate ideals that build on impartiality and the equality of all, instead of familism, selectivism, and nationalism.
This series of lectures draws on Kuusela’s empirical work that has focused on economic elites and the cultural legitimization of private accumulated wealth in Finland. It builds on this recent research as well as on her two forthcoming monographs, Streaming Privilege: How Television Teaches us to Accept Inequality (Manchester University Press, 2026) and Rich Radicals: New Nordic Elites of Wealth and Power (together with Anu Kantola, De Gruyter, 2026).
Tuesday, May 5, 2026 | 4:30 pm
“The Undeserving Citizens”: Erosion of Universalism as the Normative Basis of the Welfare State
Universalism has been one of the key institutions of the welfare state, particularly in its Nordic form. Universal public services and relatively generous social security have been understood as societal equalizers – rational and efficient mechanisms for promoting safety, stability, social cohesion, and economic equality. The second lecture discusses the erosion of universalism as a guiding principle underlying the redistributive ethos. Drawing on interview studies with wealthy individuals in Finland, it explores the gradual and uneven erosion of the universalist ethos vis-à-vis different public services and policies. Focusing on so-called welfare profit-makers – actors who have economically benefited from the marketization of the welfare state – the lecture examines how the wealthy engage in moral boundary work, distinguishing between deserving and undeserving groups and between legitimate and illegitimate forms of welfare provision. In doing so, it asks what becomes of the redistributive ethos when universalism – and the rationality of the risk-bearing system – is increasingly replaced by selective and conditional moral frameworks.
Tuesday, May 26, 2026 | 4:30 pm
“The Good Domestic Owner”: Group Logics and Tribalism as Substitutes for the Critique of Inequality
As far-right and anti-immigrant populism gains ground across liberal democracies, the critique of economic inequality has increasingly been displaced by boundary-drawing along ethnic and national lines. The first lecture examines this shift by tracing the rise of the “good domestic owner” as a key cultural figure legitimizing the new era of wealth accumulation in Finland. Analyzing the changing terms of debate in the Finnish parliament and business media since the deregulation of capital flows in the 1980s, the lecture demonstrates how systemic critique of capitalism has gradually given way to nationalistic and tribalist group logics that celebrate domestic ownership and capital. In this emerging imaginary, the domestic wealthy are symbolically admired and often granted policy advantages, while criticism is redirected toward foreign capital and global financial flows. The result is not the disappearance of critique, but its reorientation: Inequality becomes reframed through the lens of belonging rather than class.
Tuesday, June 2, 2026 | 4:30 pm
“Family First” – Family Partiality as an Obstacle to More Equal Redistribution
With the “great wealth transfer” ahead, the rise of “inheritocracy” and patrimonial forms of capitalism appear increasingly likely unless new policies are introduced. The third and final lecture explores the contemporary (neo-)familistic turn and the re-familization of the economy, treating the family as a central moral institution that may constrain more equal redistribution of wealth and resources. Drawing on research on wealthy families in Finland, philanthropic donors, and contemporary popular culture, the lecture shows how family loyalties are returning as a legitimate moral foundation of the economy. It asks whether the egalitarian ideals that have historically guided welfare states are now being replaced with familistic ideologies – ideologies that marginalize structural questions of inequality because addressing them would require the needs of the most disadvantaged to be placed above those of one’s own immediate family.