FLEXICURITY WITHOUT SECURITY An Inquiry into the Danish Flexicurity Model in a Neoliberal Era

Abstract

The Danish flexicurity model is widely acknowledged and even advocated by the European Commission as a measure to achieve economic progress without compromising basic social conditions. It is therefore paradoxical that over the past decades the security component of the flexicurity model has faced steady retrenchments, jeopardizing its overall balance. The article applies a historical approach to understanding the transformation that has given way to a weakened position of workers in society, and asserts that the changes of the flexicurity model have been conditioned by the disappearance of the view of the “working class” as a potential threat to societal peace – a change closely connected to the waning of an alternative to capitalism and the related opportunityfor a spread of neoliberal political economy.