Suchergebnisse

This chapter investigates transnational solidarity action across the fields of unemployment, disability and immigration in Denmark. It discusses how solidarity is manifested and organised by civil society, focusing on 30 qualitative interviews conducted with the so-called transnational solidarity organisations (TSOs). The chapter explores solidarity challenges that Danish TSOs were facing in the context of the welfare retrenchment and the structural reform in 2007, as well as the 2008 financial crisis and the migration crisis of 2015. Our interviews confirm that the effects of the financial crisis, austerity measures and the migration crisis were not easy to separate from the welfare retrenchment in the Danish system. These recent changes to the welfare state have been experienced as dramatic as they have loosened the traditionally close ties between the Danish civil society and municipalities in providing welfare services. The voluntary sector has, in response, become more political, not only providing services to affected groups but also increasingly seeking to defend their social rights, as well as entering into conflict with the government.

Over the last decade, the unprecedented influx of refugees and migrants into the European Union has posed a significant challenge to Europe, with solidarity being contested at two fronts: first, the question of solidarity with refugees in terms of meeting adequate measures of protection and satisfying their elementary needs; and second, the question of solidarity within the European Union in terms of sharing the costs and burden of hosting these refugees among the member states. One driving factor of these contestations is that the solidarity challenge in facing the 'refugee crisis' is taken up differently in transit countries in the South of Europe and destination countries in the North. Wishing to shed light on how national contexts impact transnational solidarity organising, we draw on a fresh set of cross-national evidence from a random sample of 277 transnational solidarity organisations (TSOs) in Greece, Germany, and Denmark. The aim is to illustrate the effects of political opportunities and threats during the 2007–2016 crises period on migration-related solidarity activities organised by TSOs. We will do so through tri-national comparisons tracing migration-related TSO patterns across time. The data used is produced in the context of the TRANSSOL project by a new methodological approach (action organisation analysis) based on hubs-retrieved organisational websites and their subsequent content analysis.