PUBLICATIONS
THE CHANGING FACES OF THE MODERN STATE
with Johannes Lindvall, forthcoming in Governance
This paper describes the changing nature of the English and Swedish states between 1800 and 2020 from the perspective of ordinary citizens. We find that the poor became objects of government policy much earlier than other groups, but they also remained in a world of parochial poor relief even as the middle and the rich began to interact with a more functionally differentiated, professional bureaucracy. These findings have implications for scholarly debates on when the state began to interact directly with the civilian masses and the unevenness of state activities and capacities within countries.
AFTER ASYLUMS AND ORPHANAGES
Doctoral dissertation
My doctoral dissertation investigates variation in the types of care policies that replaced asylums and orphanages: the state, the market, the family, or voluntary providers. I show that these choices were decisively shaped by partisan conflict, not only over redistribution, but also over how society should be organised: around individuals or families. I contribute to theoretical debates in comparative politics about the dimensionality of party competition and how partisanship shapes welfare policy over time.
