Bøger af Niels Jul Nielsen

Arbejderbevægelsen har sat et markant præg på udviklingen af den danske velfærdsstat gennem 1900-tallet. Et almindeligt synspunkt er, at en stærk fagbevægelse og et toneangivende Socialdemokrati nedefra - ud fra en ideologi om en forbedring af forholdene for den jævne befolkning - har tilkæmpet sig stor indflydelse på det danske samfunds indretning.Mellem storpolitik og værkstedsgulv vender denne sammenhæng på hovedet og spørger: I hvilken forstand har det udenrigspolitiske klima, som den danske stat har skullet overleve i, sat dagsordenen og etableret særlige vilkår for den lønarbejdende del af befolkningen og dens politiske repræsentanter? Og hvilken rolle er den jævne arbejder blevet tildelt i denne historie?Gennem et nærbillede af Danmarks mest karakteristiske - og politisk iscenesatte - virksomhed Burmeister & Wain undersøges sammenhængen mellem skiftende storpolitiske dagsordener og menige arbejderes dagligdag og arbejdsvilkår. Vanskelighederne med at få skabt sammenhæng mellem arbejderbevægelsens top og arbejderen på den enkelte virksomhed udforskes gennem syv årtier: Fra 1930erne og frem til i dag.

Why is the world order always under transformation? Life-Modes in a Changing World Order describes how the formation of people’s distinct cultural life-modes and the states’ distinct defence modes contribute to the continuous and uneven transformation of the state system.Elaborating the concept of ‘neoculturation’, this work analyses how people strive to sustain, improve, and defend the conditions of existence of their own life-modes – with the unintended result that these modes are changing. It scrutinises how, when, and why the neoculturation of each life-mode is also changing the conditions of existence for the other life-modes with which it coexists – and the society these form together. The neoculturation concept is part of a theory on how struggles for recognition at the global level splits into self-defending states whose cultural modes of life condition each other. This fission theory – in critical dialogue with other classical and contemporary theories of culture and society – aims to explain why the formation of state forms constantly develops and dissolves into interdependent socio-cultural wholes of necessary life-modes. To do this, Life-modes in a Changing World Order elaborates the concepts of state, mode of production, and culture in analyses based on comprehensive ethnographic description and ethnological explanation of how modes of life are changing. Fieldwork has been conducted in Denmark and China providing insights into people’s contrasting ideas of what makes up ‘the good life’: The good family life, the good professional life, the good community, the good society.Life-Modes in a Changing World Order demonstrates how and explains why peoples’ life-modes have been changing from the cold war, high modernity period of the 20th century to the 21st century characterized by neoliberal political economy, great power rivalry and the global challenges of rising inequality, climate change and biodiversity loss.