To attract especially foreign students we are making mini profiles of lecturers on the new IPAP master. Please spread the word about the new education.
Five questions to Professor Jon Kvist
1. Who are you?
I have a PhD in comparative social policy and worked for many years for an applied research institute, SFI – The Danish National Institute for Social Research and lately five years at the Centre for Welfare State in Odense. In 2014 I switched to RUC to work with IPAP students. This has proven great fun.
2. Why are you interested in International Public Administration and Politics?
As I am no Robin Hood nor have the skills or endurance to last a lifelong career as doctor or social worker I opted for a desk job. By chance it became as social researcher and I like my job as much as when I started. I hope that one or more of my students will be able to change the world, that would not be bad.
3. What will you teach and supervise?
International Political Economy; labour market policy, social policy, tax policy, family policies etc; social and economic dimensions of welfare; demography; EU and much more. And together with Caroline de la Porte, I will take the students to Brussels for a week-long tour to institutions sponsored by the European Communities.
4. What are your research interests?
Welfare and well-being; challenges to welfare societies; inequality; comparative political economy and political sociology; reforms of labor markets and of social and tax policies
5. What are the main challenges for welfare societies?
The world gets smaller and more complex in demographic terms. Globalisation and the EU increasingly influence national welfare states, often in indirect but profound ways. Populations are aging and becoming more multi-cultural just as family types of families. Qualifications increase everywhere, especially women get higher educations. This give promise of more equal societies in the future but also calls for major overhauls of public policies, norms and institutions. And this is where the students of the new IPAP master come into the picture as actors, analysts or architects of tomorrow societies:)
For profiles of my good colleagues check out the IPAP facebook homepage.
Jon Kvist 