Collective Organizing and Claim Making on Child Care in Norden: Blurring the Boundaries between the Inside and the Outside

This article relates the development of Nordic child care policies to women's collective mobilization and claim making. The impact of Nordic women's actions and organizing in the making of welfare policies is highlighted through an examination of child care and parental policy reforms in recent decades, including the issue of institutional day care versus care allowances to support the home care of children and the issue of paternal quotas in parental leave schemes. Child care policies are analyzed as an example of how the broad variety of women's wishes and needs is reflected in collective claim making and organizing. The experience from the Nordic region shows that the state and the public apparatus are important arenas for feminist strategies, negotiations, and coalition building. Women's movements and other forms of collective activism constitute important actors that can operate within and through the state. Thus the boundaries between organizing on the "inside" and the "outside" of the state are blurred.