Has the Competition among Professions in the Nordic Welfare States Intensified? A Danish Case

Has the competition among professions in the Nordic welfare states intensified in recent decades? Yes, and in a manner that has resulted in predictable classic struggles and conflicts among professions. We argue that the struggles and conflicts that arise translate into insufficient provision of welfare services for taxpayers’ money. To avoid this predicament, further developing co-operation among professions is important. Public managers, as argued in this article using a Danish case, play a significant role in achieving this. The Danish case studied shows how some public managers, in their efforts to create co-operation among professions, have developed a modern, dialogue-based management technique built on dialectical refutation, similar to Socratic elenchus.