ABSTRACT

This argument can be made from (at least) two alternative perspectives between which a straightforward choice is diffi cult to make. On the one hand, one may assume that the evolving ideas about how social welfare should be provided are driving forces of institutional change; in this case, research on processes of collective sense-making elucidates the nature of these driving forces. On the other hand, institutional change may be seen as being infl icted by political or economic forces-triggering extrinsic cultural

change, in the wording suggested by Chapter Four. With the existence of a modern public sphere, however, such change is subject to processes of collective sense-making which are, at least partially, independent of these political and economic forces. Under this assumption, shedding light on processes of collective sense-making can provide answers to the question of how deeply engrained the newly introduced institutional patterns are in the mind-set of a national community. To put this another way: it can inform us about the sustainability of institutional change within a given welfare state.