The financialisation of social welfare. The role of credit and financial counselling for social inclusion and exclusion.

This project is based on the idea that the liberalisation of people's access to credit fundamentally changed the way social welfare and risks are produced and distributed. The overall research question is how well individual households are protected against financial risks within the frameworks of the contemporary Norwegian welfare state. The analysis is carried out in three steps. Firstly, the institutionalisation of financial counselling is addressed. The main focus is on social inclusion and exclusion mechanisms, including the emergence of market-based welfare regimes, the formal regulation of financial counselling within such frameworks and individual-level self-governance for taking on risks. Secondly, the financial counselling service itself is studied in detail. Here, the main focus is on financial advice before loans are taken out and money advice after payment problems have occurred, and the interrelationship between the two types of counselling. Thirdly, the project looks at implications and pot entials for improving existing practices. This is a comparative study of financial counselling in Norway, Denmark and UK. The main focus of the study is the case of Norway. The comparative design implies to compare existing types of services within this case. It further implies to compare the Norwegian service provision with those of Denmark and the UK in order to learn from the differences and generate new knowledge about the workings of the Norwegian context. This raises the need for a multimethodological approach using qualitative and quantitative techniques based on a variety of data sources, partly found in existing registries, including historical data; political debates; existing research; registry data provided by debt collectors and The Norwegi an State Housing Bank; interviews with key informants in the political and administrative system; surveys among advisors in banks, local NAV directors and users of financial counselling in the municipalities.