‘Distributing Decline’: Swedish Social Democrats and the Crisis of the Welfare State

Abstract

IN SWEDEN, AS ELSEWHERE, ECONOMIC TRAUMA HAS BROUGHT the future of the welfare state onto the political agenda. The conjuncture at the end of the 1970s of a faltering economic performance together with an acute fiscal crisis has called into question the viability of welfare commitments. A widespread body of opinion sees the welfare state as a volume of expenditure which needs to be trimmed to accord with more limited economic means. Some argue more fundamentally that the welfare state, both as a fiscal burden and a set of values, contributed to the malaise of the economy and is an obstacle to its recovery. A feature of Swedish politics in the early 1980s has been the growth of electoral support for the Conservative Party which has introduced into public debate the ideas and idiom of neo-liberal political economy. The Conservatives have exploited a vein of unease extending across the political spectrum which has become concerned not only about the economic inefficiency of the welfare state, and the tax burden needed to maintain it, but also about the possibility that its institutions have limited rather than enhanced individual choices and freedoms.