Neo-liberalization of Social Democracy: The Swedish Case

Abstract

If we are to understand the manner in which social democracy has been integrated into the contemporary neo-liberal hegemony, we should develop a better understanding of what an idea is. In particular, the article points to the significance of the distinction between ideational form — which here is understood in terms of Foucault's concept of episteme — and the ideational content of policy. Analysing the critical case of Sweden, the paper demonstrates how changes in the episteme within the ‘Keynesian golden age’ itself are crucial for understanding the receptivity of Swedish social democratic economic state managers to neo-liberalism and the marginalization of collective capital formation alternatives. This suggests that it might be worthwhile to reconsider Poulantzas conception of the ‘institutional materiality of the state’.