With the implementation of ‘the Swedish model’ and the new Rehn-Meidner-system, active labor marketpolicies became an important part of Swedish social democracy in the 1950-and 60s. With the term ‘active’ onerefers to direct methods of improving labor market conditions funded by the state, such as education and supportof the unemployed. In contrast, passive labor market policies only refer to state funded allowances. With acontinued rise of interest regarding these policies, this study aims to investigate and map out the politicalattitude of three Swedish parties regarding their own labor market policies. These are then compared to theviews of the traditional labor market policies, which presents us with interesting similarities and differences.The parties which are treated in this research are the Social Democrats, the Centre Party and the Moderate Party.In order to analyze how these parties actively frame their preferred policies, this study develops an appliancebased on the principles of framing as a rhetorical method, which then is used to analyze three kinds of officialtexts published by the parties themselves. One then finds that while the Social Democrats share a lot ofimportant similarities to their traditional values, some interesting differences appear regarding the importance ofnational businesses and entrepreneurship. Moreover, the Centre Party proves to have some important values incommon with the reference point, although it pushes more policies in line with economic liberalism whichwould prefer less involvement from the state. Lastly, the Moderate Party proves its liberal-conservative core as itgoes against most active labor market propositions. This study therefore concludes that, while there are sometraces of tradition left, Swedish labor market policy seems to be affected by a more liberal view of the marketand its actors.

This thesis paper is a historical study that examines the labor political issues which the movement of Swedish trade unions faced between the years 1966–1985. How did they understand and formulate these problems and what solutions did they present? “The good work” (“Det goda arbetet”) was one such solution which was introduced in 1985 by The Union of Industrial Metalworkers (Metallindustriarbetareförbundet). This thesis explores the underlying ideas and the history behind this visionary program and how it took inspiration from the ideological developments of the previous decades. This is done by analysing four conference reports published in association with yearly union conferences between 1966 and 1985. These reports center around themes of technological development, working conditions, worker power and self determination to name a few.  The analysis focuses on the labor political issues that arose after the establishment of the “Swedish model” and the post-war era economic boom. One of the major ideological developments during the 1960s was the backlash against the fordist model of production and the critique of rationalisation of work in general. This is shown to be one the major shifts in thinking about work which leads towards the development of solutions such as “The good work” during the 1970s and 80s. Furthermore, it is shown how “The good work” was linked historically to alienation theory and sociological research during the period. The key conclusions from the analysis focus on how worker discontent during the late 1960s led to massive labor political reforms during the 1970s along with the larger project of democratising the workplace gaining new life. This development, however, took a turn in 1976 when the social democratic party lost their first election in nearly 40 years. The analysis of the report by The Union of Industrial Metalworkers from 1985 shows the vision of “The good work” as they formulated it to be stuck between two separate eras. On the one hand it was still in conversation with the left-wing project of advancing labor power and democracy from the 1970s. On the other it had to confront the new political landscape of the 1980s and the right-wing turn towards neoliberalism.