<p>Mellan år 1984-2000 ökade andelen aktieägare bland Sveriges befolkning markant, från 29 till 80 %, för att mellan år 2000 och 2008 ligga stabilt runt 80 %. Då allt fler får sin inkomst från kapital och inte endast från arbete borde detta leda till nya normativa föreställningar kring välfärdsstatens utformning och finansiering. Studien jämför kvantitativa studier kring utbredningen av aktieägandet och attityder till välfärdsstatens institutioner och premisser mellan åren 1984-2008. Med aktieägande avses en inkluderande definition av både direkt ägande av enskilda aktieposter samt innehav av fondandelar, såsom pensionsfonder. Studiens primära hypotes är att ökat aktieägande leder till mer negativa attityder till välfärdsstaten. Därtill antas fusket inom välfärdssektorerna öka samt misstänksamheten om fusk tillta medan klasskillnader inom åsikter rörande välfärdsstaten förväntas minska. Centrala teoretiska utgångspunkter är reciprocitet, moralisk ekonomi, historisk institutionalism och spårberoende. Det alltmer utbredda aktieägande liknas vid processer i riktning mot ett massinvesteringssamhälle där vardagen tenderar att finansialiseras alltmer. Studiens resultat ger inget stöd för hypoteserna. Stödet för välfärdsstaten verkar inte ha förändrats nämnvärt under undersökningsperioden. Inte heller verkar klasskillnaderna i åsikter kring välfärdsstaten, fusket inom välfärdssektorerna samt misstänksamheten om fuskets utbreddhet ha förändrats nämnvärt. Dessa resultat beror troligen på flera orsaker. Bland annat tenderar aktieägandet att vara mycket ojämnt fördelat bland Sveriges befolkning.</p> / <p>Between the years 1984-2000 it became increasingly common to own stocks in Sweden. Among the whole population stock ownership increased from 29 to 80 % until year 2000, and was thereafter around 80 % until present day, 2008. As more people receive disposable income not only from labour, but also from capital, their attitudes regarding how the welfare state should be financed and organized, should change. Stock ownership here includes both traditional private stocks and also savings in stock funds. The paper’s main hypothesis is that increased stock ownership will have a negative impact on attitudes towards the welfare state. Also cheating in the welfare sectors and the suspicion about others cheating is believed to increase while class differences concerning attitudes towards the welfare state are believed to diminish. Central theoretical themes are reciprocity, moral economy, historical institutionalism and path dependency. The increased stock ownership is described as a process in the direction towards a mass investment society, where everyday life tends to become financialized to a growing extent. The results show no support for the hypotheses. Attitudes and opinions concerning the welfare state seem to be stable during the whole time period. Neither seems there to be any significant sign of diminishing class differences regarding attitudes towards the welfare state, nor any growing suspicion concerning cheating within the welfare sectors nor any actual growth of cheating. These results might depend on a number of reasons. For one, stock ownership seems to a large extent be unequally distributed among the population of Sweden.</p>

This thesis attempts to extend the historical scope of divorce research in Sweden by providing an analysis ofhow the variations in the divorce rate over time and across geographical areas are connected to the economic, normative and institutional restructuring of Swedish society during the period 1915-1974. The thesis finds that the economic reshaping of Sweden into a modern market economy is at the center of the process that has resulted in decreased marital stability during the twentieth century. The shift from a single- to a dual-provider model and an increased integration of both men and women into market processes outside the family have resulted in lowered economic interdependence between spouses, which in turn has decreased the economic constraints to divorce. This conclusion is supported by the empirical finding that indicators of female economic self-sufficiency are associated with increased propensities for divorce, during the entire period under research in this thesis. That changes in the constraints experienced by women have been important is further emphasized by the finding that women have been more prone than men to initiate divorce, and that this gendered pattern of divorce was established already during the early twentieth century in Sweden.The results further indicate that the growth of divorce is connected not only to a shift in the provider model but also to the way sustained economic growth has resulted in a general increase in the resources available to individuals, as proposed by the socio-economic growth hypothesis. During the 1920s and 1930s, high-strata groups, such as lawyers, journalists, engineers and military officers, exhibited a divorce rate on the same level as in the general population of Sweden today. By the early 1960s, however, this positive associa- tion between social class and divorce had changed: by then it was rather couples in working-class occupations who exhibited the highest probability of divorce, which is a pattern that appears to have persisted since then. These findings indicate that a general increase and more even distribution of economic resources betweenboth genders and social classes have facilitated individuals’ possibilities to sustain themselves independent of family ties. This democratization in the access to divorce has meant that growing segments of the populationhave gained the means to act on a demand for divorce.However, another result of the thesis is that it is not possible to limit the analysis to a strictly economic perspective. Rather, economic changes have interacted with and been reinforced by changes in values, as wellas in institutions, during the periods when widespread and rapid behavioral change has occurred. In Sweden, like in most other Western countries, this was primarily the case during the 1940s and a period covering approximately the second half of the 1960s and first half of the 1970s. The studies of the thesis suggest that these two periods of rapid growth in the divorce rate stand out as periods in Swedish history when attitudes also changed more rapidly toward values that can be regarded as permissive, secular and more open to indi- vidual freedom of choice. Trenchantly, these two periods also correspond to the two harvest periods in Social Democratic welfare state policy. In the thesis it is argued that the marked increase in government services and social security at these time points integrated with and reinforced economic restructuring in a way that worked to “de-familializate” individuals by making them less dependent on family ties for social security. Institutional changes of this type have been particularly important for making single life more feasible for women and low- income groups. In the thesis, it is argued that the timings of substantial behavioral change become difficult to understand if the analytical perspective does not explicitly incorporate how such contextual-level changes in values and institutions have integrated with changes in the provider model and the economy during thesedynamic periods of the divorce transition in Sweden.

<p>The study concentrates on a particular type of state intervention in social policy. It considers whether policy reforms and subsequent provision of information with regards to the issue of parental leave and part-time work arrangements, makes an impact on gender equity in the labour market (Del Boca, 2002 / Naldini &amp / Saraceno, 2008). Giddens&rsquo / theory of structuration is the conceptual framework from which this study approaches these questions. It is thus held that agents (in this instance, women) are constrained by structures (labour policy framework and institutionalised labour practices) to achieve specific social goals. And further: that the apparent lack of power on the part of agents requires intervention on the part of the state apparatus to correct the failure (or inability) of the labour market to deliver the social justice as aspired to in the cited European Employment Strategy, as well as fostering economic efficiency (Barr, 1992). I further contend that not only are agents constrained by structural properties, but that institutional reform (in the form of labour policy reform) is constrained by the human action1 of the management of firms and enterprises as economic agents within the policy framework.</p>

In 1991, the Swedish Social Democratic government established the Pensioners’ Council at the Ministry of Social Affairs. The Council’s purpose and structure were spelled out by the Government in a Commission of Inquiry Directive. According to this, the Council is to be a forum for deliberations between the Government and pensioners’ organizations. At the municipal level, Senior Citizens Councils have existed since the 1970s. They fill a similar purpose to that of the Pensioners’ Council at the central level, namely to be an arena for political discussions between representatives from pensioners’ organizations and the municipality. The purpose of this dissertation is two-fold. First, I describe the influence of pensioners’ organizations on the establishment of the pensioners’ councils and their political influence – potential as well as actual – in these councils. Second, I seek to explain the influence of pensioners’ organizations from a power resources perspective. By doing so, I hope to contribute to our knowledge of the relationship between the welfare state and organized interests. Does this relationship imply the existence of a corporatist or pluralistic power structure? Finally, I also hope to contribute to our understanding of the future development of the welfare state in the light of a global economy and aging population. The empirical investigation on the central level suggests that pensioners’ organizations influenced the decision to establish the Pensioners’ Council. Moreover, they had actual as well as potential political influence through the council since the early 1990s. There success in influencing government policy is due to the fact that pensioners’ organizations represent an important voting group and their employees have expert knowledge. At the local level, the empirical investigation suggests that pensioners’ organizations had influence on decisions made by municipalities to establish Senior Citizens Councils. However, opportunities to influence vary at the local level, and pensioners’ organizations actual political influence is limited. This limited influence can be explained as a consequence of pensioners’ organizations lack of an important power resource at the local level – employed expertise. It is argued in the dissertation that the empirical results do not suggest an existence of a corporatist power structure in social issues. Rather, they point to a pluralistic power structure – i.e. along side producer organizations, other organizations (such as those for welfare consumers) also have an important power position. This, in turn, limits the ability of politicians to cut welfare spending. The case of pensioners’ organizations therefore suggests that we cannot expect any drastic downsizing of the Swedish welfare state due to factors such as the globalization of the economy. In light of the aging population, the empirical results suggest that politicians will have to seek other solutions to be able to meet the challenge of financing welfare programs targeting the elderly than making drastic cutbacks in those programs.

Mellan år 1984-2000 ökade andelen aktieägare bland Sveriges befolkning markant, från 29 till 80 %, för att mellan år 2000 och 2008 ligga stabilt runt 80 %. Då allt fler får sin inkomst från kapital och inte endast från arbete borde detta leda till nya normativa föreställningar kring välfärdsstatens utformning och finansiering. Studien jämför kvantitativa studier kring utbredningen av aktieägandet och attityder till välfärdsstatens institutioner och premisser mellan åren 1984-2008. Med aktieägande avses en inkluderande definition av både direkt ägande av enskilda aktieposter samt innehav av fondandelar, såsom pensionsfonder. Studiens primära hypotes är att ökat aktieägande leder till mer negativa attityder till välfärdsstaten. Därtill antas fusket inom välfärdssektorerna öka samt misstänksamheten om fusk tillta medan klasskillnader inom åsikter rörande välfärdsstaten förväntas minska. Centrala teoretiska utgångspunkter är reciprocitet, moralisk ekonomi, historisk institutionalism och spårberoende. Det alltmer utbredda aktieägande liknas vid processer i riktning mot ett massinvesteringssamhälle där vardagen tenderar att finansialiseras alltmer. Studiens resultat ger inget stöd för hypoteserna. Stödet för välfärdsstaten verkar inte ha förändrats nämnvärt under undersökningsperioden. Inte heller verkar klasskillnaderna i åsikter kring välfärdsstaten, fusket inom välfärdssektorerna samt misstänksamheten om fuskets utbreddhet ha förändrats nämnvärt. Dessa resultat beror troligen på flera orsaker. Bland annat tenderar aktieägandet att vara mycket ojämnt fördelat bland Sveriges befolkning. / Between the years 1984-2000 it became increasingly common to own stocks in Sweden. Among the whole population stock ownership increased from 29 to 80 % until year 2000, and was thereafter around 80 % until present day, 2008. As more people receive disposable income not only from labour, but also from capital, their attitudes regarding how the welfare state should be financed and organized, should change. Stock ownership here includes both traditional private stocks and also savings in stock funds. The paper’s main hypothesis is that increased stock ownership will have a negative impact on attitudes towards the welfare state. Also cheating in the welfare sectors and the suspicion about others cheating is believed to increase while class differences concerning attitudes towards the welfare state are believed to diminish. Central theoretical themes are reciprocity, moral economy, historical institutionalism and path dependency. The increased stock ownership is described as a process in the direction towards a mass investment society, where everyday life tends to become financialized to a growing extent. The results show no support for the hypotheses. Attitudes and opinions concerning the welfare state seem to be stable during the whole time period. Neither seems there to be any significant sign of diminishing class differences regarding attitudes towards the welfare state, nor any growing suspicion concerning cheating within the welfare sectors nor any actual growth of cheating. These results might depend on a number of reasons. For one, stock ownership seems to a large extent be unequally distributed among the population of Sweden.

In the context of the Swedish welfare state, the issue of child poverty has over the past decade become increasingly prominent within the political agenda. Most research on child poverty has been based on statistics and research on children’s everyday life and their experiences in situations of economic hardship has been in demand in international as well as Swedish research. The aim of this thesis is to explore and analyze children’s experiences of living within economic hardship as part of their identity work. In addition, it highlights how their agency can be understood as a way of dealing with their situation, as well as how child poverty – and the child position in a welfare state setting -  is understood and conceptualized by the society they live in.  The analysis was based on an interview study involving seventeen children between the ages of 6–18 in families living on or below the limit for receiving welfare benefits. The purpose of the interviews was to explore how these children experience economic hardship at home and among same-aged children, focusing their own strategies and agency. The thesis uses the field of childhood sociology as a theoretical starting point, and the empirical findings are analyzed with an interactionist approach which highlights the meaning of interaction and agency in relation to identity work. The strategies deployed by the children in this study was interpreted in the context of the limited space for agency that the child position entails as well as how their positioning as children, by themselves and others, creates a new understanding of the way poverty is managed by them. This thesis seeks to problematize the issue of child poverty in Sweden by stressing its complexities.  The thesis also emphasizes that it would be a simplification to label these children as merely stigmatized since the status of poverty as a stigma for children can be questioned.

The ways of organizing political problem solving in society are not static. A pluralistic dynamic society requires a continious reconsideration and adaption of its political in­stitutions, i.e. political institutionalization. Institutiona­lization demands prior organizing activities among actors for political aims. Organizing activities can be seen both inter­nally, externally or between existing organisations and in­stitutions . The degree of institutionalization reflects the organizing activities' survival capacity. The higher the degree of in­stitutionalization the more likely it is that the organizing activity will become a formally based organisation or institu­tion, or will change the dominating values of organisations or institutions. The degree of institutionalization is discussed using the concepts of adaptability, complexity, autonomy and flexibility. The thesis represents a problem-oriented implementation approach where individuals' joint ways of organizing problem- solving are the basis for analysis of both policy-realization and political institutionalization. Policy is defined as ideas and the ways of creating institutional arrangements in order to realize them. A "policy-problem", defined as the empirical question answered by examining the process of institutionali­zation, is used to study the policy-processes in the field of occupational safety and health. The ways in which individuals collectively organize in order to create a good working environment are studied using the concept of implementation structures. These are defined as phenomenological administrative units of analysis, i.e. groups of individuals empirically judged to take part in solving the policy problem. / digitalisering@umu

This thesis evaluates the current transformation of the concept of public service, which has been reflected as new trends in the domain of the public services, within the context of changes in the role of state and the discipline of public administration that have been experienced under the influence of neo-liberal policies of the post-1980s. In the thesis, the concept of public service, which has been used in reference to administrative law, and dynamics of its transformation have been analyzed from the perspective of public administration discipline. In this regard, besides examining what public service is and its basic features, the connection between the transformation of the concept of public service and new genre of public administration, subsumed under the title of new public management, has been investigated. Throughout the study, the process, in which the transformation has taken place, has been examined in the light of the basic tenets of neo-liberalism, new public management, reinventing government and governance approaches by focusing on their distorting impacts on the public characteristics of the public services.

This thesis argues the interaction between the Turkish state and informal employment. Literature review on informal sector, flexibilization of the labor market and feminist approach are the bases of this argument. On the other hand, the role of the state in economy is discussed in relation to Bretton Woods Institutions. Taking into consideration the state and informal employment arguments, this study illustrates with a study of a Kilim Weaving Workshop in a town of Ankara how informal work is connected with the state institution Public Education Center. For this study, I conducted participant observation and semi-structured interviews with 10 people out of 30 in research area.

The first two chapters examine the party's policy towards the wage-stop and the poverty trap. Until 1963 the party ignored the wage-stop but from then until 1975 a section of the party campaigned against the regulation expressing moral revulsion and concern about its administration but only rarely opposition to the principle. A Labour government removed the stop when its operation affected only a tiny minority of families. The party was quickly involved in the development of the poverty trap debate being particularly drawn to its disincentive characteristics, but Labour governments, like their Conservative counterparts, soon came to regard the idea as a mere statistical abstraction. After confirming the party's historical ambivalence about Family Allowances the thesis demonstrated that whenever it advocated allowances it did so because it believed the programme would alleviate family poverty rather than augment work incentives. However Labour governments consistently upheld the principle of substitutability, thus conferring de facto support on that less-eligibility dimension of Family Allowances which Macnicol has established informed the coalition government's decision to legislate for the programme in 1945. Despite the party's opposition to Family Income Supplement it became an important element in the Labour government's anti-poverty strategy after the Child Benefits debate in 1976. F.I.S. was criticised because of its contribution to the poverty trap and its potential for assisting in the pauperisation of the low paid, while Child Benefit was supported because it appeared to be a more equitable technique of delivering support to families with dependent children although some in the party were sensitive to the scheme's potential link with improved work incentives. In general, the Labour Party is seen to have failed to develop any coherent and sustained alternative to the ideas and programmes of its political opponents in this critical area of social policy.