This paper investigates whether privatisation of welfare services increases the Swedish middle classes’ support for the welfare state. This study is situated within an adaptation of the Paradox of Redistribution, according to which privatisation may be a way of accommodating the interests of an increasingly individualistic and autonomous middle class. The support of the middle classes is thought to be crucial, as it provides the resources necessary to maintain a comprehensive welfare state. A survey experiment is used in order to examine the causal link between specific information stimuli regarding to what degree specific welfare services are provided by private actors, and survey respondents’ personal willingness to pay taxes for specific welfare services. The use of information stimuli follows from an assumption of ill-informed respondents. The willingness to pay for specific welfare services serve as a micro-level indicator of welfare state support, with a macro-level indicator serving as a complement. Key evidence is found in the micro-level case of social services, and the overall results are taken to give support for the hypothesis. The paper provides important insights into how Swedish policy makers could reason with regards to the design of welfare services, if they are interested in securing the financing, and in turn, the longevity of a comprehensive welfare state.

The postpartum period is an exciting still stressful time for mothers. Although their experiences may be different, all of them appreciate support in the course of this time. In Sweden, there has been a shift from traditional to more individualistic values. It is considered to be one of the most individualistic countries in the world, which makes Sweden an interesting case to study. The aim of the thesis was to explore mothers’ experiences of their social support network including their contact preferences, the part of the child’s father, and the role of the Swedish welfare state/social work. Data was collected conducting semi-structured interviews and using easyNWK, a software for recording and analysing social networks. An evaluation of the social network cards was supported by easyNWK. Thematic analysis was applied to the transcripts. Findings indicate that mothers experience five different types of support which are named instrumental, emotional, informational, and appraisal support as well as social companionship in previous literature. These are provided by family, and friends followed by colleagues as well as professionals. Maternal support and paternal support are identified as individual preferences. The child’s father is either suggested as supportive or absent/lack of backup. Available resources of professionals and individualised support offers provided by the Swedish welfare state are appreciated. Social work plays a role in the provision of emotional and informational support.

This study aims to investigate possible consequences for rural residents and the political legitimacy for the state. In Sweden, environmental policy is widespread, and the state aims to be the first climate-neutral welfare state. Previous research and the results from our study indicate that Swedish citizens do not like carbon dioxide taxes. Many rural residents have expressed dissatisfaction in the media with the rise in fuel prices. Therefore, we were interested in what the target group has had for consequences and what they think of the measure. The results show that the consequences have not been devastating, while the rural residents do not believe that they have the right conditions to be a part of the green transition. Surprisingly many of our interviewees have considered switching to an electric gar given the rising fuel prices. For more people to be able to switch to an electric car, targeted investments from the state are required. Our results indicate that the current green transition is not possible and fair for the people in rural areas.

This thesis examines the extent of family care for older people, primarily filial care, and the costs of caring in the Swedish welfare state. Costs of caring are understood as the negative effects of caregiving, primarily on the caregivers’ working life. The analysis is inspired by feminist theories on the importance of welfare state provisions for care for women’s citizenship, including personal autonomy and economic independence. The main aims of this thesis are twofold. The first is to explore the extent and development of family care for older persons in Sweden, primarily filial care, and the consequences of caregiving for well-being and working life. The second is to explore how older persons’ family members have been represented and the possible consequences of these representations for the development of publicly financed eldercare services and other forms of support for family carers, as well as for family members’ living conditions. The thesis consists of four studies. The first reviews the literature concerning the extent and consequences of family caregiving for older persons and the welfare state’s policy responses to older people’s care needs. The second study analyses how older persons’ family members and their role in eldercare have been represented in Swedish eldercare policy since the 1950s. The third study analyses surveys to explore changes during the 2000s in the role of the family, the public sector and the market in providing care for older persons in Sweden. The fourth study is a survey analysis of the extent, content and consequences of filial care among middle-aged women and men in Sweden in 2013. The policy analysis found that the expansion of eldercare was motivated solely in relation to older persons’ needs; thus working daughters’ needs of eldercare have been a blind spot in Swedish eldercare policy. Since 2000, every fourth residential care bed has disappeared and the increase in homecare services did not fully compensate for the decline, resulting in a significant increase in filial care in all social groups, and among both sons and daughters. Daughters of older persons with shorter education, however, remained the primary providers of filial care. Both daughters and sons are affected by caregiving. They suffer to the same extent from difficulties in managing to accomplish their work tasks and taking part in meetings, courses and travels. They are also equally likely to reduce their working hours and to quit their job. It is however clearly more common that daughters experience mental and physical strain, difficulties in finding time for leisure and reduced ability to focus on their job. Although more daughters than sons retire earlier than planned due to filial care, this is very rare. Managerial care (handling contacts with health and eldercare services) has a more salient role in a welfare state such as Sweden, with generously provided care services, less intense filial care and high employment rates among both sexes. The high labour force participation however makes middle aged children more vulnerable when their parents’ care arrangement does not work. The decline in eldercare services since 1980 has reinforced co-ordination problems in health and eldercare services. The managerial care required to handle this development, while living up to the demands of work and family life, stands out as especially demanding for the well-being and working lives of daughters. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 4: Accepted.</p>

During the last decades, Swedish policy makers have implemented various marketization reforms into the public welfare sector in order to make it more cost-efficient and to improve its quality. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate what implications this marketization trend has had for the organization of Swedish eldercare. In particular, the research question addressed is how marketization reforms such as privatized provision, increased competition, and user choice have transformed the relationship between the service users, the professionals, and the state. To answer the research question, four articles are presented in the dissertation, each corresponding to a separate empirical investigation. Together, the articles demonstrate that the increased reliance on marketization in Swedish eldercare has made it more difficult for the local authorities to directly control the quality of the services, since it reduces their ability to allocate public resources and expects them to govern the provision of eldercare through the entering of contracts. This development has also implied that service users themselves become increasingly responsible for ensuring that the quality of their care is high. Moreover, the articles show that the increased reliance on audit by the national government and its agencies has tended to undermine the professionalization of eldercare staff, thereby limiting their autonomy and ability to ensure service quality. As a whole, the dissertation contributes with a more comprehensive understanding of how marketization has altered the organization of Swedish eldercare and under what conditions it might undermine the goals of social equality and ensuring that all citizens have equal access to good quality care.

This thesis explores the representation of female vulnerability in three working-class novels bythe lesser-known Swedish author Inga Lena Larsson (1907–1987), against the historicalbackground of the emergent Swedish welfare state. Larsson’s career as an author started in the30’s when she got a short story published in a magazine. She wrote her first novel during thelast years of the Second World War. It was published in 1945 and was followed by six morenovels of which the last was released in 1959. This study is focused on the following threenovels from the early 50’s: Vattenpass (1950), Vide ung (1951) and Födelsenatt (1952). Thenovels depict working class women in their everyday struggle to make ends meet and femaleexperiences such as sex, rape, pregnancy, abortion, and childbirth are laid bare. The theoreticalbasis of the thesis is Sara Ahmed’s theory of emotions as actions, Toril Moi’s interpretation ofSimone de Beauvoir’s phenomenological understanding of what it means to be a woman, andBeverly Skeggs’ study of working-class women. Vulnerability is understood as relational andas corporal experiences that shape the depicted women’s understanding of themselves. Theanalyses are thematically structured and address vulnerability through experiences of poverty,sexuality, illness, and mothering. The thesis argues that the novels illustrate vulnerability as amotion that moves between the private and public sector. Vulnerability is depicted as limitedpossibilities and options but also as a source of agency. The women in the novels act, even inexposed situations such as illegal abortion. The novels demonstrate vulnerability as a state ofhelplessness and of productivity.

By conducting a case study of two diaconal institutions, Samariterhemmet in Uppsala/Sweden and the Evangelisches Diakoniewerk Schwäbisch Hall e.V. in Germany, the thesis compares the roles of church diaconal work within the Swedish and the German welfare system. These two systems are characterised by the different roles given to independent welfare organisations. The overarching research question is if and in which way the two diaconal institutions are effected by current changes within the field of welfare and how these changes challenge them to redefine their roles. The material analysed contains written documents, interviews with selected representatives and the results of participant observation in both institutions. As changes in the roles of independent welfare organisations were expected the results are unexpected. The two diaconal institutions show considerable persistence. Neither the orientation of their fields of work nor their own definitions of their roles within the welfare system have changed during the 1990s. In addition, the study reveals that both institutions regard themselves as a critical voice within the welfare system although their welfare engagement differs considerably. The German institution is a huge welfare provider while the Swedish institution conducts targeted initiatives. The analysis of four decisions within hospital work reveals that security of planning and freedom of action motivate the institutions to undertake responsibility for social services. The study points especially to the fields of education and research helping the institutions to maintain and to develop the diaconal profile. Altogether the results underline the need for more research on the meso-level of the third sector. This would contribute to a more nuanced discussion on the future role of independent welfare organisations within the Swedish and the German welfare system.

This thesis concerns the development of Swedish ice hockey as a national phenomenon during the period 1920–1972. The dissertation explores how the sport of ice hockey in just over half a century was transformed from a rather insignificant North American cultural import to one of Sweden’s most treasured pursuits by and large, and harbouring a national team (known as “Tre Kronor”) that at the height of its popularity in 1970 gathered almost the whole nation (82 percent of the adult population) in front of TV-sets during national game broadcasts. The analytical approach of the study is grounded in the theoretical assumption that “to be Swedish” is something you “learn” on a daily basis, and that an investigation of how “the nation” is constructed as an imagined community must see to the interplay between national rhetoric on the one hand and national practice on the other. This means that the analysis moves on two different levels, where the first is comprised of the sporting practice in itself (teams, games, players etc.), while the other deals with the conception of ice hockey in relation to national identity. The empirical investigation shows that the introduction of ice hockey in Sweden was “launched from above” under the influence of unbridled nationalistic sentiment in Sweden at large at the turn of the 20th century. The study also shows that during the inter-war era the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation promoted the spread of ice hockey in Sweden by stressing the game’s benefits as a more practical sport than the similar and already established winter sport, bandy. It is also argued that in most cases it was not so much a genuine passion for the game itself, but instead prosaic factors (economical considerations, sporting success and maintenance of ice surface etc.) that made sporting clubs take up ice hockey. After World War II the public interest in ice hockey exploded in Sweden. In the cold war era, Tre Kronor came to function as a thermometer of how the so called Swedish model stood up in comparison to the superpowers of the world. The analysis also underlines the importance of the comprehensive organizational and moral rearmament of Swedish ice hockey at large conducted by the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation in the post-war era, since it helped its cultural incorporation in the Swedish welfare state and its connection to Swedish national identity

This thesis analyses the public art competitions arranged by the Public Art Agency Sweden (Statens konstråd) 1937-1970 and the discussions about public art competitions in within the art field of the 1940’s, -50’ and -60’s. The main material for this analysis has been the protocols of the Public Art Agency and the annual paper of the Swedish Artists' National Organization (Konstnärernas riksorganisation). The theoretical and methodological framework is based on Pierre Bourdieu’s understanding of the art field, and institutions as agents within that field. I also use Foucauldian discourse theory as another theoretical tool to understand the power relations between these institutions in the art field. My aim has been to understand why there were competitions for public art commissions – the purposes, the processes, the discussions and how these factors change over the decades. The purpose for public art competition can be understood through the ideology of the Swedish welfare state and the cultural policy of the Social Democratic government in the 1930’s. The public art competitions could support the Swedish artists economically, but was also a way for the Swedish Government, through the Public Art Agency, to control and guarantee that the public artworks were of high artistic quality. This idea of artistic quality became more and more dominant as a purpose for the competitions through the 1950’s and 1960’s.  The artists active in the Swedish Artists' National Organization found the competitions to be of great importance and the competitions were much discussed in the organisations annual paper. Many of the artists that discussed the artist competitions were of the same generation born in the 1910’s or 1920’s and were working with public art commissions to a great extent. For them, the public art competitions gave recognition and a possible income. My analysis also shows that the public art competitions were also connected to the concept of modernism. The status of the competitions changed along with the changing concept of modernism. The competition was at its highest status in the 1930’s and 1940’s, when many artists were engaged in public art commissions. It became less popular among young artists in the 1960’s, when the art field was more politically radical and critical against authorities.