<p>Swedish public administration has for the last few decades undergone reforms aimed at making it more efficient. A substantial part of these reforms have concerned creating clearer roles for politicians versus officials in the public sector, i.e. giving politicians a responsibility for setting goals and steering activities and public officials the role of implementing them.</p><p>This study aims to examine one reform following this path that is under implementation in a Swedish public authority; Försäkringskassan, the Social Insurance Agency. The purpose of the reform is to increase the organization’s effectiveness and the rule of law. The reform means that decision-making committees, Social Insurance Committees, consisting of political appointees are being replaced by public officials as decision-makers in complex social insurance cases. The purpose of this study is to see if, and how this reform could affect the democratic foundation of these decisions.</p><p>The study concludes that the reform will have a negative impact on the democratic support and the legitimacy of the decisions made, as it indirectly removes the citizens’ possibilities of expressing discontent through elections. This reform could also have a negative impact on the quality of rule of law if the new roles for public officials as decision-makers are not properly exercised.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA/oai:DiVA.org:vxu-1913 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Johansson, Anna |
| Publisher | Växjö University, School of Social Sciences |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, text |
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