Around the 1950s an explosive population growth started in the Third World. Parallel with the population growth a global network grew up advocating population control and limited population growth. Sweden had a unique place in that network through a pioneering role promoting the issue in the UN organization. During the 20th century Sweden was a pioneer country in terms of initiatives for population control. Ceylon family planing pilot project was something new in a time when other donors considered family planning be too controversial area for bilateral aid projects. The aim of this thesis is to answer ”What is the affinity between the ideological principles behind the Swedish welfare policy and the Swedish initiatives to population control?" and "Does Sweden express a unique overpopulation discourse influenced by the ideological principles behind the Swedish welfare policy?"In the thesis I examine whether it is an affinity between the Swedish welfare ideology and the Swedish initiative to population control. I do this partly by examining how Alva Myrdal – one of the ideological architects behind the swedish welfare state – implemented ideological principles in an international political context and partly how the welfare state's ideological principles took expression in the swedish family planing aid. I also investegating whether it is possible to interpret an overpopulation discourse shaped by the experiences of Swedish welfare policy and what in that case characterizes it. By using the concept ”governmentality” I distinguishes different key actors in the swedish family planing organisation and thereby I problematize the concept overpopulation discourse. The thesis demonstrates fragmented perceptions within the swedish family planing organisation where a prophylactic line inspired by the welfare ideologies end up getting preference based on its benefits to get political legitimacy. The prophylactic line promoted to change peoples preferences towards population control instead of using coercion which has ideological affinity with the Swedish welfare policy. One of my conclusions is that local circumstances in South Asia like high rate of illiteracy and ” widespread apathy” (not my expression) among the locals made key actors in the family planing aid sceptical towards the efficency of using profylactic policies in the third world. That partly explains the swedish family planing aid shift towards suporting more coercive methods during the 1960s.Keywords: Alva Myrdal, Ceylonproject, Welfare ideology, Population control, govermentality, overpopulation discourse, 20th century.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-105974 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Lundberg, Simon |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för idé- och samhällsstudier |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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