Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Swedish labor politics'

How can the central state direct local public units to work effectively towards public sector goals? In an effort to understand the conditions for governance, the three self-contained essays housed in this thesis examine the role of central and local government agencies in implementation of active labor market policy (ALMP) in Sweden. The study is based on new and unique quantitative data.

To understand steering possibilities, it is necessary to examine how local politics impinges on local actions. Thus, essay I concerns the following question: Does it matter for local government actions whether left wing or right wing parties govern at local level? I propose that the effect of political partisanship depend on entity size. I expect left-wing governments to be more engaged in ALMPs, but that the impact will be larger in sizeable entities. Empirical evidence supports the theoretical priors.

It is also important to know how actors can be coordinated. Thus, essay II tries to explain cooperation between agencies. Trust, goal congruence, and resource interdependence are focused upon. The results indicate that there is no impact of trust on cooperation if goals diverge. Similarly, it does not matter that agencies trust one another if they have different agendas. But if both factors exist simultaneously, cooperation increases. On the other hand, resource interdependence boosts cooperation regardless of trust levels.

But does cooperation really improve policy implementation? Essay III proposes that the impact is contingent on task complexity. I expect cooperation to be more valuable when the task is complex. In accordance with this hypothesis, the evidence suggests that only complex tasks can be carried out better through intense interorganizational cooperation.

Taken together, the insights from the essays might help us find routes to better governance.

In the literature on the emergence of the welfare state, the strength of trade unions and the organized working class is often touted as the primary driving force behind the welfare state project. Furthermore, much of the previous literature has tended to assume union homogeneity across countries, federations, industries and professions. What is conspicuously lacking from the current political science literature is a systematic analysis of real-world trade unions’ choice of labor market advocacy focus. Using a qualitative approach and studying both published union material as well as conducting a number of elite interviews with high-level union officials, this thesis studies the degree to which Swedish trade unions’ labor market policy preferences are defined by the union members’ labor market risk exposure and whether the union adheres to white-collar or blue-collar unionism. While the conclusions indeed suggest that labor market risk and blue-collar/white-collar unionism do have a systematic impact on cartain aspects of trade unions’ labor market advocacy, future “large N” studies utilizing alternative methodological approaches will be required to draw more easily generalizable conclusions.

Recent political developments, with the outcome of the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States, have revitalized the discussion about so called political cleavages. Drawing upon the work of Lipset and Rokkan, some see the urban-rural cleavage as an explanation to the election outcomes. In a Swedish context it is primarily the increase in electoral support for the Sweden Democrats that has brought up the question. The overarching purpose with this master’s thesis is to explain the role of Lipset and Rokkans theoretical cleavages in Swedish rural politics. Rural politics is considered a most likely-case for finding ideas related to the urban-rural cleavage, a cleavage which is said to have gained a greater importance over the past couple of years. Political cleavages exist when political actors demonstrate cohesive ideas and in a structured matter relate to them. For this reason, the thesis’ subordinate purpose is to describe what ideas parliamentary parties have in the rural political debate. This is done through an idea analysis where problems and solutions presented by the political parties are described and interpreted. The conclusion is that the worker-owner-cleavage is the dominant cleavage in Swedish rural politics. Political parties tend to problematize issues that are a part of the cleavage, with issues such as welfare, regional redistribution, entrepreneurship and taxation. The urban-rural and center-periphery cleavage can only be regarded as secondary and subordinate to the worker-owner-cleavage. However, there are ideas in the debate relating to these two cleavages. Ideas relating to the state-church cleavage is absent in the chosen material.

By studying the representation of foreign-born women in the Swedish labour market policy debate, between the years 2010-2020, I want to discover if there has been a change of the rhetoric in political debates and how that affects the activities provided to foreign-born immigrant women. My conclusion is that there has been a change towards a more individualistic approach, with a representation of the group that further amplifies systematic discrimination in the Swedish labour market system. By creating a group with weaker standing on the labour market that can be used as low wage labour under the cover of support, the rhetoric can be seen as upholding the capitalist system.

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.

This study aims at defining the development of the macro/meso level Swedish labourmarket regime during the last decade. This includes the effect of structural changesand what development tendencies exist. For this purpose three questions have beenformulated:1. How can the macro/meso level relations between the labour market organizations of the bargainingrounds since 1997 be described using the concepts exit, voice and loyalty as an interpretation oforganizational choices?2. How can the changing relations between the labour market organizations be explained?3. Based on this, how can the present labour market regime be defined?For this purpose the concept of labour market regimes is used. The interactionbetween actors in this is interpreted through a cooperative game theory coupled withthe concepts exit, voice, loyalty. Exit means the actors leaving the system,corresponding to the negotiation game threats. Voice means negotiation conflictresolution. Loyalty both correspond to coalition patterns and forces keeping theregime in place. Material is informant interviews with key actors and officialdocuments from bargaining and negotiation. The results of the study are that therelations have been stabilized by the IA of 1997, since which the development istowards increased peak-level organizational involvement. Because of labour marketfragmentation this takes the form in confederation coordination between differentparties. To conceptualize this I propose the concept peak-level coordinatedbargaining. In this the coalition development is towards the reemergence of oldloyalty patterns and the inclusion of new actors in this system. To explain this pathdependency due to well established loyalties and actor continuity is suggested.

In the 1880s, capitalism as a social and economic system integrated new geographic areas of the American continent. The construction of the Duluth & Iron Range Railroad (D&IR), financed by a group of Philadelphia investors led by Charlemagne Tower and later owned by the US Steel was part of this emerging political economy based on the exploitation of human and material resources. Migrant labor was in demand as it came cheap and, generally, floated between various construction-sites on the “frontier” of capitalism. The Swedish immigrants were one part of this group of “floaters” during the late 1800s and made up a significant part of the force that constructed and worked on the D&IR between the 1880s and the 1920s. This book deals with power relations between groups based on class and ethnic differences by analyzing the relationship between the Anglo-American bourgeois establishment and the Swedish and other immigrant workers and their children on the D&IR and in the railroad town of Two Harbors, Minnesota. The Anglo-American bourgeois hegemony in Minnesota, to a large extent, dictated the conditions under which Swedish immigrants and others toiled and were allowed access to American society. I have therefore analyzed the structural subordination and gradual integration of workers and, in particular, immigrant workers, in an emerging class society. The book also deals with the political and the cultural opposition to Anglo-American bourgeois hegemony that emerged in Two Harbors and that constructed a radical public sphere during the 1910s. In this process, new group identities based on class and ethnicity emerged in the working class neighborhoods in the wake of the capitalist expansion and exploitation, and as a result of worker agency. Building on traditions of political insurgency an alliance of immigrant workers, particularly Swedes, Anglo skilled workers and parts of the local petty bourgeoisie rose to a position of political and cultural power in the local community. This coalition was held together by the language of class that became the basis of a local multi-ethnic working class identity laying claim to its own version of Americanism. The period of preparedness leading up to the Great War, the war itself, and its aftermath, produced a reaction from the Anglo American bourgeoisie which resulted in a profound change in the public sphere as a coalition between “meliorist middle class reformers”, represented primarily by the YMCA and local church leaders and the D&IR and its program of welfare capitalism launched a broad program to counter socialism locally, and to forge new social bonds that would cut across class lines and ethnic boundaries. By this process, the ethnic working class in Two Harbors was offered entry into American society by acquiring citizenship and by their inclusion in a broader civic community undifferentiated by class. But this could only be realized by the workers’ adoption of an Anglo-American national identity based on identification with corporate interests, a new local solidarity that cut across class lines and a white racial identity that diminished the significance of ethnic boundaries. By these means the Swedish immigrants, or at least a portion of them, became Americans on terms established by the D&IR and its class allies.

This thesis studies the impact of language education on the employment rate of immigrants in Swedish municipalities. Based on previous research and the theory of Hermut Esser, it aims to find a positive correlation between learning the Swedish language and the employment rate of immigrants. The language knowledge is measured by a Swedish for immigrants(SFI) - language course, which is from 2018 an obligatory part of the integration plan. Therefore, this study tries to see if passing the SFI language course affects the employment rate of immigrants in Swedish municipalities. To examine the impact of passing SFI language course on the employment rate of immigrants, Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression analyses are used and data will be collected from Statistics Sweden (SCB) and the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKL). After analyzing 240 municipalities between the years 2013-2016, and controlling for different variables, the results show that the passing of the language course decreases the employment rate of immigrants. This result can be explained firstly by the fact that language is no longer a vital part on the Swedish labor market or secondly, by stating that the SFI-language course does not give the level of Swedish that is needed to gain access to the labor market. Further by adding dummy variables for the municipalities to control what is constant during time, the result is no longer statistically significant. This result means that there are important variables that vary in the municipality level, which are affecting the language education and the employment rate of immigrants. However, as SFI language course is important part of the integration program, and this study cannot prove correlation between employment and SFI, the quality and the importance of the course can be lightly questioned. Further studies are needed to explain the low employment rate of immigrants.

In the neoliberal era, there has been a global trend towards increased labour market insecurity and inequality, even in countries traditionally emblematic of union strength and socio-economic security such as Sweden. In this study, I present the first ethnographic research conducted in anthropology of negotiations between the central Swedish union and employer peak bodies (known as the ‘labour market partners’). These negotiations were conducted in 2020 against the background of a political crisis and political pressure to modernise and liberalise longstanding and fundamental job security protec- tions in the Employment Protection Act (LAS). Through the lens of these negotiations, I investigate the role of the labour market partners in moderating neoliberal trends and how the partners see their relationship and role in society. I investigate, for example, why Swedish employers support unions and a system that ostensibly curbs their own power. I employ the notions of moral economy and em- bedding to look beyond economic self-interest, to the moral and institutional norms that help explain the partners’ co-operation over time and the role they see themselves as playing as guardians of the social peace.  I also incorporate interview material describing diverse workers’ experiences of the current job security protections under LAS. I argue that workers’ voices and experiences reveal a parallel moral economy, where current job security protections are revealed to be important but inadequate, and that job security is a highly nebulous, ambivalent and contextual phenomenon. I argue the moral economy of job security is one of entangled reciprocity between employer, worker and the state, and I consider the proposed reforms in this context. The study shows that even in the context of increasing market- isation of labour and society, reciprocity and cooperation both at the workplace and during the LAS negotiations serve to de-commodify labour and embed the economy in various moral norms. In this way, the research contributes to the anthropological literature on embeddedness and moral economy. It also contributes to both an ethnographic and theoretical understanding of job security.

There is a wide spread discrimination between the genders at the Swedish labour market. Women get lower wages, their skills are undervalued compared to men, it is harder for women to advance, they are more likely to involuntary do part time jobs and they usually end up in the least qualified and stimulating jobs. The governmental policy seems affectless and companies are unable or unwilling to change. Historical, sociological and rational choice institutionalism can offer an explanation to the problem. The segregation has historical roots that go back to the early days of industrialisation when women entered the labour market with working conditions that were worse than men‟s. Because of the conservatory character of institutions, the perceptions of the genders have been reproduced until today. The conclusion is that what the government does is less important than the fact that it does anything since the institutions are working to conserve the current order.

This doctoral thesis sets out to analyse the development of the unemployed movement in Sweden during the period 1920–34. The study is divided into two parts. The first is empirical and descriptive while the second is interpretive and explanatory, and seeks to examine why this phenomenon developed in the way it did. Mass unemployment in Sweden between the World Wars did not cause the same social tensions as in many other countries. This relative peace endured despite high and consistent unemployment and hard living conditions for the unemployed. These conditions served as sources for tensions present in the unemployed movement, and which some actors sought to take advantage of and even exacerbate. Andréasson argues that a major reason that society did not take a more radical turn in the period was that the reformist labour movement actively moderated these tensions. This was done by the Social Democratic Party (SAP) changing the environment of the unemployed organisations, for example by using local unemployment policy to polish off the rough edges of the national unemployment policy. More important was the crisis politics in the early 1930s that helped narrow the socio-economic gap between those who had and those who did not have a job. The Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO) neutralised the movement of the unemployed by introducing changes within the unemployed movement itself, involving a variety of strategies. After 1933, the LO and SAP dominated and were able to direct the activities of most of the organisations that existed. Gaining control over the unemployed was as important for the LO and SAP as being able to exert control over other forces that might threaten to weaken their long-term strategies and aims. There was a conviction within the unemployed movement that mass unemployment was largely a consequence of technological developments in production. This argument had roots dating back to the early stages of industrialism in England when Luddites had attacked production machinery. The coalition of organisations of unemployed workers in Sweden during the 1920s and 1930s did not seriously consider engaging in machine-breaking activities. The movement’s criticism of technology did not extend into the Swedish model which envisioned the development of machinery as a way to prevent rising unemployment.
QC 20100628

This dissertation investigates the internal struggles within the labour movement in Dalarna at the beginning of the twentieth century. I investigate Social Democracy, Anarcho-Syndicalism and Communism, the three major factions of the working class. I study the relationship between these organisations and their supporters in the complex socio-economic area of Dalarna. I have based my study on the three party programs and their answer to two central questions of the time: Will the conflicts of society lead to revolution? and How should politics and production be organised in the non capitalist society to come? Generally, anarcho-syndicalists argue that state power must be transformed to local government, social democrats hope to make different social interests compromise into political consensus. Communists want a proletarian state through social revolution. How were those ideologies received in Dalarna? In the beginning, anarchists fought social democrats: The opposition excluded from social democracy 1917 was also more influenced by anarchism than by communism. The opposition founded a party, witch towards the 1920´s turned from anarchism into communism, and the small farmers, that erlier had been attracted by the anarchist influenced rural propaganda, left and more industrial workers joined. Simultaneously, anarchists reorganised from a political party to a syndicalistic trade union, gradually mowing from the industrialised south to northern Dalarna. Communists, mainly left in the industrialised south, were shaken by two splits in the 1920´s and they lost their ability to compete with the social democrats in democratic elections. In Dalarna, social democrats, confronting anti-parliamentary anarchy and totalitarian communism alike, won the contest within the labour movement: At the end of the period, they dominated the area.

This thesis investigates the emergence and establishment of an early public monitoring system of the Swedish economy prior to the First World War. The study relies on a careful examination of the source materials with the view to map why and how the monitoring of the Swedish economy emerged, who demanded it, how the public supervision of the economy was organised and administrated and the results of the efforts. The common driving force was an increasing political interest in Sweden and elsewhere over the labour issue towards the end of the nineteenth century. In fact, the establishment of the monitoring system of the Swedish economy was largely the result of a broader international statistical respons to the labour question by the end of that century. The emergence of a public monitoring of the economy was driven by a general need for measuring the effect of industrialisation on the labour market, especially the growing problems with episodes of involuntary unemployment in the industrialised countries towards the end of the century. The thesis is divided in two parts with a total of ten chapters. It is written within a traditional narrative structure, that is, the beginning, the middle and the end. The first part examines the emergence of the surveillance of the labour market and consists of three chapters according to the narrative structure covering the period 1893-1913. The second part consists of three chapters that investigate the establishment of a monthly economic survey of the Swedish economy between 1910 and 1914, structured in the same way as the part one. The establishment of this early public monitoring of the Swedish economy should be regarded as a forerunner of the National Institute of Economic Research (Konjunkturinstitutet) 1937.

The thesis concentrates on Hofors and a local trade union environment between 1917 and 1946, where important parts of the trade union’s power were held by parties to the left of the social democrats. The overall aim is to problemize and discuss the issue of what characterised and made possible this deviation from the usual picture of a trade union movement dominated by social democracy. What characterised the conditions in such a local trade union environment and to what extent can local norms and political culture be linked to the conditions and the development in the trade union movement in Hofors?

The factors behind the radicalism in Hofors can be found in the local union and political context. The investigation points out the following main reasons: the left-wing local council of the Social Democratic Party and its successors’ organisational lead, the local labour council’s working method being close to what has been considered “social democratic”, their representatives being highly trusted in the local community, and the growth of a local radical tradition.

The political culture and the norms that gradually developed were based on a left-wing social democratic tradition. The local council of the Social Democratic Party that left the party in 1917 to join the left-wing social democratic faction was the same local council, despite their names and change of parties in the 1920s and 1930s. It became the local labour movement’s bearer of traditions and represented the continuity in the local trade union environment, which contributed to the leftwing socialist project being long-lived in Hofors. The central aspects were the trade union work and the practical-concrete tradition that developed.

Primarily through successful trade union work, the local labour council and its trade union representatives gained strong and long-term support from a large proportion of the local trade union movement’s members and the population of Hofors.

Against this background it may be stated that, even though it was often impossible for the parties to the left of social democracy to maintain a local trade union and political power position that was stronger than that of the social democrats for a lengthy period of time, it was not entirely impossible. It may also be stated that for the trade union member as such, a communist or socialist party affiliation was not a real obstacle in the election of shop stewards. Their focus was primarily put on the would-be representatives’ personal qualities and ability to live up to the demands and expectations placed on them by the members, and not so much on their ideological persuasion.

This dissertation analyzes the concept of democracy as it was used in the official rhetoric of the Swedish SocialDemocratic Party (SAP ) between 1919 and 1939. Theoretically, the dissertation relies on German Begriffsgeschichte, as put forward by Reinhart Koselleck, and Michael Freeden’s theory of ideologies. Together, by supplementing each other, these theories offer a perspective in which concepts are thought of as structures that are under contestation and change due to socio-political circumstances. However, the formulation of this change takes place in relation to the linguistic praxis of each time-period, and renegotiates the relative constraints of established relations between concepts in language. The analysis shows that the profound changes in society provided impetus for a continuous renegotiation of meanings, allowing concepts to retain their explanatory power under changing circumstances, at the same time the SAP needed new ways to express what kind of society the party strived to realize. The SAP had been one of the leading forces in the struggle for universal suffrage, and when the bill, giving universal suffrage to men andwomen, was passed in the Parliament 1919 this meant a temporary cessation to a long and intensive political debate. However, the SAP did not consider the introduction of suffrage reform as the end of full societal democratization. Rather than seeing the reform as a terminal point, the SAP saw it as the starting point for the struggle for full democracy. The SAP did not limit itself to only one concept of democracy but instead used a number of composite concepts, such as political democracy and economic democracy. The use of composite concepts can be understood as a changing temporalization of democracy. Since parliamentarism and suffrage were seen as central components in democracy, the realization of these institutions meant that the concept of democracy lost its future dimension. Thus, the usage of composite concepts should be seen as a re-temporalization of democracy. The composite concepts pointed forward in time, toward political goals that the SAP envisaged realizing in the future. Concepts should not be thought of as having cores but rather, as suggested by Freeden, ineliminable features. An ineliminable feature is not of logical nature but has a strong cultural adjacency. By analyzing the ineliminable components of the concepts of democracy that the SAP used, it is possible to discuss whether the composite concepts should be understood as subsets of a whole or as separate concepts. The analysis shows that the composite concepts that the SAP used during the first half of the 1920s shared a number of ineliminable features, but that the commonality of these features started to disintegrate during the latter half of the decade, leading to a rather diversive concept of democracy. During the 1930s the disintegration ceased as the party was faced with new circumstances, for example the growing threat of international war and national clashes between different social groups. There has always been a close relation between language and society. However, the relationship does not follow a simple and clear-cut logic but a complex mixture of various factors at different levels, both within language itself and of society. When society develops, language also has to change if the ongoing process is to be understood. As this study shows, new circumstances require new argumentsand thus revised concepts.

This thesis studies the uses of the concept of revolution in Swedish socialist press from 1917 to 1924. Political revolution and civil wars shook several countries. The Russian February and October Revolutions were soon followed by uprisings in countries such as Germany and Finland. While the social and political history of this period, with its mass demonstrations for bread and voting rights, often called the Swedish revolution, has been covered extensively in existing research, we know much less about the theoretical understanding of revolution among Swedish socialists. This thesis examines the concept of revolution from a perspective inspired by the Begriffsgeschichte of German historian Reinhart Koselleck. This foundation in the history of concepts aims at understanding how Swedish socialists, in a wide sense, understood their own time, how they related to the past and what they expected from the future, during the years of the First World War and the immediately following years. By focusing on what might be the most central, but also the most contested and most difficult to define, concept I hope to complement earlier research focusing on the social and political history of the period and its socialist movements. The main purpose of the thesis is to analyse how the labour movement understood revolution with particular weight placed upon the theoretical and ideological tensions between revolution and reform, determinism and voluntarism and localized and universal revolution. The starting point is the political and social changes in Sweden and abroad at that time and the place of the political press as opinion leaders capable of negotiating the space of political action. A secondary aim is to discuss how focusing on temporality can inspire new perspectives on the use of conceptual history. My research shows that how the concept of revolution was used was shaped both by already established notions regarding the socialist revolution as well as by the political situation at hand. The October Revolution forced a sharpening of its meaning, wherein different factions elaborated their understanding of it in relation to each other, which in turn determined how the concept was used fom that point on.

For many years, Sweden has had a reputation for having a comprehensive and women friendly welfare state. However, as in many other European countries during the past few decades, the organization and governing of welfare has undergone profound changes. Through interviews with social workers and the application of theories of governmentality, this thesis analyzes the expressions and consequences of such current organization and governing. One result is that the introduction of meticulous documentation practices of social workers contact with clients, regulate their interaction and constitute a control over both client and social worker. Another result is that the current organization fragments labor and awards more authority to managers, which functions to produce loyalty to the organization and management, rather than clients. This is expressed in demands not to voice protest, as it is said to create a bad mood. It is also expressed in demands to spend as little as possible on clients; short duration of treatment, preference for outpatient treatment and by making it difficult to receive financial support. This austerity is legitimized through the intermeshing of different ideals; budget awareness, evidence that supports short and outpatient treatment and that clients in order to change their course of life should to be allowed or coerced into taking individual responsibility. Another important finding is that the current governing and organization of social work produce distance and detachment, and thus discourage caring subjects. This is a complex process in which an assemblage of different techniques and rationalities undermines the cultivation of a relationship between social worker and client. 1) The ideal of evidence-based practice favors rigid methods over a flexible and holistic approach. 2) Ideals of rationality, closely connected to notions of masculinity and professionalism, value objectivity and devalue and deter the surfacing of emotions. 3) Meticulous practices of documentation reduce the amount of time available to meet clients. 4) Ideals and particular methods designed to promote individual responsibility in clients legitimize social workers distancing themselves from clients’ dependency and needs. 5) A division of labor, in either assessment or treatment, reduces time spent with clients for those who work with assessment and ultimately engage in the rationing of resources. 6) Standardized digital templates, installed to aid in assessments, regulate and proceduralize interactions with the client. 7) Austerity, heavy workloads, individualized responsibility and stress further accentuate distance, as detachment becomes a means to cope with arduous working conditions. The transformation of social work described above produces alienation and a fragmentation of social workers’ collective subjects. Simultaneously, an ethos of caring makes some social workers work extra hard to provide for clients, which ultimately covers for flaws in the system. Although such an ethos of caring allows for the further exploitation of social workers, it is also understood as a means of resistance, which in turn also forms the basis for organized resistance.
Sverige har ett internationellt rykte för att ha en omfattande och kvinnovänlig välfärd. Även om riktigheten i en sådan uppfattning sedan länge ifrågasatts har på senare år, likt i många andra Europeiska länder, det svenska välfärdssystemet genomgått en omfattande förändring i avseende på dess räckvidd, men också dess organisering och styrning. Fokus för denna studie är just denna organisering och styrning, och mer specifikt, hur detta påverkar ett av välfärdens kanske mest centrala område: socialt arbete. Genom att intervjua socialarbetare undersöks i denna studie uttryck för och konsekvenser av en sådan förändring, bland annat genom att undersöka hur könsbundna föreställningar och förväntningar är sammanflätade med det sociala arbetets organisering och styrning. I studien konstateras att socialarbetare erfar att deras arbete genomgått omfattande förändringar, vilket kopplas ihop med både organiseringen och styrningen av det sociala arbetet. Detta uttrycks både i de ideal som kringgärdar arbetet men också i dominerande arbetssätt. En sådan förändring är införandet av  omfattande dokumentationsprocedurer av socialarbetarens arbete och kontakt med klienter, vilket medför att kontakten med klienterna blir ytligare. Dokumentationsprocedurerna utgör också en sorts kontroll av både klienterna och socialarbetarna själva. En annan förändring som konstateras är att nya organisationsmodeller och en förändrad ledarskapskultur skapar förväntningar på socialarbetarna att vara lojala med organisationen och ledningen snarare än klienterna. Bland annat utrycks detta genom förväntningar att inte protestera och skapa dålig stämning på arbetsplatsen, men också genom uttalade krav att spendera så lite resurser som möjligt på klienterna; korta behandlingstider, öppenvårdsalternativ och orimligt hårda krav för att få ekonomiskt bistånd. Detta legitimeras genom sammanväxningen av flera olika ideal; budgetmedvetenhet, att klienter inte mår bra av långa institutionsvistelser, men också att klienterna ska tillåtas eller bör tvingas att klara att sig själva. Ett av studiens huvudresultat är att den nuvarande organiseringen och styrningen av socialt arbete skapar avstånd och likgiltighet. Genom flera sammankopplade ideal och arbetssätt styrs dagens socialarbetare till att bry sig mindre om de klienter de möter. På så sätt undermineras förutsättningarna för framväxten av en djup relation mellan socialarbetare och klient; 1) Idealet och kravet att socialarbetare ska arbeta utifrån evidens, det vill säga metoder och förhållningssätt som i speciellt utformade utvärderingsmodeller visat sig ha effekt, gör att väl strukturerade och rigida metoder ges företräde. Denna instrumentalisering underminerar ett flexibelt, relationsorienterat och helhetsfokuserat sätt att arbeta. Dessutom gör evidensidealets fokus på enskilda individer och avgränsade utvärderingstider att mer samhällsinriktat kritiskt och långsiktigt inriktat arbete undermineras. 2) Ett rationalitetsideal, tätt sammanbundet med föreställningar om professionalitet och maskulinitet, värderar objektivitet och förmågan att frikoppla socialarbetarens egna känslor från sitt arbete. Detta maskuliniserade professionsideal innebär att empati och solidaritet med klienten undergrävs. 3) Omfattande krav på olika former av dokumentation av det sociala arbetet gör att tiden som socialarbetaren har till sitt förfogande för att besöka och att ha möten med klienten blir knapp. 4) Ett allmänt samhällsideal kring individuellt ansvar och en särskild arbetsmetod (motiverande samtal) som många socialarbetare förväntas lära sig, framhäver klientens eget ansvar för och vilja till förändring. Detta legitimerar ett avståndstagande från klientens behov av hjälp och stöd enligt logiken  ”du måste klara detta själv”. 5) En vanligt förekommande uppdelning av socialarbetarnas arbetsuppgifter i en så kallad beställar-utförarmodell gör att vissa socialsekreterare arbetar med hjälp och stöd, medan andra arbetar med bedömningar av klienters behov. De senare, som också har inflytande över resurstilldelning, blir med en sådan organisering av arbetet alltmer frikopplade från den stödjande och hjälpande verksamheten och kontakten med klienten. 6) Standardiserade digitala bedömningsinstrument, skapade för att på ett likvärdigt sätt bedöma klienters behov och dokumentera det sociala arbetet, reglerar och instrumentaliserar kontakten med klienter. 7) Tunga arbetsbördor, individualiserat ansvar och stress, bidrar ytterligare till att skapa avstånd och likgiltighet eftersom det för vissa utgör ett sätt att genomleva en ohållbar arbetssituation. En allmän åtstramning av socialtjänstens resurstilldelning förstås som en viktig orsak till behovet av att skapa ovan distansmekanismer. Men distansen hänger också ihop med en tendens till ett återupplivande av en tidigare dominerande förståelse av marginalisering och sociala problem; där människors nöd ses som ett utslag av dålig karaktär och ett resultat av dåliga individuella val. De förändringar av det sociala arbetets premisser som beskrivits ovan gör att socialarbetarna alltmer görs främmande inför sitt arbete – de alieneras. Detta främmandegörande uttrycks genom att inte kunna identifiera sig med arbetet självt, sina kollegor eller med sig själv. Ett sådant främmandegörande underminerar, eller fragmentiserar, både relationen till klienten, men också en känsla av gemenskap med andra socialarbetare. En gemenskap som kan utgöra ett ”vi” och ligga till grund för att ställa krav, protestera och göra motstånd mot avhumaniserande ideal och reformer. På så vis är främmandegörandet inte bara en konsekvens av dagens organisering och styrning, utan också något som fyller en viktig funktion för en sådan styrning och organisering, och genomförandet av en allmän åtstramning i socialpolitiken. Samtidigt som dagens organisering och styrning av socialt arbete är främmandegörande, slår vissa socialarbetare knut på sig själva och arbetar extra hårt för att täcka upp för systemets brister och krympande resurser, för att trots det svåra läget ändå försöka ge det stöd som de upplever att klienten behöver. Ett sådant historiskt förankrat femininiserat omsorgsideal, dvs känslor av ansvar och empati inför behövande och en ilska inför oförrätter, utgör därmed på samma gång grund för en fördjupad exploatering av socialarbetarna, och ett vardagligt motstånd mot rådande system. I ett läge när flera upplever att kollegialiteten som grund för motstånd på arbetsplatserna underminerats, utgör ett sådant omsorgsideal samtidigt också grunden för organiserat motstånd utanför arbetsplatsen, bortom chefernas insyn, kontroll och härskartekniker. Medan nuvarande styrningssystem underminerar ett visst sorts motstånd, uppstår samtidigt grunden för nya.

The Master thesis "The Impact of Europeanization on Social Systems of the EU Member States: The Case of the Swedish Labour Market" elaborates on the potential influence of the EU on the social policy of its members. Although the social policy has formally been left in the competences of national states, there are certain possible ways whereby the EU can affect it. The instruments of Europeanization in the social area are identified and then tested on the case of the Swedish labour market. On the one hand, there are direct instruments of Europeanization in the social policy represented by the Open method of coordination (OMC) which is an unbinding EU legislation, and on the other hand, there are indirect mechanisms proceeding by the application of the rules of the internal EU market. Concerning specifically the Swedish labour market, it could have been affected by the Swedish participation on the European Employment Strategy (EES) that is based on the OMC, or through the ECJ decision in the Laval case which dealt with the freedom to provide services. In this respect, the specific Swedish model of labour market has played an important role. It is characterised by traditionally strong position of social partners and collective agreements as well as by the highly developed active labour market policy....