En pluralistisk maktordning? : om pensionärsorganisationernas politiska inflytande

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

Decentraliserad äldreomsorg under förvaltning

<p>Äldreomsorgen i Sverige från tidigt 1980-tal och framåt präglas av en decentralisering av makt och ansvar från central till lokal nivå. Från slutet av 1990-talet och framåt finns det emellertid tecken på att den statliga styrningen intensifierats genom regeringens utarbetande av handlings- och utvecklingsplaner. I studien undersöks under vilka former denna styrning äger rum. Handlar det om en styrning genom ”mjuka” typer av styrmedel, eller ”hårda” styrmedel som lagstiftning? Hur skall valet av styrmedel förklaras? Enligt litteraturen om governance kan staten svårligen återgå till att styra genom traditionella styrmedel som lagstiftning. Istället kan det förväntas att staten använder ”mjuka” typer av styrmedel som ”information”, ”överenskommelser” och ”projektpolitik”. Detta antagande erhåller stöd från slutsatserna av en empirisk studie av regeringens handlings- och utvecklingsplaner. Studien visar dessutom att regeringens val av dessa styrmedel kan förklaras i termer av en kompromiss mellan två disparata mål: Å ena sidan att åstadkomma en ökad statlig styrning för att komma till rätta med de problem som fanns inom äldreomsorgen, å andra sidan att respektera den ansvarsfördelning som upprättats mellan stat och kommun. Denna slutsats har dragits utifrån intervjuer med nyckelaktörer i arbetet med att utforma handlings- och utvecklingsplanerna.</p&gt

Bokanmälan : Kommunala folkhemmet: Uppbyggnad, de gyllene åren, nedmontering

Recension av Jan Sundberg, Stefan Sjöblom och Ingemar Wörlund, Kommunala folkhemmet: Uppbyggnad, de gyllene åren, nedmontering, Santérus Academic Press, 2011. 336 sidor, häftad. ISBN: 9789173350273.</p

Conservation or disappearance? The public provider of home care services in a system of choice

This article aims to analyse the position of the public provider (i.e. share of recipients) of home-care services in Swedish municipalities with marketization: a system of choice. Following the literature, an assumption is that the public provider has difficulties in surviving the competition with private home-care providers. In addition, the relevancy of this assumption could differ between different municipal settings. To test this assumption, we use statistical analysis. The main result is that the public provider is a 'strong player' in most municipalities experiencing marketization. However, there exists a variation in this respect – the position varies between municipalities