ABSTRACT

Starting in the early 1980s the Swedish welfare state experienced several major changes in terms of providing welfare services and it is facing even greater changes in the next 20-25 years. There is a growing division between financing and delivering welfare services, which is becoming more apparent. Ideological clashes over the future of the welfare state began in the 1980s with the appearance of neoliberalism and the renewed political activism of the Confederation of Swedish Employers (Pestoff 1999b, 2005a). Initially, alternative provision of welfare services was marginal, usually found only in small specialized niches. By the year 2000, it had grown (Blomqvist and Rothstein 2000, Blomqvist 2003), with a varying mix of for-profit firms and third sector providers in different social service areas. The Långtidsutredning (2004) stated that the future of the universal tax-financed welfare state was highly tenuous and it predicted that it would be difficult to sustain in the future. So it would be necessary to develop alternative means for producing and financing welfare services by the year 2020. The Social Democrats attempted to stave off privatization of welfare services by adopting so-called ‘stop laws’ in various service areas. They prohibited the conversion of municipal housing into private condos and the provision of basic education and healthcare services by for-profit firms. The new non-socialist government immediately removed these restrictions when it assumed power in 2006. Thus, a continued state monopoly of the provision of welfare services was ruled out. Two alternative scenarios appear therefore relevant for the future of the welfare state in Sweden, either rampant privatization or greater welfare pluralism. The latter would include a major role for the third sector, as an alternative to both public and private for-profit provision of welfare services. These two alternatives are sketched in Figure 12.1.