Mellan tillväxt och trygghet : Idéer om produktiv socialpolitik i socialdemokratisk socialpolitisk ideologi under efterkrigstiden

Sammanfattning: For Swedish social democracy, social policy has historically been not only a means for individual security, but also a means for economic efficiency and growth in close relationship to economic policy. This doctoral dissertation shows that an important aspect of the ideological change of contemporary Swedish social democracy is the erosion of its growth oriented social policy ideology in the post-war period. Whereas a key element in the post-war ideology and the so-called “Strong society” was the conceptualisation of social policy as a productive investment, the ideology of the “Third way” is construed around ideas of social policy as a cost.The thesis discusses this ideological change as a dynamic relationship between growth and security as key concepts in the social policy ideology of Swedish social democracy. It argues that while growth and security where perceived as harmonious goals in the post-war period, the period from the late 1960’s can be seen as a development where growth and security became antagonistic goals, and the relationship between social policy and growth became increasingly problematic. The thesis focuses on two periods of antagonism (struggle over knowledge): the late 1960’s as a critique of growth and its social effects, conceptualised as social costs, and the early 1980’s as a critique of security and the economic cost of social policy. It is argued that both these periods can be seen as processes of crisis for social democracy, leading to new articulations and ideological change.