Arbetsskadeförsäkring : Politik, byråkrati och expertis

Sammanfattning: The overall aim of the thesis is to study work injuries insurance as an individual insurance scheme and as part of the Swedish welfare state. Here, the question of work injuries insurance is studied at two levels, partly the political discourse within which the laws that regulate compensation for work injuries have been drawn up and partly the administrative discourse whitin which this legislation is applied. The aim is to contribute towards a clarification of the perceptions, assupmtions and conceptions underlying the distinction between work injuries and other injuries as well as the reasoning and pictures of reality which have been regarded as justifying a special insurance sheme for these injuries.The study of the political discours stretches from the first bill for insurance covering work-related injuries in 1884 to the general election in Sweden 1994. The analysis takes as its starting-point two central questions; should there be a special insurance scheme for work injuries and if so, what form should it take? The empirical materal consists of parliamentary publications, such as bills, committee reports and official reports, as well as magazine articles. One of the conclusions reached by the study is that work has a very strong position in the political discourse. Here, there also exists a solid link between work as the cause of injury and personal responsibility and, as a concequence of this, work injuries are ascribed a special moral status in comparison with other injuries and illnesses.The study of how the work injuries insurance scheme is applied i based on a review of 27 work injuries cases which were decided in accordance with the Work Injuries Insurance Act in 1990. The empirical material consists of social insurance office documents related to these work injuries cases. The analysis has focused on establishing how the relationship between work and injury is determined. One conclusion reached in the study is that the administrative practice and the injured persons often have differing conceptions in a work injury case. Among other things, this concems the question of whether the injury should be regarded as being work related or not, but also the fact that there are also different conceptions of how the relationship between work and injuryshould be determined.An additional conclusion drawn from the study of the two levels is that work injuries insurance can be seen as a discourse where different practices such as politics, bureaucracy and expertise meet, confront each other and interact, This results in a state of dependence between the different practices which regulates the relationship between them and, at the same time, gives rise to an interal dynamic whitin the discourse.