The Turn to Privatization in Swedish Welfare Services:

Rough draft; please do not cite Welfare services like primary education, health care and social care have in Sweden until recently been provided almost exclusively by the public sector. During the 1990s these areas underwent reforms and were opened up to private enterprise, competition and free choice on the part of users. The reforms represented a break with values that had previously guided welfare service provision in Sweden, like the need to shield the system from market forces and to standardize the services in order to preserve their egalitarian character. They are puzzling, moreover, because their seeming neo-liberal orientation runs contrary to dominant perceptions of the Swedish system as the social democratic welfare state par excellence. The main question raised in this paper is how the recent market-orientation of welfare services provision in Sweden can be explained. The answer points to the broad impact within Swedish politics during the 1980s and 90s of a set of ideas known under the label New Public Management (NPM). NPM encourages the introduction of market dynamics, particularly competition, into the public sector in order to increase its efficiency. As a social force based in ideas and expert knowledge, rather than partisan politics or economic necessity, NPM ha