A new article on Obfuscating Retrenchment: Swedish Welfare Policy in the 1990s

A new article by Anders Lindbom in Journal of Public Policy

2007 Obfuscating Retrenchment: Swedish Welfare Policy in the 1990s, Journal of Public Policy, Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 129–150.

Abstract

Cutbacks in thirteen Swedish transfer programmes are analysed to evaluate the argument that explaining welfare retrenchment is a different enterprise from explaining welfare expansion. The conclusion is that the 'New politics of welfare' is of major importance in the Swedish context, not only in the Anglo-Saxon context that Paul Pierson studied. Programmes relatively susceptible to non-transparent reforms have suffered larger cutbacks than other programs. Non-indexed programmes present opportunities for cutbacks by non-decision and are particularly vulnerable to obfuscation. Hence we have a politics of blame-avoidance rather than one of credit-claiming. Pensions are among the least targeted for cuts because pensioners’ organisations that emerged as the welfare state matured have gained influence at the cost of unions.