Activation strategies in Swedish welfare policy 1990-2015

The project analyses activation strategies in active labour market policy and in social protection (unemployment and health insurance), particularly from the early 1990s, as well as how various strategies have been legitimized/questioned by officials and investigators. In addition, the project aims to deepen the understanding of how different conceptions of social rights and obligations hereby are expressed. The results will be important to gain a deeper understanding of key changes in the transformation of Swedish welfare policy in a time of mass unemployment and fiscal austerity with a shift in the welfare state's basic principles in the direction towards increasingly conditional social rights and tougher sanctions. At stake is not only the individual's social rights and quality of life, but also the legitimacy of the welfare state.