Suchergebnisse

Recent developments in Swedish local government and central‐local government relations have been characterized by re‐regulation and cut‐back strategies on the one hand and decentralization and deregulation on the other. In this article these developments are analysed as a dynamic process with contradictory features. Swedish society is becoming more and more differentiated and specialized with fewer mechanisms of collective socialization, but with more economic and strategic calculations on the part of central and local authorities, interest organizations and individuals. New formal rules are developed in order to handle conflicts and enhance public sector legitimacy. In the communes we can identify an ideological shift from viewing the commune as a political institution to regarding it as a service‐producing company. In addition, citizens are increasingly looked upon as individual consumers rather than political citizens. Corresponding organizational solutions such as depoliticization, privatization and freedom of choice have been developed. However, as a reaction to communal consumerism there is also a growing interest in communitarian values. There is an increasing number of examples of people participating in matters of common nature and expressing their belonging to a community. An interesting question for future research is whether the observed contradictory tendencies will increase or decrease the legitimacy of the traditional democratic institutions at the communal level.

User-involvement is emerging as a key concern in social policy. So far debates have largely been framed in narrow social administration terms. The idea embraces conflicting conceptions of consumerism and self- advocacy. Here it is considered in the broader context of citivenship and human need. Beginning with people's own experience and ideas about them, the article explores their relationship with an empowering approach to involvement which enables us to become producers rather than consumers of our own welfare.

There is considerable debate about the demands citizenship places upon us in our everyday lives. 'Living Together as Equals' distinguishes two different ways of thinking about citizenship both of which shed some light on the demands that it makes upon us