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This article discusses the political relevance of recent proposals on universal basic income to the Swedish welfare state. I explore powerful arguments in favour of such proposals in this particular institutional context & confront them with two dimensions of the objection of political unfeasibility: (a) that basic income implies more fundamental normative & institutional discontinuity than sustainable implementanon allows & (b) that an adequate basic income would be unaffordable. I argue that this objection does not apply to all meaningful basic income schemes. Partial basic income & time-limited basic income promise to bring many advantages of a full basic income without implying a brutal clash with either (a) or (b). References. Adapted from the source document.

The paper argues that the Swedish 'neo-liberal' party (Moderaterna) has adapted its policies because of the popularity of the 'universal' Swedish welfare state. The party has come to accept that the modern welfare state is irreplaceable. We furthermore argue that the party's moderate electoral platform in 2006 is earnest. In the "short run" the party can only hope to achieve incremental changes & it recognizes this. Simultaneously however, the party in the "long run" wants to gradually change society. Over time the party in its rhetoric & ideological statements has emphasized the short & the long run differently. These differences between the 'neo-liberal' 1980s & 2006 should not conceal that the mechanism of welfare popularity largely remains the same. The party's actual policy proposals tend to suggest incremental changes only in both periods. Adapted from the source document.

The notion of political participation is elaborated. The public sector, & particularly the welfare state, creates many arenas for citizen participation outside of established formal political channels. Stubbergaard outlines a new research project on mothers' experiences in these arenas & how & to what extent the mothers become politically included. 16 References. Adapted from the source document.

In the quest for individualization and liberalization, policies within the Swedish public sectors have since the late 1980's been marked by market-like reforms. Despite earlier intense debates between Swedish parties on these reforms, parties across the political spectrum currently support the "choice agenda", as the reforms are known. To understand the process of how parties have come to mutually support choice reforms, I analyze the arguments of the Swedish Social Democratic and Conservative parties on private and public, in relation to the question of individual choice, from the late 1970s until today. The analysis reveals that the Social Democrats show continuity in the way that they attribute essential values to the state in regards of the state's capability of guaranteeing the desirable outcome (an equally distributed welfare), but a marked change in the instrumental values assigned to the market. Although the Conservatives show ambivalence regarding the desired functions of the state, it has not had the same impact on the conservative significance of the concept of choice and therefore the conservative ideology can appear as more coherent. For both parties, it seems, however, that the welfare society still requires a welfare state. Adapted from the source document.

The immigration of people from other parts of the world has meant new challenges to the Nordic welfare model and its fundamental idea of social integration and full citizenship. Current policy in Scandinavian countries calls for distributing newly arriving refugees between different regions and housing areas. This article examines the dilemmas created by this policy, and how such dilemmas are perceived and handled in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. With reference to previous related research, similarities and differences between the three countries' policies are analyzed at both national and local levels. The article's authors note that an immigrant policy characterized by the goal of social integration has created tensions between the ideals of integration versus the preservation of ethnic cultures, the individual versus the collective, and egalitarianism versus specialized treatment of immigrants as a group separate from the general population. Sweden, Denmark, and Norway have differed in their handling of these tensions, with Sweden opting for an approach based on a multicultural model, whereas Denmark has adopted a strict integrationist policy, including limits on the immigration of foreign residents' relatives, and Norway adopting a middle position. On the local level, the immigration policies and practices of Malmo, Arhus, and Oslo, as respective representative communities of the three countries under study, are compared. Adapted from the source document.

This article deals with the allez and retour provisions (Claes 2005: 84 f) of the Swedish constitution in relation to IU membership. What are the rules governing the transfer of sovereignty to the Union? And what are the provisions for assessing the constitutionality of the incoming tide of Union law into the domestic legal order? I have three objects in this essay. First, to describe how these two groups of constitutional rules were actually modified in the 2010 revision of the 1974 Instrument of Government. 1 find that neither was changed in any material way. Second, to try to explain the apparent reluctance of the parties involved to clarify the constitutional implications of EU membership. I find that this reluctance is rooted in a belief that European integration is not furthered if the rules contained in the allez and retour provisions are made stricter and more precise. Third, to confront a question conspicuously omitted by the parties in their revision: namely, by what criterion should the allez. and retour provisions be intertwined, if an optimum of hi-level constitutionalism is to be achieved? I argue that, in the end, the underlying issue is whether Swedish citizens want to see the principle of free movement applied as widely as possible. Do they want this principle to be applied across the board? Or would they prefer instead to restrict its application to the case of capital and goods, thus leaving them free to structure the labour market and welfare state as they themselves see fit? Adapted from the source document.

For democracy to be something more than an empty shell and the work of a modern society, citizens have the opportunity to attend meetings where decisions are emerging. This means that there must be arenas in which citizens and elites are able to converse among themselves and with each other. Civil society can, under certain circumstances play a critical role in facilitating such conversations. The talks at these venues should also be based on relevant experience and skills that participants reflect on together. Adapted from the source document.

Comparative research emphasize Social Democratic parties as leading political forces when universal welfare states are reformed in accordance with market-oriented principles. Considering the traditional portrayal of universal welfare states as an institutional feature of Nordic political economics, which tends to favor the Social Democrats in the political power struggle, this is a highly surprising conclusion. In contrast to the conventional wisdom, that Social Democratic market reforms are caused by economic constraints, this article postulate reforms to be conducted for political & strategic purposes. The theoretical argument goes like this: Social Democrat governments decide upon reforms when the parry-elite perceive policy problems as potential threats to the legitimacy of the universal welfare state. Hence, market-oriented reforms are expected to re-invigorate the legitimacy of the universal welfare institutions. For political institutions to be efficient power resources they are requited to be deemed legitimate by a democratic constituency. Otherwise they can work counterproductive in the ongoing power-struggle. The theory is tested empirically in a structured comparison of Swedish & Danish school policy in the 1990s, & is confirmed with some slight modifications. References. Adapted from the source document.