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The Swedish Conservative Party and the Welfare State: Institutional Change and Adapting Preferences1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Anders Lindbom
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Abstract

After the 2006 elections, a bourgeois government came to power in Sweden. This article argues that the popularity of the ‘universal’ Swedish welfare state has led the dominant ‘neoliberal’ party (Moderaterna) to adapt its policies; the party has accepted that the modern welfare state is irreplaceable. In the short run the party can only hope to achieve incremental changes, but at the same time the party wants to change society (lower taxes) in the long run. The differences between the allegedly neoliberal 1980s and 2006 should not conceal that the mechanism of welfare popularity remains largely the same. The party's policy proposals tend to suggest only incremental changes in both periods.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , 2008 , pp. 539 - 560
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2008.

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Footnotes

1

The author would like to thank Bo Rothstein, Joakim Palme and the participants of the seminars at the Institute for Future Studies in Stockholm and for Political Economy at the Department of Goverment, Uppsala University.

References

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