The End of Class Politics? Structural Cleavages and Attitudes to Swedish Welfare Policies

Abstract

Sweden, by many regarded as the archetypal welfare state, has recently experienced severe problems of weak economic performance, sharply rising unemployment and cutbacks in social pohcies. In this paper, data from national surveys over the last decade are analysed in order to assess whether recent changes in the political arena point to more long-term problems of legitimacy for Swedish welfare policies. The purposes are (a) to track the overall attitudes to various aspects of Swedish welfare policies in order to assess which, if any, parts and aspects of the welfare state have experienced a fall in public support, and (b) to analyse what changes have taken place in how various structural cleavages are linked to attitudes It has been argued, from a variety of theoretical perspectives, that the former class-based conflicts around welfare policies are increasingly diluted, or superseded, by other conflicts emanating from gender, sector employment, client status, housing conditions or other possible sources of identity and interests. The results in this paper indicate that such claims are exaggerated, and that stability, in aggregate responses, attitudinal patterns and social cleavages, characterizes attitudes to Swedish welfare policies.