"Gör din plikt, kräv din rätt": En poststrukturell policyanalys av ett aktivitetskrav

The Swedish government has presented a welfare reform, set to be implemented in 2026-2027. The reform includes an activation requirement with a clearly defined target group and a dual set of obligations imposed on both municipalities and individuals. This intends to address the long-term “welfare dependency” that recipients of welfare benefits are perceived to be trapped in. We situate this policy in a broader context of a shift from welfare to workfare and towards activation-oriented social policy. Combining insights from Chantal Mouffe and Carol Bacchi – arguing that it is the construction of the ‘problem’, rather than the technical solution, that constitutes the most important object of analysis when it comes to policy proposals – the study examines how unemployment is constructed as a policy ‘problem’. This is carried out by means of a poststructural policy analysis of the policy proposal and the subsequent consultation responses. The analysis finds that the policy proposal is based on a liberal political rationality typical for workfare policies. We also find that, while the proposal has been controversial, many of its critics implicitly reproduce its constructed ‘problem’, raising questions about postpolitical tendencies in contemporary politics.