Bakom lyckta dörrar. Beslutsprocessen bakom den svenska pensionsreformen 1991-1998

Abstract

Behind Locked Doors – The Decision-Making Process Behind the Swedish Pension Reform 1991-1998. The reform of the Swedish pension scheme (ATP) illustrates a surprising ability among Swedish politicians to sidestep entrenched partisan conflicts and establish consensus. Although several studies set out to explain the comparatively successful reform, the significance of new, and exclusive, institutions for decision-making has largely been overlooked. The hypothesis of this article, however, suggests that the creation of these new institutions is what really explains the Swedish success story. In order to test the hypothesis, decisions and negotiations leading up to the reform are process-traced, and opinions among voters and central actors that were excluded from the process are explored. The results indicate that the pension reform was made possible by the highly restricted decision-making process, and also cast doubts on whether the same pension reform would have been possible without it. These new institutions for decision-making, however, might have negative consequences for the future functions of representative democracy.