The Origins and Myths of the Swedish Model of Workplace Democracy

Hedin, Astrid

doi:10.1017/s0960777314000423

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Here, Streeck and Thelen's concept of institutional 'layering' may help describe how the 1970s wave of Western European legislation related to the earlier two waves of Western European reforms, after the two World Wars, respectively (Streeck & Thelen, 2005). Furthermore, the impact of the communist models on Western Europe may also have occurred at the level of myth and ceremony, where the 1970s reforms of existing practices of workplace participation came to be interpreted in a new light, as similar or comparable endeavours to the reforms carried out under communist regimes (Hedin, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cold war isomorphism: communist regimes and the West European model of worker participation

Hedin

2016

European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In studies of cultural globalisation, the influence of communist regimes on Western Europe has remained under-theorised and little explored. Addressing this gap in research, this article puts forward the glocalisation grid of worldpolity theory as a means for conceptualising and investigating how East European communist regimes helped shape the evolution of West European welfare states during the Cold War. The article retraces the 1960s struggle over expert discourse within the International Labour Organization (ILO) in which communist regimes, including Yugoslavia and Poland, struggled to win the bureaucratic legitimacy of the ILO for their domestic policies. In focus are vertical, horizontal and temporal dimensions of glocalisation and the ensuing perceived or superficial similarityso-called isomorphismof legislation on worker participation in decision-making at the workplace. The article maps the timing of reforms across Europe, showing how East European reforms preceded and were co-constitutive to a pan-European process of policy isomorphism.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cold war isomorphism: communist regimes and the West European model of worker participation

Hedin

2016

European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Fiercely opposed by the political right, the employee funds remained controversial; the system introduced in 1984 was much less radical than the original idea. The conflict surrounding the employee funds has, in retrospect, been interpreted as a major factor in the breakdown of the Saltsjöbaden spirit in the late 1970s (Hedin, 2015, pp. 64f.…”

Section: Emotional Democracy At Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

The crying boss: Activating “human resources” through sensitivity training in 1970s Sweden

Tillema

2023

J History Behavioral Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article examines the introduction of “sensitivity training” to 1970s Swedish work life. Drawing upon a range of empirical materials, I explore the politics that were involved in the process of translating and adapting this group dynamic method to the Swedish context and consider how its proponents argued for its value. By approaching sensitivity training as an attempt to govern, shape, and regulate both human beings and the work organizations of which they were a part, I argue that sensitivity training presents an unexpectedly early example of a governing rationality that has elsewhere been described and theorized as “neoliberal.” The fact that sensitivity training was established in Swedish work life already in the early 1970s thus challenges the historiography of neoliberal modes of government, which have elsewhere been associated with a neoliberal shift in state policies occurring in the 1980s and 1990s. The article demonstrates how emotionally liberating practices in the late 1960s and early 1970s were embraced by some of the most politically influential actors in contemporary Swedish society, such as the corporate sector and the trade unions. As blue‐collar trade unions and social democrats voiced increasingly far‐reaching demands concerning workplace democracy and improved workplace conditions, advocates of sensitivity training presented their method as crucial to the process of “democratizing” and “humanizing” Swedish work life. Intimately associated with the new therapies of humanistic psychology, sensitivity training was used within the corporate sector to foster a more emotional and authentic leadership style that would embrace the values of emotional awareness, self‐expression, and self‐actualization. The crying boss emerged in this context as a key figure in the project of creating a “democratic” and psychologically satisfying organization. Yet, sensitivity training was also described as a means for companies to make better use of what was now asserted as their most important economic asset: the human being. From the outset, the idealistic vision of an emotionally liberated, democratic workplace was thus entangled with a specific kind of economic rationality, in which the emotionally liberated, self‐actualizing individual emerged as a capital or asset that would be better utilized if the organization allowed—even encouraged—employees to engage in their own well‐being and self‐optimization.

show abstract

“…The Left Party opposed it on the grounds that only the public sector should run preschools. However, they liked the idea of preschools run by preschool staff, but argued that this could be accomplished in municipal preschools along the lines of workplace democracy (Parliamentary minutes 1990/91:35 Thursday, 29 November 2012 AM)a vision of workplace organization promoted by the left (Hedin 2015).…”

Section: Lex Pysslingenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Winning the war by losing the battle? The marketization of the expanding preschool sector in Sweden

Westberg¹,

Larsson²

2020

Journal of Education Policy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article analyzes how childcare vouchers were introduced in the context of the Swedish welfare state by examining vital political decisions from the prohibition of publicly funded private preschools in 1984 and onwards. Basing our argument on theories of political institutions and historical institutionalism, we argue that this remarkable shift in preschool policy was due to a set of specific historical premises that included an expanding preschool sector and incremental reforms that did not abolish public preschools, but merely complemented them with private preschools. Instead of perceiving childcare vouchers as the mere results of marketization ideology, we interpret this reform as the result of a sequence of decisions, institutional layering, vested interests, and positive feedback mechanisms, where the expansion of the early care and education sector played a significant role. In this context, we argue that the marketization may be seen as a successful support of the rapidly growing sector of publicly funded preschools in Sweden. Although the Social Democrats lost the battle of marketization, they certainly won the war on publicly funded preschools for all.

show abstract

The Origins and Myths of the Swedish Model of Workplace Democracy

Cited by 8 publications

References 18 publications

Cold war isomorphism: communist regimes and the West European model of worker participation

Cold war isomorphism: communist regimes and the West European model of worker participation

The crying boss: Activating “human resources” through sensitivity training in 1970s Sweden

Winning the war by losing the battle? The marketization of the expanding preschool sector in Sweden

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About