Elite Reproduction and Power in the Neoliberal Era: The Image-Making of King Carl XVI Gustaf as ‘Sweden’s Leader’

Abstract

One group of elites that often escapes attention among sociologists are royals, who seem to be regarded as uninteresting and irrelevant study objects for the analysis of elites’ reproduction and power in contemporary society. Still, as suggested by, for instance, the death of the British Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 and the installation of the Danish King Frederik X in 2024, royals enjoy extraordinary attention among the general public and media, which testifies to their potentially important social, moral and political functions and roles. Based on an extensive examination of the longest reigning monarch in the world today, the Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf, I suggest how he, through media, has been constructed as ‘Sweden’s leader’; by idealizing such neoliberal virtues as activity, entrepreneurship, positive thinking, self-management and similar expressions of ‘leadership’. A key concept for my analysis of the fabrication of the King is ‘image-making’, which derives from Ervin Goffman’s work on the ‘presentation of self’. Essentially, the King aspires to be seen as a role model in contemporary Sweden, a country that has become all the more market-oriented during the last 50 years, which is critical to understanding his legitimacy, and hence ability to exercise power.