The Welfare State Upholders: Protests Against Cuts in Sickness Benefits in Sweden 2006–2019

Abstract

The power resource approach (PRA) claims that the labour movement continues to be the most prominent defender of the welfare state. The new politics thesis (NPT), on the other hand, claims that the welfare state has created new interest groups in the form of welfare clients who have taken over as the most prominent welfare state upholders. In an attempt to empirically evaluate these claims, we present a study of the extent to which clients and the labour move- ment have been involved in protests against cutbacks in the Swedish sickness benefit from 2006 to 2019. The article contributes to the welfare state literature by studying a most likely case for PRA- style interest group mobilization both in terms of country (Sweden) and policy area (sick-ness insurance). It also tests the claim from PRA scholars that client interests are uncommon in these contexts. Our results show that protest engagement among client groups is greater than the engagement among the labour movement when looking at protests directed specifically against cuts in the sickness benefit programme. However, when broader protests against cutbacks in several transfer programmes are taken into account, the number of protests initiated by clients and by the labour movement is comparable. Overall, our results suggest that both the PRA and the NPT are needed to explain current developments in social democratic welfare states like Sweden.