The changing practice of the Swedish Social Incurance System. Causes of the Social Security Agency´s changed norms and interpretations of sickness benefit and activity compensation 2008-2018

The overarall aim of the project is to investigate why administrative and legal practises of the social insurance policy are changed without any corresponding change in formal institution and law.

The project deals with the behaviour of the administrative and legal actors by investigating three different, but not completely opposite, explanations:E 1: The agency utilizes its normative power in an independent mannerE 2: Changes in the management of the agency has resulted in a new administrative and legal practice of the systemE 3: The agency anticipate rather than await political decisions and directivesThe first and third explanation (E1 and E3) is both based on an actor centred perspective on management and on the assumption that officials are acting by (E2) either a logic of appropriateness (they do what they think is expected of them and what they see as normatively and politically desirable) or (E3) a logic of consequences (they act in ways they believe will lead to a positive outcome for themselves, for example, increased resources.)The second explanation (E2) is approaching the problem from a management perspective.

The seemingly parallel political practice that takes place in the administration is a result of demands from politicians, but the steering is more informal and not communicated through legislative changes.

If this hypothesis is supported, it would suggest that politicians and parties do not have to make decisions on social policy issues that may be negative for some of the citizens.

Instead they are redirecting policymaking to the bureaucracy.The project will use a mixed-methods approach, combining text analysis, interviews with both officials and policy elites and agency reports in both a longitudinal study, a single case study of the agency of the national level and case studies at the local level.