Welfare to Be Earned? A Discourse Analysis of Entitlement, Deservingness and Recognition in Sweden’s Proposed Qualification Requirements for Social Benefits.

Sammanfattning

This thesis analyses how welfare, entitlement and welfare subjects are discursively constructed in the policy process surrounding the proposed qualification requirements for social insurance benefits and financial assistance, as part of the Swedish social benefit reform, ‘bidragsreformen’. Drawing on Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of discourse analysis, the study examines the governmental committee directive Dir. 2023:149 (Socialdepartementet, 2023) and the Swedish Government Official Report SOU 2025:53, with selected consultation responses used to illustrate contestation within the policy process. The analysis shows that welfare is constructed less as a universal social right tied to residence or need, and more as a conditional resource that must be earned, qualified for and protected. Migration, weak labour market attachment, social exclusion and long-term welfare dependency are framed as interconnected problems, while qualification requirements are presented as a necessary solution. The reform is legitimised through economic arguments about sustainability and incentives, moral and political arguments about work and reciprocity, legal arguments about compatibility with national and supranational law, as well as research-based arguments. The analysis further shows how third-country nationals, particularly those who are unemployed or low-skilled, are positioned as conditional welfare subjects. Interpreted through Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition and the concept of welfare chauvinism, the reform can be understood as part of a broader transformation in which welfare access becomes increasingly tied to work, contribution, legal status and formal membership.