Abolishing the Act on System of Choice in Swedish eldercare: on arguments and replacements in the municipalities

Abstract

PurposeSince 2009 Swedish municipalities may apply the Act on System of Choice (LOV) in, among other things, eldercare. About half of the 290 Swedish municipalities have chosen this within home-care services for older citizens, thus creating conditions for a welfare mix where private and public providers compete. Some of these municipalities later made decisions to abolish LOV. This article aims to analyse the arguments put forward by municipal politicians to abolish LOV and discusses if the case of abandoning LOV represents a case of re-municipalization.Design/methodology/approachQualitative method was used to analyse decision protocols and media materials from 20 Swedish municipalities that had abolished LOV in home-care services.FindingsThe article shows that politics and ideology seem to have only a limited significance in abolishing LOV. The most important arguments found in the empirical materials were instead pragmatic and related to the transaction costs: in smaller municipalities about the weak position of private providers and in larger municipalities about reported cases of welfare crime and extensive needs to control and review. In smaller municipalities, LOV was replaced by public monopoly and in larger municipalities by other types of procurements.Originality/valueWith its focus on eldercare in party-dominated municipalities, the article adds knowledge to the literature on drivers of re-municipalization but also discusses possible delimitations of the concept of re-municipalization.