6 - Sweden

Summary

This chapter studies the role of public opinion in the politics of education reforms in Sweden during 2006–2018. The chapter uses process tracing (based on primary and secondary sources as well as sixteen interviews with important stakeholders in the education system) to analyze what role public opinion has played in education reforms, from early childhood education to higher education. We find that the influence of public opinion varied depending on the salience and coherence of public opinion on the respective issues. The theoretical framework developed in Chapter 2, therefore, is confirmed. When issues were salient and the general public’s opinion coherent, public opinion had an important impact on policy-makers (e.g. in the cases of the 90-day youth employment guarantee or when raising teachers’ salaries). When issues were salient but attitudes conflicting (as in the cases of the prominent GY2011 school governance reform or in the “profits through the welfare state” debate), public opinion was important to bring the topic on the agenda, but the policy output depended solely on the respective parties in office. Finally, when salience was low, public opinion was negligible and interest groups dominated. The Swedish case study therefore offers detailed qualitative evidence for our theoretical model.