The Worldview of the Corporate Welfare Elite: The Case of Sweden
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article examines how neoliberal restructuring of the Swedish welfare state has given rise to a new elite group that we conceptualize as the corporate welfare elite: actors who occupy critical command positions within the private welfare sector through ownership, management, and representation of significant welfare corporations and employer organizations. Since the 1990s, Sweden has undergone extensive market-oriented reforms enabling for-profit corporations to deliver publicly funded welfare services. Drawing on 22 qualitative interviews, we examine how these actors understand and legitimate their roles. We identify three recurring figures through which the corporate welfare elite articulate a shared worldview: the welfare leader, who presents corporate actors as necessary to safeguard welfare amid demographic and fiscal crisis; the rational corporate manager, who claims business-economic knowledge and management expertise as legitimate forms of welfare authority; and the innovative welfare entrepreneur, who presents corporate actors as agents of innovation, freedom, and renewal within an outdated and bureaucratic public welfare system. We argue that the corporate welfare elite can be understood as a carrier group of a particular mode of understanding welfare, rooted in educational and professional trajectories in economics, corporate management, and entrepreneurship. This worldview connects economic efficiency, managerial rationality, innovation, and freedom of choice, enabling corporate actors to legitimate their authority within publicly funded welfare. The article shows how elite power operates not only through ownership and organizational control, but also through shaping how welfare and legitimate authority within it are understood.
Source: The Sociological Review
Authors: Mikael Holmqvist, Max Persson
Institution: Stockholm University
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,900
OpenAlex ID: W7221111351