Neoliberal management of social work in Sweden

Abstract

This chapter focuses on two cases, which may say something about how the welfare shift has affected Swedish social work. The first case concerns the implementation of New Public Management (NPM) and Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) in social work resulting in institutional changes and their implications. The second case concerns a shift in Sweden's treatment of people who are addicted to opiates - from being regarded as social treatment to becoming a medicalised and biochemical treatment. NPM is about marketising social work by concentrating power upwards and outwards in organisations, through procurement, specialisation and letting an economic rationality take precedence over a rationality based on needs and rights. NPM and EBP need to be understood as part of a greater neoliberal modification of social work practice in Sweden. The chapter focuses on the one particular social work practice, the opiate substitution clinic. The aspects of social work become subordinated and 'deviant' at the social services office or the substitution clinic.

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