How Social Democrats legitimize cutbacks
This comparative article examines how Social Democratic governments in Germany and Sweden justified welfare retrenchment after the financial crisis. It identifies a legitimation strategy that presents cutbacks as necessary to preserve the welfare state from debt, market pressure, or a loss of national economic autonomy.
The study explains the framing of retrenchment rather than proving why the cuts occurred. It nevertheless shows why Swedish welfare-state change cannot be represented as a simple handover from a protective left to a dismantling right. Social Democratic actors could alter policy while claiming continuity with the welfare state’s purpose.
For Boomers and democracy, this makes party adaptation around changing constituencies plausible, but it also strengthens an ideological and crisis-based alternative to cohort capture.