What happens when the coercive power of the state is exposed to competition? Exploring the development of Swedish state-driven coercive care of children operating on a quasi-market.

Ms Jonna Rennerskog1
1Stockholm University Department Of Criminology, stockholm , Sweden

Placing children in coercive care can be said to be one of the outmost expressions of the society’s expressions of power over individuals. Since the founding of the National Board of Institutional Care (SiS) in 1993 there has been a widening of the regulation and together with a number of governmental assignments this indicate that the state is aiming at widening the assignment of the SiS. A net-widening process can be said to be on-going and thus, an expansion of the use of the coercive power of the state over children. The founding of SiS also meant that it became the only state driven institutional care operating on a quasi-market. As two thirds of the coercive care is financed by the social services, this means that SiS is economically dependent on the social services and competes with private actors on the market.

This PhD project look at SiS as a political institution executing the coercive power of the state. Drawing on an intersectional perspective, the project explores the net-widening process and critically engages with the intersections of ideas of care and punishment, and protection and control that are actualized in this process. It explores the tension within this and what it means for the coercive power of the state, executed through SiS, when it is forced to operate on a quasi-market and is regulated through NPM.


Biography:

Master degree in Criminology at Stockholm University

Master degree in Sociology of Law at Onati International Institute for Sociology of Law