Vår tids välfärdsproblem, nio sociala investeringar

Sammanfattning: Despite Sweden's relatively high figures on living standards several extensive welfare challenges remain such as mental illness, youth unemployment and increased income inequality. Municipalities charged as the extended arm of the welfare state, have over the past 10 years initiated social investments to address these issues. Örebro municipality is described to be one of the municipalities in the leading edge with this work. In turn, social investments as in preventative measures, could be argued as an approach to providing some citizens their civil rights. Consequently, the discrepancy between a citizen's formal rights and a citizen's substantial opportunities to take part in them creates social exclusion. Approaching theories such as social exclusion and poststructuralism, I use the WPR-method to investigate how welfare problems are represented in Örebro municipality's social investments. These representations are producing subject positions generating different conditions for individuals. The result obtained in my investigation shows that there are several problems represented in each social investment. Absence from school with the risk of not reaching eligibility for upper secondary school, cost problems and lack of collaboration in public activities are more than rarely described as problematic. Finally, the wide range of problem representations can show that welfare policy advancing welfare challenges is not a quick fix.