Navigating Social Sustainability: : Revealing Contemporary Laws and Policies in Public Procurement

Sammanfattning: The thesis is about Sweden’s approach on social sustainability in public policy. The Swedish New Reform derives from the EU Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement, including policies and legislations on social aspects, labor-law, and environmental considerations. The aim is to analyse how social sustainability through contemporary public procurement laws and policies is being formulated and potentially realised in Sweden. The ontological theoretical framework and methodological approach will be derived from post-structuralism. More specifically, the theoretical approach Governmentality developed through the Foucauldian approach and Carol Bacchi’s methodological WPR-approach facilitating a policy analysis. The sources are a combination of qualitative decision-making and non-decision-making material. The decision-making material includes the Swedish National Public Procurement Strategy, The Swedish Public Procurement Act, and the EU Directive. The analysis makes visible how social aspects are represented and subjectivized. The research highlights potentials for increased social sustainability and risks of de-prioritization depending on formulations of mandatory or optional characteristics. Theoretically speaking, interests of neoliberal-, capitalist market- and alternative social democratic rationale contributes to multiple social unsustainabilites. Resulting in plural realities of how to best increase social sustainability. The concluding discussion highlights that rationalities influence realisations of social sustainability antagonistically. Increasing the understanding of these core rationalities is essential to increase social sustainability through public procurement.