Malte Breiding Hansen and Maria Jansson (Örebro University) have authored the open-access article ”Who Cares? The Neoliberal Turn and Changes in the Articulations of Women’s Relation to the Swedish Welfare State” in the journal NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research. The article asks whether articulations of women’s relation to the welfare state and modes of political agency have changed in Sweden between 1977 and 2017; a period characterized by the introduction and implementation of neoliberal reforms.
 
Hansen and Jansson argue that the neoliberal turn has changed women’s political subjectivity from a focus on collective action to an atomization of agency against systemic gender inequalities.
Consequently, the neoliberal welfare state can be characterized as an “individualized collectivity” which aims to serve the individual’s self-preservation as opposed to the state being an arena for solving societal and collective problems.
 

Link to the article in NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research