A Party for “All” Workers? Why the Social Democratic Workers Party of Sweden Leave the Crowdworkers Hanging

Abstract: The Social Democratic Workers Party of Sweden portrays itself as a party for all workers. However, with the precarious situation of the newly emerged crowdworkers the status quo, in terms of letting the unions handle it, is not enough of a solution, which is puzzling. Or in other words, it is not seen as a strong enough action. Therefore, three hypotheses on why the Social Democratic Workers Party of Sweden has not acted strongly on the issue of the crowdworkers are deduced. This is to establish a causal relationship with one of the hypotheses and why there has not been a strong reaction (the dependent and known variable). H1 and H2 treat the level of intra-party democracy as a possible explanation, while H3 focuses on the influence of the policy professionals. This case-centered study, carrying elements of process tracing, is conducted with semi-structured interviews where the respondents are high-ranked members of the Social Democratic Workers Party of Sweden and the unions. The interviews establish a causal relation between H1 and Y. In more qualitative terms, hypothesis one (sufficient intra-party democracy) explains the absence of a strong reaction and forming a strong guideline.