Strength in weakness - A new institutional design perspective on the Swedish Trust Reform

Abstract: To address the problems that had sprung from the detail management of the welfare sector, a result of control in the vein of New Public Management (NPM), the Swedish government commissioned the Trust Delegation (Tillitsdelegationen) to develop a trust-based steering and launched the Trust Reform (Tillitsreformen). As this new reform seeks to remedy the failures of the previous system, this thesis sets out to examine what potential for being successful in this it can be said to have. By using a set of principles for good design, derived from a new institutionalist perspective on institutional design, it evaluates the Trust Reform as it emerges in the Trust Delegation’s main report. The analysis shows that the reform, by and large, holds potential for success in its original design. There are, however, contradictions and trade-offs that may be in need of solving. The thesis concludes with a discussion serving to indicate where to place the reform in a tradition of public management reform, realising its distinction in doing so. This discussion also includes a call for precision of the analytical framework in future research and for studies of the Trust Reform over time.