The purpose of this paper is to acknowledge the role of civil society in the Swedish welfare society, which is a scarcely debated, yet ideologically charged field of study in Swedish social science. The paper will especially emphasize the level of knowledge and the role of politics in this area. The title of this paper contains two contested concepts. The concept of ‘welfare’ might have a reasonably universal understanding even though it can and should be theorized upon. Civil society is here understood to cover voluntary organizations and their actives but also informal help and care provided by neighbors, friends, colleagues and relatives outside their own household. Included in the civil society concept are also the informal networks in which people participate (Meeuwisse, 1999; Trägårdh, 1999; Jeppsson-Grassman & Svedberg, 2005; Lindberg, 2005). The emphasis in this paper is on the process, the actual efforts or actions performed. Yet the actor perspective, – the importance of organizations and individuals as representatives and opinion leaders – is not disregarded. This paper is partly based on the Swedish findings of the Nordic research overview presented in this publication in concern, and will address the questions at hand through a dual approach. One of the two approaches is a history of the civil society debate from the 1980s to the present day, where some special characteristics will be identified in the general description. The second approach is more directly based on the literature review, where tendencies in the database material as well as the produced scientific knowledge are discussed in correlation with the history of the debate on civil society. The two approaches are mutually reinforcing and work jointly in the text to arrive at the conclusions presented here about both the political and the academic debate on civil society.

The purpose of this paper is to acknowledge the role of civil society in the Swedish welfare society, which is a scarcely debated, yet ideologically charged field of study in Swedish social science. The paper will especially emphasize the level of knowledge and the role of politics in this area. The title of this paper contains two contested concepts. The concept of ‘welfare’ might have a reasonably universal understanding even though it can and should be theorized upon. Civil society is here understood to cover voluntary organizations and their actives but also informal help and care provided by neighbors, friends, colleagues and relatives outside their own household. Included in the civil society concept are also the informal networks in which people participate (Meeuwisse, 1999; Trägårdh, 1999; Jeppsson-Grassman & Svedberg, 2005; Lindberg, 2005). The emphasis in this paper is on the process, the actual efforts or actions performed. Yet the actor perspective, – the importance of organizations and individuals as representatives and opinion leaders – is not disregarded. This paper is partly based on the Swedish findings of the Nordic research overview presented in this publication in concern, and will address the questions at hand through a dual approach. One of the two approaches is a history of the civil society debate from the 1980s to the present day, where some special characteristics will be identified in the general description. The second approach is more directly based on the literature review, where tendencies in the database material as well as the produced scientific knowledge are discussed in correlation with the history of the debate on civil society. The two approaches are mutually reinforcing and work jointly in the text to arrive at the conclusions presented here about both the political and the academic debate on civil society.