Towards ‘universal financialisation’ in Sweden?

The reform of Swedish pensions serves as a case study to explore resistant institutions and logics shaping processes of financialisation in Europe. EU membership cemented the path towards neoliberal restructuring, yet Sweden remained an unlikely case for financialisation by the mid-nineties. Social Democratic principles and practices of de-commodification and redistribution remained dominant with pensions at the core. Reform aimed at changing this by subjecting pensions to financial market performance. The outcome of the project to, in a characteristically Swedish way, ‘universalise’ financialisation is however uncertain. If successful, those challenging the legitimacy of financialisation elsewhere in Europe lose a ‘social democratic’ reference point in their struggle.