The criminalization of welfare and policing has often been analysed as being indicative of the global rise of a neoliberal political agenda. The current paper examines how governmental power is organized to govern investigators responsible for policing welfare in Sweden. Using empirical illustrations from the Swedish case, it shows how multiple governmental logics are enacted in the context of a broader political will to crack down on welfare fraud. Specifically, it demonstrates how so-called control investigators are tasked to realize a neoconservative agenda. To this end, these investigators are themselves governed using an amalgam of neoliberal and bureaucratic rationalities and technologies. The paper argues that examinations of the articulation of multiple governmental rationalities offer one route for thinking intelligibly about power and criminalization and by extension about the limits of neoliberal rule.

The article examines the ways private policing is organized with regard to profitability. While the literature on private policing has enhanced our understanding of its growth, scope and normative implications, less is known about how ‘hybrid’ policing is conducted to make profit. Informed by 38 qualitative interviews with the seven largest insurance companies in Sweden, the article details how power relations are organized to ensure that the private policing of insurance claims supports and does not pose a threat to profit. Drawing on evidence from the empirical research, a range of issues are discussed, including the relationship between private policing and state power, and the intertwined governance of both claimants and policing actors.

Existing research clearly shows that the public-private divide is continuously being challenged, recast and transformed. However, this article argues that a sharp distinction between public and private continues to operate as an important norm for professionals involved in the investigation of insurance claims fraud in Sweden. It shows how power within private insurance companies and the police authority is organized around the public-private divide, which is in turn mobilized to justify repression and to give investigations legitimacy. The article indicates that the formal public-private distinction is far more thoroughly maintained than is suggested by the existing literature. Rather than challenging the centrality of state power, private insurers and the police construct, maintain and have a stake in the reproduction of a state-centric monopoly of crime control.

No abstract