Swedish State Commissions and the Management of Times

The paper will deal with a specific Swedish institution, Swedish State Commissions (SCCs). SCCs have a central role in the political system and its administration since the 1920’s. It can be said to be a pre-political institution for governance; agenda-setting, consensus-creation, reproduction of the State as a main proactive agent and the launching of major State reform programs in time and space. The paper will concentrate on how vast neoliberal reforms (of Cultural Politics, School Politics and Democracy Politics, and in the creation of several Commissions) have taken place over the last 20 years by focusing on central, recurring seemingly non-ideological necessity-constructions in these documents, i.e. how “times” necessitates change in direction of neo-liberalisation. The emphasis is going to be on how similar figures are shared and spread over different fields where reform have taken place or that have grown forward (such as "Future Politics"), and if and how these necessity figures are consolidated over time. Theoretically, the paper will concentrate on narratives and notions of “times” to critically analyze a process of integration and harmonization of narratives on the necessity of change in tempo-spatial terms. Thus, fields are here going to be understood in terms of their respective times, and how they are ordered in time and space, i.e. how reform is about re-managing a tempo-spatial order. Theoretically, the paper will try to compare the philosopher Jacques Rancière’s account of a “distribution of the sensible” and his critical notion of the management of times with fields theory, and open for a discussion on how to best assess the empirical findings on go on with theoretical issues.