Revolving doors to the private sector? A sociolegal study on top state and region officials´ transitions to the private sector and their regulation

In the last decades, movements of top Swedish officials to the private sector made headlines with fears that this might mean public officials making decisions with future corporate careers in mind causing public distrust towards public officials and institutions.

The absence of Swedish academic attention to these officials´ post-public moves is what this project aims to remedy in three ways.

First, to analyse how the conceptualisation of state and region officials moving to the private sector has developed historically in Sweden to its current legal status as needing special regulation by conducting a legal historical analysis.

Second, to map empirically these moves in a Social Network Analysis and statistical analysis in order to understand the relationship between the Swedish state and the private sector.

Third, to follow the implementation of the Act (2018:676) restricting ministers and state secretaries´ post-public moves and its broader socio-legal implications on future situations of public officials switching sides by analysing the regulation process and interviewing regulators and the law´s subjects.

This is a four-year, interdisciplinary project that is expected to provide unique datasets on movements of key personnel from the public to the private sector and theoretical insights in the relationship between public institutions and the private sector in the context of a modern welfare state with increasing privatisation of public services and neoliberal reforms.