This article investigates the tension between the ideal of national equality in wel-fare policy and the principle of local self-government emphasized in the Swedish Instrument of Government (Regeringsformen). We do this by analyzing the rights legislation – an overlooked instrument through which the national government can influence the actions of the local governments in welfare matters. The aim is to shed light on how administrative judicial review of local government decisions concerning individuals’ right to welfare works in practice and to discuss the impli-cations this has for local self-government. To achieve the aim, we set out to answer two research questions: (i) Do the administrative courts’ decisions concerning indi-viduals’ right to elderly care limit the discretion of local governments, and if so, within which aspects? (ii) Is the discretion of local governments limited to the same extent by all administrative courts, or are there regional variations in this regard? By developing a theoretical framework, we show that three aspects of the court’s powers are particularly decisive for the municipalities’ discretion: the grounds or scope of court review, the policy content of the court review, and the type of rem-edies or judgment. The empirical results show that Swedish administrative courts overturn municipal decisions to a comparatively low degree (23%), which indicates that judicial review of welfare rights does not necessarily challenge the discretion of local governments. However, when the administrative courts actually overturn decisions, they use their formal powers to limit the local governments’ discretion to a great extent, both in terms of the content of eldercare services provided and resource allocation. The results also show variation in approval rates between the Swedish administrative courts. This finding indicates that the administrative judi-cial review of the Social Services Act’s rights clause affects the discretion of some local governments more than others.

This article develops a framework for understanding how the design of administrative judicial review can circumscribe the discretion of different bureaucratic actors. The framework proposes that bureaucratic discretion is limited to a great extent if courts can (i) overturn bureaucratic decisions on substantive grounds, (ii) review decisions associated with high economic costs, and (iii) issue detailed instructions for how rulings are to be implemented. Applying the framework to the Swedish case, we first show that the legislative design of the judicial review process allows administrative courts to greatly limit the discretion of senior officials and street-level bureaucrats. Second, we show that Swedish courts defer to the expertise of bureaucratic actors in the welfare sector by sparingly overturning decisions. However, when courts actually overturn decisions, they frequently limit bureaucratic discretion by issuing detailed judgments in high-cost cases, possibly undermining the conditions for good governance.

This article analyzes whether, and if so, why, national inspectorates adopt different enforcement strategies when controlling the provision of welfare services, such as health care, eldercare, and the compulsory school. The findings show that the Swedish Schools Inspectorate uses a predominantly strict strategy, while the Health and Social Care Inspectorate relies on a more situational strategy. To explain this variation in enforcement strategy, the article tests four hypotheses derived from the literature on regulatory enforcement. The findings suggest that the variation between the agencies is not primarily the result of differences in resources or the authority to issue punitive decisions, as suggested by previous research. Instead, we find support for the hypothesis that the definition of quality can explain variation in adopted strategies, and partial support for the hypothesis that differences in regulatory mission can account for a variation in the agencies' formal enforcement strategies.