Buying a sustainable society: the case of public procurement in Sweden

Abstract

In this article, we conduct a governmentality analysis of Swedish public procurement in order to show how the notion of sustainability is constructed in this circumstance. We argue that the mainstream approach to sustainability policy in most countries lies within capitalist market rationalities, thus making it crucial to study how such rationalities shape and represent the problems of unsustainability and how these “problems” limit the possibilities for politics and policy in practice. Furthermore, public procurement is a central instrument through which these rationalities are realised and maintained. Thus, the purpose is to examine how problems of unsustainability are represented through public procurement policy and the effects they constitute for the politics of sustainability. To this end we mobilise the Foucauldian based “what’s the problem represented to be” approach. As data, we use policy documents published with respect to public procurement in Sweden. Our findings show that the dominant problem representation constructs unsustainability as a market failure, limiting the possibilities for politics and policies of sustainability in several ways. This includes premising sustainability upon the continued expansion of capitalism; constituting the agents of change as apolitical actors; making sustainability a voluntary ambition for the procuring organisations; and constructing the legitimate claim to earth’s resources and sinks as a matter of purchasing power, with important implications for environmental justice. However, our analysis also shows a tension in the material creating openings for a politicisation of the representations of sustainability.