När medborgaren blir en kund - vad händer då med det gemensamma bästa?
ExitCustomerVoiceDemocracyNew Public ManagementPolitical and administrative sciencesStatsvetenskapFörvaltningskunskapLaw and Political Science
In the late 20th century there has been some changes in the public sector. These changes are described as New Public Management. When ideas from the private market is transferred to the public sector, for example to regard citizens as cus-tomer. Central in this paper is the use of term customer in the Swedish public sec-tor. There are two questions in the paper; which possibilities has a disappointed customer to effect the public sector, and what may happen with democracy, the common good, when the citizen becomes a customer?To answer the questions I study two different cases, Svedala kommun and the tax department, Skatteverket. I make interviews with employees and study docu-ments. To analyse I use comparative method, most different system design. The main theory is Hirschmans theory about exit and voice. This theory can explain how a disappointed person can react.In the empirical study I found that there are differences in how they describe the customer/citizen, if they see them as individual or as a group. There are also a difference in how important the economy is and how this effects the common good. If the main focus is on economy it can be a risk that who will be more im-portant than why and that can have effect on the democracy.The similarity is that both treat the customer/citizen as if she was a customer, they are gentle and respect her. In both cases, it is easier to raise your voice in-stead of using exit. I can see that there are a connection between this sort of treat-ment and the possibility of using voice. Hopefully this way of treatment and the good opportunity to use voice, simplifies democracy and the common good.