Diplomarbeit aus dem Jahr 2005 im Fachbereich Politik - Internationale Politik - Region: Westeuropa, Note: 2, Universität Wien, 97 Quellen im Literaturverzeichnis, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: The goal of this master thesis was to prove that budget policy of consolidation is not inconsistent with a social welfare state á la Esping Andersen. The horrible economic and structural crises at the beginning of the 90ies in Sweden were resulting in budget deficit of -11, 9 % of GDP. First the author shows two scientific possibilities how to deal with budget consolidations. Afterwards the dissertation goes on at the change of government 1994 and researches the new guidelines of the Swedish budget process which is dominated by the so called "top-down technique". Further two major policy fields - administration and social policy - should show how the reforms helped to consolidate general government budget. At the end the work goes one governmental level deeper to see how the reforms of the budget process influences the local governments.