CO3 Podcast: Social contracts in everyday life – perspectives from Sweden

How are social contracts experienced, negotiated, and challenged in everyday life? In this episode hosted by Tugce Ercetin (Istanbul Bilgi University), Annika Teppo and Mats Hyvönen (Uppsala University) explore the concept of the social contract through the lenses of cultural anthropology and media studies.

Rather than approaching social contracts as institutional or legal arrangements, the discussion highlights how they are lived and interpreted in practice. Sweden offers a particularly compelling case, where social contracts have long been shaped by a partially engineered idea of folkhemmet or the “people’s home”, placing an emphasis on welfare and belonging.

Drawing on fieldwork, the episode reflects on how inclusion and exclusion are experienced across generations. The example of Finnish migrants illustrates how groups once considered outsiders have, over time, become fully integrated into Swedish society. At the same time, new forms of segregation and “utanförskap” (exclusion) have emerged in urban contexts, raising questions about fragmentation, shared realities, and the future of political cohesion.

A central insight of the discussion concerns Sweden’s future democratic trajectory, where there is a growing fear that while democratic politics do not depend on consensus, the country's media and debate environments risk becoming so fragmented that a shared space becomes increasingly difficult to sustain.

The episode invites reflection on how social contracts are evolving under conditions of social and media transformation and what this means for democracy, inclusion, and the future of the public sphere.