This study will analyse a group of leading civil servants in post-war Sweden. The underlying assumption is that this group was important in the development of a modern "reform bureaucracy", where state agencies and civil servants took active part in establishing the "Swedish model" by connecting political goals with administrative practices. A biographical survey of this group will be conducted, highlighting their social background, recruitment process and career patterns, and the connections between individual experience and historical processes. An important element in analysis will be an attempt to conceptualise the group as a sociological generation.
Theoretically, the study is based on concepts like generation, gender relations, biography, generations (biological and sociological) and the "Swedish model". The ambition is to connect studies of intellectual and sociological generations with institutionalised studies of political and administrative change. The project is based on qualitative methodology, and will be based on the collection of life historical material, and archive studies.