Sweden's Ban on Sex-Purchase: Morality politics and the governance of prostitution

This essay thesis examines Sweden’s 1999 ban on purchasing sexual services, considering the attention it received as an unprecedented approach to governing prostitution, the highly polarised political environment in which it exists, and the multiple legal contradictions it displays. Using material gathered through a multisited method from 2009 through 2019, the study shows that the offence is a variant of other anti-prostitution laws directed at sex workers and their clients. Moreover, the thesis argues that the highly charged emotions surrounding the ban, as well as its conflicts and contradictions, are comprehensible if analysed within the framework of morality politics.
The thesis contributes empirically to studies of prostitution policy, theoretically to the conception of morality politics, and methodologically to the anthropological analysis of law and policy. It proposes an empirically grounded typology of prostitution policies: the repressive, aimed at eliminating the sex industry through punitive measures; the restrictive, permitting the trade to operate under strict conditions, regulated by both criminal and civil law; and the integrative, which does not criminalise consensual sex work but regulates the industry and protects sex workers through sector-specific labour and trade legislation. Its major theoretical contribution is a refinement of the concept of morality politics that offers new insights into how issues such as prostitution, homosexuality, abortion, and drug use are perceived, discussed, and governed in liberal democracies. These all involve ‘consensual crimes’ rooted in religious notions of sin and regarded as posing a risk to social order. They are typically addressed by the three distinct policy models, while the governance agenda either seeks to reform those who engage in these marginalised practices or to grant them equal civil rights. Empirically, the thesis demonstrates that the ambivalent legal and civic status of sex workers in Sweden is based on an exclusionary logic inherent in all anti-prostitution law, suggesting a link to the historically subordinate position of women’s work, as well as to the discriminatory treatment of ‘sinners’ and other social outliers.
These conclusions are the result of following the sex-purchase ban over a long time and across four related socio-legal domains: established law, political discourse, implementation, and impact, including a close scrutiny of how the ban relates to general legal principles and rules according to the source of law. The thesis consists of six introductory and summary chapters, two published articles, and two essays that have not yet been published.
Key words: morality politics, prostitution policy, sex-purchase ban, Sweden