Förrättsligande. En studie av rättens risker och möjligheter med fokus på patientens ställning

Abstract: The aim of the present doctoral thesis is to study and conceptualize juridification as a phenomenon. This aim comprises analyzing the theories through which juridification as an empirical development is interpreted. In this thesis juridification signifies displacements towards legal discourse. Juridification comes about when an issue that was previously dealt with within a cultural, ethical, political, economical, or some other kind of discourse, begins to be, or to be more clearly or more often, treated as a legal matter. Juridification implies that discussions in some area of social life or discussions about a particular issue become, or become more often or more clearly, conducted through legal arguments and counter-arguments. In this thesis juridification also designates two processes that are closely related to displacements towards legal discourse. Through the first process a statute addresses a situation or an aspect of social life that was formerly not touched upon by laws or other statutes. Through the second a situation or an aspect of social life, which was previously not an object of judicial judgment or decision-making, becomes such an object. In order to make the phenomenon of juridification tangible the thesis works with a case of juridification, namely the juridification of the position of the patient in publicly financed healthcare.