The purpose of this thesis is to examine the Swedish Social Democratic Party’s view on welfare policies regarding social benefits between 1975 – 2013 in order to establish whether any changes can be observed. We examine whether any changes indicate an ideological shift from reformist socialism towards liberalism. For this purpose, the party’s manifestos from 1975 to 2013 are analysed to determine the positioning on matters such as sickness insurance, unemployment benefits, child benefits, parental insurance and disability benefits. Party manifestos are chosen as the source material because these are the prime documents in which the party describes its ideas and visions. The method used is qualitative idea analysis. The theory applied is Esping-Andersen’s theory on welfare regimes. Our results show that the Social Democrats’ positioning on welfare benefit systems have remained largely unchanged since 1975. However, their approach to the market economy has become more positive during the same period indicating a slight ideological move towards liberalism. Our conclusion is that the Social Democratic Party can still be perceived as a reformist socialist party according to their view on welfare benefits as expressed in their party manifestos. This could be further developed through future research on how their ideology might be affected by the rise of the Sweden Democrats or a focus on their labour market policy.