scholarly journals The Rehn-Meidner Plan and the Swedish development model in the Golden Years

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-22
Author(s):  
FELIPE MARUF QUINTAS ◽  
MARCUS IANONI
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
National Development ◽  
Developmental State ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Swedish Model ◽  
Public Bureaucracy ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
The Welfare State

ABSTRACT In general, the literature on the developmental state studies Asia and Latin America, not Scandinavia. This article examines the developmental character of the state in Sweden, distinguishing it as a specific case, because its institutions and policies combine the simultaneous promotion of industrialization and social equity. The paper analyzes the Swedish model of development, centered in Rehn-Meidner Plan (R-M), a political strategy of the national development headed by the Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP). It is argued that in Sweden industrialization and the construction of the welfare state were two sides of the same coin. The R-M Plan played a key role in consolidating the Swedish model between 1945 and 1975. It combined and articulated economic development, centered on industrialization, reduction of social inequalities, and fiscal and monetary stability. It increased productive complexity and equality, unified economic policy and social policy, planned industrialization and income redistribution. It was structured through a broad power pact among workers, industry, farmers, political representatives elected by SAP and public bureaucracy. It was institutionalized, above all, by the democratic corporatist arrangement of centralized salary negotiations.

Worker and the Welfare State in Imperial Germany

1991 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 18-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Steinmetz
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Imperial Germany ◽  
The Social ◽  
Insurance Funds ◽  
The Welfare State

A complex relationship existed between working-class formation and the development of the welfare state in Imperial Germany between 1871 and 1914. In the 1880s, the Social Democratic party voted against the three major national social insurance law's, and many workers seemed to spurn the incipient welfare state. But by 1914, socialists were active in social policy-making and workers were participating in the operations of the welfare state. Tens of thousands of workers and social democrats held positions in the social insurance funds and offices, the labor courts and labor exchanges, and other institutions of the official welfare state. Hundreds of workers had even become “friendly visitors” in the traditional middle-class domain of municipal poor relief. This shift is interesting not only from the standpoint of working-class orientations; it also challenges the received image of the German working class as excluded from the state —an interpretation based on an overly narrow focus on national parliamentary politics.

The Swedish Social Democrats and the ‘new Swedish model’: playing a losing game

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claes Belfrage ◽  
Mikko Kuisma
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Swedish Model ◽  
The Social

This chapter focuses on the Swedish Social Democrats. After the 2006 Swedish elections, the Social Democratic Party (SAP), the ‘natural party of government’ during the construction and heyday of the famous ‘Swedish model’ in the second half of the 20th century, entered opposition for eight long years. Initially at least, some might have taken this to represent just a regular short-term slump in electoral politics. However, it could also be seen as the beginning of a long decline. The party is playing a losing game and the only way in which it can reverse its fortunes is by calling the very foundations of the ‘new Swedish model’, now ironically perhaps associated with the Conservative administration of Fredrik Reinfeldt, into question.

scholarly journals The Origins and Myths of the Swedish Model of Workplace Democracy

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
ASTRID HEDIN
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Workplace Democracy ◽  
Democratic Socialism ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Swedish Model ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Dominant Narratives

AbstractIn 1976 Sweden adopted a law on workplace democracy, presented by the Social Democratic government as the ‘reform of the century’. What can the reform tell us about the history of the Swedish Model and how it was revised during the early 1970s under the prime minister, Olof Palme? This article compares four grand narratives of the development of welfare states, viewing dominant narratives of the Swedish Model as influential myths in their own right. The article argues that despite its global reputation as a hallmark of ‘democratic socialism’, the Swedish workplace democracy reform was a broad cross-class compromise, in the wake of a pan-European wave of similarly labelled reforms. Furthermore, the reform served to protect workplaces against Communist activism. The argument builds on the internal meeting protocols of the board and executive committee of the Swedish Social Democratic Party.

Rudolf Hilferding and the Theoretical Foundations of German Social Democracy, 1902–33

1988 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Smaldone
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Finance Minister ◽  
Party Central Committee ◽  
Ardent Supporter

Rudolf Hilferding's appointment as finance minister in the newly formed coalition government headed by Social Democrat Hermann Müller in June 1928 marked the peak of an outstanding political career in the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). A prominent member of the Party Central Committee and its “chief ideologue,” Hilferding was an ardent supporter of the coalition tactic. He opposed those in the party's left wing, who demanded that the SPD remain in permanent opposition to the bourgeois state. Instead, he advocated a more flexible political strategy that did not rule out the formation of an SPD alliance with the moderate bourgeois parties. When the SPD leadership announced its willingness to form a coalition government in the wake of the successful Social Democratic electoral performance in May 1928, it reflected the strength of Hilferding and his supporters within the party.

Bernstein, Eduard (1850–1932)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Tudor
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Social Democrat ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Friedrich Engels

Eduard Bernstein, an eminent German social democrat, is now noted as ‘the father of revisionism’. He made a reputation as the radical editor of the German Social Democratic Party organ, Der Sozialdemokrat, and became a close associate of Friedrich Engels. However, after the death of Engels he abandoned revolutionary Marxism and argued that socialism could be achieved by legal means and piecemeal reform. In doing this, he raised fundamental questions concerning the validity of Marxism and the direction of socialist political strategy, thus provoking what is now known as the ‘revisionist debate’.

Shopkeepers and the Swedish Model: The Petty Bourgeoisie and the State during the Interwar Period

1996 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-369
Author(s):  
Tom Ericsson
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Swedish Model ◽  
Petty Bourgeoisie ◽  
The Social ◽  
Swedish Society ◽  
Definition Of

When the Swedish Social Democratic Labour Party came to power in 1932, Sweden experienced a turning point in its history. For the first time the role of the Social Democratic Party in the construction of the welfare state became significant. Until the end of the 1910s the Social Democrats had concentrated their primary efforts on the problems of trade union recognition and the struggle for parliamentary democracy. After 1920 the Social Democrats became the largest party, but did not gain political power except for a brief interlude. The concept of the ‘Swedish Model’ has often been used in Sweden and abroad to describe the unique development of Swedish society in the twentieth century. However, historians and social scientists have tended to analyse Swedish society without a clear definition of the very concept, the ‘Swedish Model’.

The Myth of Chancellor von Schleicher's Querfront Strategy

2008 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 673-681 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Ashby Turner
Keyword(s):  
Trade Union ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Nazi Party ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Social Democratic

In the multitudinous accounts of Adolf Hitler's rise to power, one interpretation dominates with regard to the political strategy of his predecessor as Reich chancellor, General Kurt von Schleicher. Beginning with the pioneering books of the journalist Konrad Heiden in the 1930s and continuing through countless versions down to the most recent scholarly works, Schleicher has, with rare exceptions, been depicted as having sought to thwart Hitler by bringing behind his own cabinet a political bloc extending from a left wing split away from the Nazi Party to trade union elements of the republican Social Democratic Party. Sometimes described as a Gewerkschaftsachse, this putative goal on the part of Schleicher has now usually come to be referred to as his Querfront strategy. Long regarded by most historians as axiomatic, that version of the chancellor's intentions has seldom been subjected to critical analysis. It is, however, fundamentally erroneous and serves to obscure his actually very different aims.

Populism Personified or Reinvigorated Reformers? The German Left Party in 2009 and Beyond

2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Hough ◽  
Michael Koß
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
The Social ◽  
Left Party

Despite its recent electoral successes, the Left Party's position in the German party system is more fragile that it may at first appear. The Left Party gained support in 2005 largely on account of dissatisfaction with other parties and not because masses of voters were flocking to its (nominally socialist) cause. Not even a majority from within its own supporter base thought it possessed "significant problem solving competences." Rather, much of the Left Party's political discourse is based on negative dismissals of much that it sees—in policy terms—before it. We discuss the Left Party's political development through the prism of populist politics. After outlining what we understand populism to mean, we analyze the Left Party's programmatic stances and political strategy within the context of this framework. Although populism is certainly not the sole preserve of the Left Party, it clearly excels in using populist tools to make political headway. We conclude by discussing the ramifications that this has for German party politics in general and for the Social Democratic Party in particular.

Running out of road? Dilemmas and issues for the British Labour Party and the Swedish Social Democratic Party in their search for a ‘modern’ welfare state narrative

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert M. Page
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Cumulative Effect ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
British Labour ◽  
Modern Welfare State ◽  
Democratic Principles ◽  
The Welfare State

Following significant electoral defeats in 2010, both the British Labour Party and the Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP) have been re-considering their approach to the welfare state. This article outlines some of the key themes of social democracy and social democratic social policy before discussing the evolution of the latter in both Sweden and Britain. The paper explores the cumulative effect of the revisionist approaches adopted by both parties over time which has resulted in a distancing from a welfare state strategy based on equality, universalism and publicly provided services. It is concluded that both parties now have little road left to construct a modern welfare state narrative that reflects “core” social democratic principles.

scholarly journals Popular Adult and Labor Education Movement in Sweden—History, Content, Pedagogy

2016 ◽  
Vol 90 ◽  
pp. 12-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petros Gougoulakis
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Labor Education ◽  
Education Movement ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
History Of

AbstractIn Sweden, workers’ education—Arbetarbildning—is part of the all-embracing popular adult education movement that assumed its organizational consolidation in the late 1800s. Popular education—Folkbildning—is a culturally determined practice of social communication with roots in the Reformation and the Enlightenment, playing a decisive role in the shaping of the Swedish labor movement in the late 1800s, the history of which is intertwined with democratization and the transformation of Sweden into a highly developed welfare society. The pedagogical and ideological configuration of labor education in Sweden is surveyed from a historical perspective through the lenses of the Workers’ Educational Association (ABF) and the labor movement's most powerful branches: the Social Democratic Party (SAP) and the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO). Workers’ education was utilized as a political strategy for a just and equitable society, via successive reforms, based on knowledge and initiated and supported by well-informed citizens.

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