Sweden: The Rise and Fall of Bloc Politics

This chapter examines coalition formation and coalition governance in Sweden. Swedish coalition politics have historically been characterized by a near-unidimensional political conflict along the left–right policy dimension, along with minority government rule (and a high share of minority cabinets).. In addition, Swedish politics has long been characterized by ‘two-bloc politics’, where the socialist and the non-socialist bloc have competed for power. However, the growing electoral successes for the populist radical right party, the Sweden Democrats, has recently and at least temporary, ended this. Although the increasing fragmentation and polarization of Swedish politics has made bargaining over government more difficult, it has not changed how coalition cabinets work and the existing practices of coalition governance since the early 1990s remains intact. Collegiality and consensus are still the dominant characteristics of Swedish coalition governance.

Even in Sweden?

The Swedish national parliamentary election of 2018 took place amidst considerable concern over the role of misinformation. This paper examines the role of digital media during the election against the background of the Swedish media system. It focuses on the role of bots and how they supported the Sweden Democrats, whose agenda was also promoted by anti-immigrant alternative news websites. This article reports on a study of Twitter that used computational techniques to distinguish bots from genuine accounts across hashtags related to the election and Swedish politics (such as #valet2018). I examine which parties are supported and criticised by bots and by genuine accounts, and discuss the content of the tweets. In this article, I place bots in the context of broader debates about the role of digital media in politics and argue that misinformation and alternative news websites will demand continued future vigilance.

Does Economics have a Political Bias?

This chapter considers whether or not the economics prize has a political bias. Counting journal citations illuminates the main clusters of economic authority, the pulse of economic opinion and thought, the reputations of particular individuals, and Nobel selection strategy. The Nobel selectors sought a middle ground between the ideological left and right, but veered rightwards towards the end of Assar Lindbeck's long chairmanship (1980–1994), in line with his strident interventions in Swedish politics. They moved back to the centre shortly after his departure. In contrast, surveys of economists' opinions taken over the same years show a two-thirds majority among American and European economists in favour of Social Democratic norms, and a third strongly opposed.

Political Integration in Practice: Explaining a Time-Dependent Increase in Political Knowledge among Immigrants in Sweden

Scholarly findings suggest that immigrants in Western countries, in general, participate less in politics and show lower levels of political efficacy than native-born citizens. Research is scarce, however, when it comes to immigrants’ knowledge about politics and public affairs in their new home country, and what happens with this knowledge over the years. This article focuses on immigrants in Sweden, a country known for ambitious multicultural policies, but where immigrants also face disadvantages in areas such as labor and housing markets. Utilizing particularly suitable survey data we find that immigrants, in general, know less about Swedish politics than natives, but also that this difference disappears with time. Exploring the influence of time of residence on political knowledge, the article shows that the positive effect of time in Sweden among immigrants remains after controlling for an extensive set of background factors. Moreover, the article examines this political learning effect through the lens of an Ability–Motivation–Opportunity (AMO) model. The findings suggest that the development of an actual ability to learn about Swedish politics—via education in Sweden, and by improved Swedish language skills—is an especially important explanation for the increase in political knowledge.

Parliamentary Committees

This chapter describes the role of the Swedish parliament, and parliamentary committees in particular, in the policy-making process. The role depends on the parliamentary situation: whether there is a majority government or minority government in power. In essence, the chapter shows that Parliament mainly approves governmental bills and seldom initiates legislation. It is an arena for both political conflict and consensus. Political negotiations between governmental parties and opposition parties occur in which the opposition has influence on parliamentary decisions in the policy process. Due to increased conflict between the two blocs in Swedish politics, the importance of the committees as grounds for negotiating compromises has, however, decreased.

Rational Politics

Swedish politics can still be characterized as deliberative, rationalistic, open, and consensual but only if these four concepts are reinterpreted. Sweden has changed from a long-term “sounding-out” style of policy-making to a short-term and iterative trial-and-error method. Whereas commissions of inquiry in the 1960s were expected to carry out thoroughgoing investigations of policy alternatives and their possible consequences, since the 1980s they have been ordered to finish their assignments in less time and deliver shorter reports. Political decisions today are taken on a much less solid factual ground. The political process has moved from a consensus-seeking system based on selected access for a few major interests to a competitive and open-ended system.

Introduction

This handbook examines Swedish politics as well as institutional changes, political decision-making, foreign affairs, and political behavior. It discusses political change and political mobilization in relation to society’s transition into a postindustrial economy, along with the impact of the growing international embeddedness, de jure or de facto, on policy objectives such as non-alliance and neutrality. This introduction first provides an overview of two parallel trajectories that reshaped and modernized Sweden since the 1880s: industrialization and urbanization as well as the consolidation of a capitalist economy; and democratization and the mobilization of social class. It then considers the degree of Swedish exceptionalism in areas such as welfare state politics, constitutional design, the party system, electoral behavior, public administration, subnational government, international relations, Sweden’s membership in the European Union, and the political economy of Swedish governance. It also speculates about what caused the decline in Swedish exceptionalism and concludes by outlining the book’s organization and themes.