A Critical Assessment of Alleged Evidence of Western Submarine Intrusions in Swedish Territorial Waters

The submarine intrusions in Swedish territorial waters in the 1980s have received extensive attention. According to one theory, after the incident in 1981 when a Soviet submarine ran aground close to a Swedish naval base, Western submarines conducted subsequent intrusions as a psychological operation to affect Swedish foreign policy. In support of such claims, submarine observations and interviews with high-ranking Western officials have been put forth. However, the proposed evidence presented in Ola Tunander's article ‘Subs and PSYOPs’ in Intelligence and National Security can either be refuted or is inconclusive.     

Corporatism and the Microeconomic Foundations of Swedish Social Democracy: The Swedish Model Revisited*

The aim of this paper is to advance the research into the workings of ‘corporatist’ societies by adding a microeconomic dimension and outlining how such a revised model is applicable to recent Swedish experience. Sweden is often regarded as a corporatist society., that is, one in which policy is the outcome of a ‘social partnership’ between encompassing groups coordinated by government. This corporatist approach, resting on the existence of a macro-economic social contract between peak organizations, is complemented here by an analysis of the micro-level incentives and mechanisms conducive to operating within the corporatist cooperative framework. These characteristics are seen as together constituting what I term the solidaristic market economy, a system of economic relations different in fundamental respects from the two with which we are familiar. While Swedish reality docs not correspond exactly to the economic model set out, the case is made that it is as reasonable to extrapolate from Swedish experience to the solidaristic market economy (and vice versa) as to learn from U.S. experience about the competitive market economy and from the Soviet Union about the command economy. Complemented by these micro-characteristics, corporatist analysis of economic relations under social-democratic regimes is thus seen as explaining the resilience of the ‘Swedish model’. Rather than in constant peril as critics suggest, the encompassing interest organizations and the patterns of relations among them are characterized by continued solidity in keeping with the operating principles of the solidaristic market economy.     

Explaining Swedish Corporatism: The Formative Moment

The question addressed in this article is how to explain major intentional changes in national political systems. The theoretical point of departure is that political systems are usually so tightly structured that the prospects of actors introducing such changes are very small. The argument put forward is that only under certain periods of crisis can such changes occur; it is only during such formative moments that political actors change the institutional parameters or the nature of the 'game'. Empirically, the article extends this argument in an attempt to explain why Sweden's political system became highly corporatist. It has been shown that from a rationalistic approach, collective action - e. g. why individuals join and support interest organizations - is difficult to explain. Instead, an institutional explanation is offered. The empirical analysis shows how centrally placed politicians in Sweden during the 1930s, by changing the payoffs, could solve the 'free-rider' problem for both farmers' and workers' interest organizations. Contrary to earlier studies, the analysis shows that the breakthrough of corporatist principles in Swedish politics took place under a Liberal government strongly supported by the Conservative Party. The traditional connection between the Swedish Social Democrats and the corporatist nature of Swedish politics is thus questioned and the alliance between the Social Democrats and the Farmers' League in 1933 is given a new explanation.     

Mid-Level Officials as Policy Makers: Anti-Corporatist Policy Change in the Swedish Employers' Confederation, 1982–1985

The aim of the article is to provide an account of the process of policy change in the Swedish Employers' Confederation (SAF), 1982–1985, implying a shift from a pro-corporatist to an anti-corporatist view on interest representation within decision-making bodies of public authorities in the sphere of labour market and working life issues. In this respect, the study throws new light on the fall of the 'Swedish model' of industrial relations, by stressing the central policy-making role of a few individuals occupying their positions in the mid level, rather than in the leadership level, of the huge SAF hierarchy.
Given the formal structure of SAF and its statutes, SAF seems to be the least likely organisation to show signs of policy making in the mid level. Therefore, the case study also contributes to the general discourse about policy making in organisations, foremost by challenging mainstream rational choice theory assumptions of the role of the formal leadership in processes of policy change.
Being based on studies in the archives of SAF, the article reveals the mechanisms explaining why a few mid-level officials were successful in anchoring a minority standpoint into the basically 'model-friendly' leadership of SAF. The argument put forward is that the key to an understanding of this case of minority influence is to consider the mid-level officials' strategic use of different kinds of information-based persuasion and propaganda techniques. In fact, the policy-making mid-level officials belonged to a specific activist subgroup within SAF with its main base in SAF's department of information.     

State Building and Capitalism: The Rise of the Swedish Bureaucracy

The purpose of this article is to answer the following question: When did Swedish bureaucracy arise? That is, to determine a point in time when the organizational technology that Weber called bureaucracy became dominant in the process of Swedish state formation, as well as when bureaucracy finally replaced the feudal form of government based on the authority of nobility and the hierarchical ties of individual loyalties. The importance of this question relates to the debate on the sequential logic of economic and political development. The change from an aristocratic/particularistic to a bureaucratic/universal state apparatus can be understood as a change from despotic to infrastructural state power. Most empirical material indicates that, in terms of institutional structure, the transition to a bureaucratic administration started in the 1850s. Contrary to what most Swedish historians have argued, the Swedish state remained feudal and particularistic all they way up to the mid-19th century. If any particular decade is key to this transformation, it would be the 1870s. By then the last of the noble privileges had disappeared, a uniform salary system had been introduced, and the various state apparatuses had begun reorganizing toward a higher level of efficiency and rationality.     

State Structure and Variations in Corporatism: The Swedish Case*

The question addressed in this article is: Why are some countries more corporatist than others? It is argued that neither pure micro-, nor pure macro-explanations can account for the great variation in the degree of corporatism (however measured) among western countries. Instead, an institutional variant is put forward, where the structure of the state at the time of the formation of working-class organizations is taken as the main independent variable. It has been shown that the development of collaborative or confrontational labor movements was decided by the reaction of the existing political elites to the demands from the working class in the pre-World War I period. Where suffrage came late, and where the class system was rigid. a radical/revolutionary orientation would dominate the working-class movement, hindering corporatist arrangements, and vice versa. The problem with this argument is that it does not fit the Swedish case. Although democracy was introduced comparatively late and although the class system was rigid, Sweden has been considered the nearly ideal-typical case of corporatism. It is argued that the deviant Swedish case can be explained by the specific structure of the pre-democratic Swedish state - centralized, but not closed; bureaucratic and professional but not especially authoritarian; differentiated but not without central coordination of policy.     

Between Europe and unity: The case of the Swedish social democrats

Sweden voted in November 1994 to approve EU membership. Although the Social Democratic Party's leadership advocated approval, the membership was badly divided. Against the backdrop of two Nordic sister parties’ similar difficulties, this article examines the leadership's management of the internal conflict. It analyses the evolution and main elements of its management strategy, the most important being an attempt to accommodate rather than confront the party's Eurosceptics. As the leadership's two goals for 1994, an election victory and a ‘Yes’ in the referendum, were both achieved, the strategy must be considered a qualified, short‐term success.     

Globalisation, Marketisation and Power: The Swedish Case of Institutional Change

Globalisation is often thought to threaten the autonomy of national policymaking and generous welfare policies. This article examines two decades of policy change in Sweden, often viewed as a prime example of a fully fledged welfare state. The analysis is focused on reforms within the welfare sector, which is compared with three other important areas – credit markets, the labour market, and infrastructure policy. These areas can all be seen as crucial aspects of the Swedish social democratic model.  The findings can be summarised in three parts. First, seeing the credit–market deregulation as the first phase of the internationalisation of capital in Sweden lends some support to the idea of globalisation as the result of political decisions rather than a structural change caused by technical change. Second, during the last two decades, there have been signs of marketisation of the Swedish public sector. However, this analysis does not give support to the simple hypothesis of globalisation. There are quite large variations both between and within policy areas, variations that are not easily related to international integration. Third, marketisation involves a shift in political power. An overall effect is that the government has lost some of its former direct influence. However, behind the façade of the invisible market we find the same actors as before influencing policy. Globalisation can have tremendous effects on power. Whether or not this will be the case is first and foremost the result of political decisions and individual desires.     

The evolution of Swedish fascism: self-identification and ideology in interwar Sweden

ABSTRACT

Historians and social scientists generally understand nationalism to be the defining feature of fascism. Kunkeler's study challenges that assumption with his examination of Swedish fascist movements through the notion of self-identification. Using fascist periodicals, he traces the development of Swedish fascists' identification with the movement—in relation to matters of race, nation and the signifiers of ‘fascism’ and ‘National Socialism’—from the early 1920s, when an overt attachment to Mussolini's project was evident, through a National Socialist phase showing cautious commitment to Nazi Germany, and ending with a final phase of strategic anonymity. In the face of criticism that fascism was an alien import, Swedish fascists adapted their public profile to accommodate such national sensitivities, developing a racialist ideology that was not confined by national borders and was believed to be more in tune with Swedish political culture at the time. When public opinion turned decisively against ‘international fascism’ in the mid-1930s, they were forced to discard the name and image of ‘fascism’ altogether and enter a final phase of public anonymity that, in any case, involved no significant ideological metamorphosis.     

The 1976 Election: New Trends in the Swedish Electorate

This article summarizes some of the main findings from the 1976 Swedish Election Study. The defeat of the Social Democrat government in 1976 was caused by three issues: bureaucracy, socialization, and nuclear power. Although net changes were small, the actual number of voters switching parties was the largest recorded during the last twenty years. The traditional image of the stable Swedish voter is becoming a myth. Aggregate stability is combined with a large and increasing individual volatility.