Anyone for higher speed limits? – Self-interested and adaptive political preferences

Swedish survey-evidence indicates that variables reflecting self-interest are important in explaining people’s preferred speed limits, and that political preferences adapt to technological development. Drivers who believe they drive better than the average driver as well as drivers of cars that are newer (and hence safer), bigger, and with better highspeed characteristics, prefer higher speed limits. In contrast, elderly people prefer lower speed limits. Furthermore, people report that they themselves vote more sociotropically than they believe others vote on average, indicating that we may vote less sociotropically than we believe ourselves. One possible reason for such self-serving biases is that people desire to see themselves as socially responsible.     

Political Cleavages in Sweden and Norway

The topic of the article is a comparison of voter reactions in Sweden and Norway towards some current political issues. The analysis is based upon nationwide election surveys in 1976 (Sweden) and in 1977 (Norway). Despite the fact that the party systems are different in several ways, the patterns of political attitudes in the two electorates are surprisingly similar. The analysis suggests that political cleavages are basically the same in these two neighbouring countries. Likewise the location of corresponding parties in the two systems is approximately the same in relation to specific cleavages.     

Use of pepper spray in policing: retrospective study of situational characteristics and implications for violent situations

Pepper spray (OC) is a policing tool aimed to prevent or stop aggressive behavior by quickly and temporarily incapacitate without injuring. To date, few studies have investigated OC’s operational usefulness and limitations. OC reduced violent behavior in 93% of the 936 incidents investigated. However, the operative range was often <2 m and it took between 3 and 5 s of spraying before obtaining effect, partly owing to the difficulties of hitting a small, sometimes erratically moving target. Collateral hits were noted in 24% of the incidents, whereof 90% were other officers. Noteworthy, in 21% of incidents officers put themselves at large personal risk by using OC at close range against people armed with lethal weapons. Hence, OC emerges as a suitable tool for handling low threat situations but lacks key traits to ensure safe and efficient policing of high threat situations, e.g., handling armed assailants.     

Swedish Reaction to the Assassination of the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme

Sweden's Prime Minister Olof Palme was shot dead, on a street in central Stockholm, on his way home from the cinema late in the evening of 28 February 1986. The Swedish public reacted with grief and horror. The emotional reactions to Prime Minister Palme's assassination were greater than expected. However, placed in an international context they are, nevertheless, relatively weak. In the analysis, the situation six and four years after the assassination will be compared with the situation three weeks after the event. The focus is on: what role, if any, the assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme has played in the way in which Swedes and immigrants express their views on a number of important issues related to the murder and what effect, if any, it might have on the Swedish political culture and on the trust of the Swedes in the political and judicial system. The final argument that can be presented from this study of the connection between exposure to a dramatic event, such as the murder of a prime minister, and children's and adults' political values, is that the emotional effect of the assassination fades away fairly quickly and is replaced by a much more vague and unclear structural effect related to the total impact of the assassination seen as a dramatic event of national importance. This kind of structural effect on the political culture in a country can never be clearly described and analysed for the simple reason that an effect of this magnitude is almost impossible to control and isolate from other experiences.     

Exploring the role of dependence in influencing small states’ alliance contributions: A reputation mechanism argument and assessment

Dependence has been demonstrated to be a main factor driving small states’ alliance contributions. However, the causal pathway linking dependence on the one hand, and small states’ contributions on the other, is seldom explicated and assessed. Furthermore, the ways in which dependence may shape, not only drive, such contributions, have received little attention. The purpose of this article is to elaborate the role of dependence in these regards. Drawing on Glenn H. Snyder’s “fear of abandonment” concept, it is argued that reputation is the main mechanism linking dependence and contributions. The article specifies the causal pathway and assesses it against case-study evidence of Norway’s and Sweden’s military participation in ISAF. The process tracing lends much support to the proposed mechanism, and comparison helps clarify how different alliance relationship status (member or partner) impacts on the theorised causal chain.     

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.