Introduction

Political science ("statskunskap") has been an independent discipline at Swedish universities for a much longer time than in the other Scandinavian countries. As a matter of fact, a chair in "Rhetorics and Politics" was established in Upsala already in 1622, which then developed into a discipline focusing on the structure and functions of the State. Probably, this chair was held by the first professor of political science in the world. Political science also became an independent university discipline in Sweden long before any other subject the social sciences and there has been a Political Science Journal in Sweden ever since 1898. Nevertheless, political research in Sweden did not develop any unique characteristics of its own; instead, it was closely connected with two different research activities — political history and public law. Political research became associated with legal research in its analyses of constitutional paragraphs, and with historical research in its study of the factors that determined the forming of new governments and of the development that created a parliamentary government in Sweden. After the Second World War political research has become somewhat more influenced by the behavioral sciences (psychology and sociology).

There are now five State universities in Sweden; they all have political science as a discipline — the youngest one in Umeå got its chair in 1965. At present the number of qualified university teachers in political science is about 35. Moreover, there are about half a dozen political scientists at the independent Social High Schools in Stockholm, Göteborg, Lund and Umeå. During the last five years the number of students of political science has risen rapidly on all levels and there is now about 3400 students of political science at the universities, about seven times as many as twenty years ago. Even the number of students studying for the doctor degree has increased considerably, and many new posts for lecturers and assistants have been established at the universities. The effect of these increases has been that today almost every political scientist in Sweden (professors as well as lectures and assistants) is engaged in university teaching and consequently not much time has been left for research. Although the number of political scientists is larger today than it was in 1945, the volume of research is thus probably the same now as then.

In order to have some research done in this new university situation with its primarily teaching activity, the Social Science Research Council, established in 1947, has been granted greater appropriations by the State. The sum available for specific research projects within the social sciences this year is almost half a million dollars. Furthermore, a fund within the National Bank of Sweden has granted 200.000 dollars to a five-year research project on local government in Sweden, thus making possible both a nationwide interview sample survey of the municipal elections in September 1966 and a Comprehensive study of power and decision making among municipal and local authorities. The fundamental problem of Swedish political science is thus not the lack of financial resources but the lack of qualified researchers.

The increase in the number of students has taken place together with a rising interest in new fields and methods for political science and a new interest in methodological problems on the whole. Some qualified research in these fields has already been done, particularly in the area of mass behavior in politics. The incentive for using the new methods has come from political science research in the United States, eg. the works of the Survey Research Center in Ann Arbor. Although most political scientists agree with the necessity of shifting the focus

of research closer to the central political and administrative processes, Swedish political science today is nevertheless characterized by its spread over many different fields and by its hesitation to give up old methods mostly originating from other scientific disciplines.

Mass Reactions and Electoral Behavior

The behavioral approach has had its greatest impact on Swedish political science in the field of voting studies. For several years the Political Science Institute of the University of Gothenburg has been engaged in a research program in this field. Starting with a local pilot study in 1954, the program has now progressed so far as to include nationwide interview sample surveys in 1956, 1957, 1960 and 1964. The program has been carried out in cooperation with the Survey Research Center of the Swedish Central Bureau of Statistics which has been in charge of the field work and sample designs. At the Political Science Institute, the program has been directed by Jörgen Westerståhl and Bo Sarlvik.

With the exception of the 1957 survey — which was conducted in connection with the referendum on the pension question in that year — the nationwide surveys have been devoted to the study of voting behavior in parliamentary elections. To some extent the panel technique has been employed.

The study of the 1957 referendum was undertaken on behalf of the Royal Commission on Constitutional Reform in order to provide information concerning differences between a referendum situation and an election campaign with regard to the prerequisites of political opinion formation among the voters. A monograph on this subject has been written by Sarlvik.

The surveys in 1960 and 1964 were incorporated into election statistics program, which is normally carried out by the Central Bureau of Statistics on behalf of fhe Government. They were, consequently, financed by grants from the Government. Nevertheless, the Political Science Institute was in charge of the design and analysis of the interview studies of these elections. The Political Science Institute has prepared the reports on the 1960 and 1964 interview sample surveys, which appear in the official election statistics publications. In addition, the material provided by the election surveys has been utilized in various articles and research reports illuminating different aspects of political behavior (564).

Parties, Interest Groups and Mass Media

Parties

In a doctoral dissertation on the political handling of the supplementary pensions question, the author of the report tried to develop a general model for the behavior of political parties, primarily intended to explain their decision-making in socioeconomic issues. Some of the central points of this study are outlined in an article in this issue.¹ The explanation took the form of defining —exactly and explicitly — some factors that were supposed to have influenced the parties' decisions. Then, every single decision was analyzed with regard to every factor in order to clarify which factors could have influenced the decision. This resulted in a complete explanation of the parties' behavior and at the same time important differences were found among the parties concerning the factors that were essential for their decision-making. These latter observations can be the bases for new hypotheses about party decision-making and in this way the model can achieve a higher degree of generality.

This form of explanation has been criticized from different points of view. Historians have denied the possibility of explaining separate political events through general models; instead, they have characterized political events as the unique result of a number of conspiring circumstances. In the Political Science Journal the method of explanation has been criticized as being much too simplified, and one of the reviewers was opposed to the use of the term "explanation" for this kind of analysis. He argued that without rules combining the factors they could hardly form an explanatory model. Furthermore, he regarded the factors as some kind of collective designations rather than as separate variables. The reviewers were also opposed to the definition of the parties' interest as the realization of the demands of those socioeconomic groups that form the hard core of the party vote. This defintion was regarded as much too limited.²

Interest Groups

In the 1960'5, political scientists have drawn their attention to a greater extent to the interest group organizations. On the one hand, a number of monographs on special organizations have been published, on the other, there has been some — mostly unfinished — systematic research on the functions and influence of interest groups. In the 1960's four monographs on different trade unions have been published: Ingemar Lindblad on the Swedish Municipal Workers' Union (414), Bertil Björklund on the Swedish Typographers' Union³ — the oldest and in many respects the most interesting trade union in Sweden — and Par-Erik Back on the Swedish Agricultural Workers' Union (406) and on the Swedish Metal Workers' Union (407). This last work is the third part of the history of Sweden's largest, union; the other two parts were written by Herbert Tingsten, Jörgen Westerståhl and John Lindgren. These monographs have been written at the request of and in cpoperation with the trade union. The two first mentioned books were doctoral dissertations which have added to the more traditional historical description results from interviews with members of the unions. These interviews were intended to clarify the channels of communication within the unions, and they were connected with theoretical questions about union democracy. The survey results show that the unions do not fulfill the traditional claims for a democratic state: neither candidate contests nor differences of opinion occur in union elections. But the authors of the monographs find this a false analogy; in the basic agreement between the union leaders and membership over trade union policy — as shown by the survey — they find some kind of justification in democratic terms of the modern trade union. Olof Ruin has written a monograph on the central organization of the Swedish Consumers' Cooperative Movement (403), where he tries to describe some of the forms of the organization's pressure and influence. These monographs on specific organizations, however, contain a systematic study of the influence and nature of the influence of the organizations only to a small extent. In some minor studies, political scientists and sociologists have tried to achieve a systematic description of the interest groups' influence. Lars Foyer has systematized the ways of contact and cooperation between the organizations and the State, and in his book_he gives an account of the organizations' representation in administrative boards and in permanent and investigatory commissions, and of their role as official advicers through the "remiss-answers".⁴ Nils Elvander has tried to classify the influence of interest groups in more general terms and he has made a distinction between basic influence — a group's political, economic and propaganda resources — and its flexible influence — the forms of using these resources.⁵

Mass Media

The study of mass media in Sweden has concentrated on the daily press. The earlier monographs on single newspapers have been replaced by a more systematic study of the press under the guidance of Professor Westerståhl at the Political Science Institute of the University of Gothenburg. With techniques of content analysis the Institute has studied the content of newspaper editorials, the degree of polemics and partisanship and the presence of group and candidate references in these editorials. The purpose of these studies was to investigate the principles within the editorial staffs in dealing with news materials and to find out something about the propaganda techniques used in newspapers. To expose some of the techniques of psychological warfare, the news service from foreign news agencies to Swedish newspapers was analyzed at the time of the Congo crisis, when Swedish soldiers were taking part in the UN military operations in Katanga. This study was done at the request of the National Preparedness Commission for Psychological Defence, which has also carried out other theoretically advanced propaganda studies.

In Sweden, as in many other countries, there has been several discontinuances of newspapers and in order to study the situation of the daily press an investigating commission was appointed by the government in 1964. The Commission made a number of studies on the economic situation of different kinds of newspapers (metropolitan, regional, local) and of the correlation between the reading of newspapers of a certain political color (survey material) and voting for a corresponding party. This inquiry into the political role of the party press concerned different levels and kinds of newspapers and it showed a clear but intricate correlation between party press and party vote. These studies were greatly facilitated by Sweden's excellent statistics on newspaper circulation. The results of the Commission's study were published as an appendix to the Commission's report in the series, Swedish Government Official Reports.

Sweden's Political History

The study of Sweden's political history is still a favorite research subject within the two university disciplines, history and political science. This research has mostly focused on the period around the turn of the century and the following two decades, when a democratic and parliamentary government was established in Sweden, and it has been usually more descriptive than explicative. Two books about the formation of modern political parties, on the Right and on the Left, have been published recently. Stig Hadenius has studied the role of the Majority Party in the Upper Chamber of the Riksdag in the handling of the union issue in the 1890's (719), and Torbjörn Vallinder has studied the Universal Suffrage Movement — a Leftist organization — and its activities during the same period (405). Another study of the political system at the end of the 19th century is Gunnar Wallin's account of the propaganda and organization of the elections to the Lower Chamber from 1866 to 1884 (616). Per Sundberg has studied the policy of two short-time ministries before the turn of the century (159), and the scientific literature on the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden was increased in 1962 by a work by the historian Jörgen Weibull (739). Because of the death of the author, a larger work on the development of parliamentarian government in Sweden was left unfinished. This work was done at the request of the Swedish Parliament for its centenary as a bicameral legislature. It should be mentioned that the present procedure of the Parliament is on the whole an uninvestigated subject. Among more special historical studies we can mention Tomas

Hammar's dissertation on Swedish immigration policy, aliens control and right of asylum 1900 to 1932,⁶ and a dissertation by Clarence Nilsson on the Bishop and Minister of Educational and Ecclesiastical Affairs, Sam Stadener (454). Other biographies to be mentioned are Leif Kihlberg's study of the first leader of the National Liberal Party, Karl Staaff⁷ and a biography of Petersson in Påboda, the first farmer to be a cabinet member in Sweden in 1906, written by his son, the former chief editor of a well-known Gothenburg newspaper, Knut Petersson.⁸

The Legal Framework

During 1954—1963 a government commission was working on constitutional matters and presented a proposition for a new Swedish Constitution replacing two of the present Basic Laws (125). The Commission ordered many smaller studies for its work. The above mentioned studies, by Foyer on the influence of interest groups and by Särlvik on the formation of opinion during the referendum campaign in 1957, were initiated this way. Among other studies, we can mention an inquiry into the nomination of candidates and a study of the effects of introducing a majority election system in Sweden. Most of the studies initiated by the Commission on Constitutional Matters, however, have concerned special constitutional problems, like parliamentary voting methods, the Speaker's right to vote, the year of majority of the sovereign and the procedures of administrative¹ control (motions of confidence and censure). Like many other Swedish studies of scientific value, they have only been published in the appendix of the commission's report.

The third part of a survey of Inter-Scandinavian public law was published in
1963 by Nils Herlitz (137).

Political Philosophy and Political Ideology

Historical Studies

Fifty years ago university professors in history and political science took a very active part in political life and their political ideology had profound effects on the political debate of the time. Nils Elvander has analysed the political ideas of one of them — the famous Upsala historian, Harald Hjärne (74). In this book he gives an account of both Swedish and European conservative ideas at the end of the 19th century. In Sweden these ideas were represented by Hjärne and his more fanatic and extremely nationalistic university colleague, Rudolf Kjellén, well known for his "geo-politics".

Professor Hessler, who is now the holder of the Upsala chair, has been studying the ideological development concerning the relationship between State and Church since the middle of the 18th century. In 1964 he published a book about the ideological development during the last 100 years, where he analyzes some central phases of this ideological discussion.⁹

Consepts and Systems

In his dissertation, Elias Berg has tried to clarify the relationship between⁷ the majority principle as a decisional technique and the democratic ideal of popular government, primarily characterized by its egalitarian element.¹⁰ The author distinguishes three forms of equality: equality of participation, equality of influence and equality of satisfaction, and he finds that the use of the majority principle is not wholly compatible with the two latter forms of equality. Equal influence can not be attained by using the majority principle, and Berg- finds that none of the

ways recommended by democratic theorists, such as Laski, Kelsen, Friedrich, Dahl and Truman gives a real solution to the dilemma that the members of the minority always will be less influential than those of the majority. An outline of a conceptual scheme useful for explanations of the behavior of political parties has

as was mentioned above — been drawn by the author of this report.

Hans F. Petersson has made a systematic analysis of the international political ideas that dominated the discussion around the time of the First World War (634). His book is above all a thorough and comprehensive classification of these ideas according to three different aspects, called "capability, motivation and policies", and he distinguishes four schools of thought: Authoritarian, Moderate, Radical and Revolutionary.

International Politics

In addition to Petersson's classification of the ideas on international relations during the 1910's, we can mention that the Foreign Policy Institute in Stockholm has begun a series of conflict studies. The Institute published in 1964 one volume on the problem of defence strategy in Western Europe,¹¹ and in 1965 the first issues of a bulletin on security policies appeared. There is also a new Inter-Scandinavian journal published in Stockholm.in this field: Cooperation and Conflict. Nordic Studies in International Politics. Krister Wahlback's dissertation on Swedish foreign policy during the years preceding the outbreak of the Second World War (737) contains much new material, particularly about the preparatory discussions on some forms of Swedish military aid to Finland in 1939 and about the frequent discussions of the Aland problem. His book, however, has been criticized by political scientists because of its lack of theoretical connection.

Finally, we shall mention some research on the politics of foreign countries. Olle Nyman has made a study of West German federation particularly the Federal Council (80) and there has been two dissertations on foreign countries — one by Göran Lindahl on the political life in Uruguay from the time of the adoption of the new Constitution in 1919 till its annulment in 1933 (816), and another by Jurij Borys on the Russian Communist Party's attempts to sovietize the Ukraine (58).

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NOTES

1 Cf. pp. 45-58.

2 Stig Hadenius. "Partiers beslutsprocess och tjänstepensionsfrågan" (Party Decision-Making and the Supplementary Pensions Question) and Sjöblom, Gunnar. "Analys av partiers beteende" (Analysis of Party Behavior), Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift, 68(4), 1965: 343-388.

3 Bertil Björklund. Svenska Typograf förbundet (The Swedish Typographers' Union). Diss. Göteborg, Oskarshamn, Tiden, 1965, 516 pp. With English- summary.

4 Lars Foyer. Former för kontakt och samverkan mellan staten och organisationerna (Ways of Contact and Cooperation between the State and the Organizations). Stockholm, Idun, 1961. Författningsutredningen V, Statens Offentliga Utredningar 1961: 21, pp. 9-105.

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5 Nils Elvander. Intresseorganisationerna i dagens Sverige (Interest Groups in Modern Sweden). Lund, Gleerup, 1966, 325 pp.

6 Tomas Sverige åt svenskarna. Invandringspolitik, utlänningskontroll och asylrätt 1900—1932 (Sweden for the Swedes. Immigration Policy, Aliens Control and Right of Asylum 1900—1932). Diss. Stockholm, Caslon Press, 1964, 430 pp. With English summary.

7 Leif Kihlberg. Karl Staaff. Första delen. Verdandist, Advokat, Politiker 1860— 1905 (Karl Staaff. First part. Verdandist, Lawyer, Politician 1860—1905). Stockholm, Bonniers, 1962, 373 pp.

8 Knut Petersson. En bondedemokrat. Alfred Petersson i Påboda (An Agrarian Democrat. Alfred Petersson in Påboda). Stockholm, Norstedts, 1965, 364 pp.

9 Carl Arvid Hessler. Statskyrkodebatten (The Discussion of the Relationship between State and Church). Uppsala, Almqvist & Wiksell, 1964, 462 pp. With English summary. (Skrifter utgivna av Statsvetenskapliga föreningen i Uppsala 44).

10 Elias Berg. Democracy and the Majority Principle. A Study in Twelve Content porary Political Theories. Diss. Göteborg, Scandinavian University Books, Stockholm, Häggströms, 1965, 166 pp.

11 Kärnvapenproblem i Västeuropa. (Nuclear Arms Problems in Western Europe) En gruppstudie från Utrikespolitiska Institutet. Stockholm, 1964^ 66 pp. mimeo.