FOREWORD

Volume V of Scandinavian Political Studies, like the preceding volume, is not
devoted to a single area of politics. Certain themes, however, can be discerned.

The volume begins with an essay by Erik Rasmussen on the concept of the political system. This concept still tends to be coupled with the concept of the state even by those who have accepted Easton's definition of politics as an authoritative allocation of values for a society. Rasmussen underlines that there are, however, several organizations other than merely governmental institutions which in a society make decisions which are authoritative in the sense that the members of that society consider that they must or ought to obey the decisions. The concept of the political system can then be regarded as neither identical nor identifiable with that of the state.

The macroperspective adopted in Rasmussen's article is also reflected in those of Stein Rokkan and Lars Rudebeck. The latter two are further allied inasmuch as they both entail a study of development. Rokkan's article is an extension of his writings on factors which have determined processes of change in European politics during the last two centuries. Up until now his efforts at model-building, as he himself comments, have been focused on two sets of parallel processes of change: the sequences of steps in the institutionalization of formal mass democracy and the timing of the growth and the stabilization of organizations for the mobilization of mass support. Now he is in the midst of attempting to construct a unified model for the interaction between the two processes of change via a series of paired comparisons of national development. In his article in this volume of SPS, Rokkan compares development in Denmark with that in Sweden, as well as development in Ireland with that in Finland. Lars Rudebeck, whose earlier writings have primarily concentrated on the political systems of individual developing countries, discusses the concept of political development in his article. A major portion of Rudebeck's article constitutes a critical examination of different approaches to the analysis of political development in Western political science and sociology. Several of these approaches are said to reflect a conservative bias and a political innocence as well as an explicit or implicit ethnocentrism. Rudebeck also sketches an approach to

the analysis of political development, an approach which combines political systems
analysis with a view of development inspired by historical materialism.

Budgeting is often viewed as the most important decision-making process in many organizations. An article by Johan P. Olsen raises the question of whether we would not be able to understand this process much better if we did not take it as given that the most important things taking place were policy making and resource allocation. Olsen proposes instead — and this is the basic theme of his article — that a budgetary process ought to be regarded as a ritual or a ceremony that contributes to the formation of legitimacy, compliance and consensus. This new perspective of the budgetary process is supported by data from a Norwegian commune.

Different aspects of political participation are treated in two articles. An article by Egil Fivesdal and John Higley adopts an elitist perspective. They present data on the leaders of the Norwegian Federation of Trade Unions which permit a tentative evaluation of their position in the more general system of elites in Norway. In an article by Elina Haavio-Mannila, sex roles in Finnish politics are analyzed. She not only investigates the political participation of men and women as voters, political debaters and party workers but also examines the position of men and women as political representatives.

Two articles deal with legislative voting behavior, but the aspects analyzed are dissimilar. Nils Stjernquist and Bo Bjurulf are interested in analyzing party cohesion and party cooperation, while Risto Sankiaho attempts to measure the voting strength of parties. The first article concerns Sweden, the second Finland. Both provide an illustration of the multifarious pattern which emerges in legislatures comprised of more than two party groups.

Two important elections in Scandinavia are analyzed in this volume of SPS. During the Swedish general election in the autumn of 1968, the Social Democratic party won an impressive victory after having suffered a major defeat two years earlier. During the Norwegian general election in the autumn of 1969, the non-Socialist coalition government, composed of four parties, succeeded in retaining its majority, although reduced, in parliament. Bo Sarlvik analyzes the Swedish election and simultaneously places it in relation to previous elections during the 19605. His data are based on nationwide interview panel surveys which were conducted in connection with the general elections in 1964 and 1968. The Norwegian election is dealt with in a review article by Stein Rokkan and Henry Valen.

Two additional review articles are included. One by H. Jørgen Nielsen, Copenhagen, covers the 1969 Danish referendum on lowering the voting age to 18, and the other by Claes Wiklund, Stockholm, sheds light on the intricate Nordek negotiations until the end of March 1970. The volume also contains a bibliography of all important publications on political science in Scandinavia during 1969. As usual the bibliography has been edited by Helen Aareskjold, Bergen, in cooperation with Erik Damgaard and Ib Faurby, Aarhus, Rauno Lehtinen and Pentti Parssinen, Helsinki, and Henry Back, Stockholm.

Again the Political Science Associations in Scandinavia wish to express their gratitude for the financial support from Statens Råd for Samhallsforskning (Social Science Research Council) in Sweden, Undervisningsministeriet (Ministry of Education) and the Rask-Ørsted Foundation in Denmark, the Opetusministeri (Ministry of Education) in Finland, and Norges almenvitenskapelige forskningsråd (The Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities) in Norway. As the editorship of Scandinavian Political Studies is now due to rotate, I would also like to thank the contributors and my different collaborators.

Editor of the next two volumes will be Professor Erik Rasmussen, of Aar
hus, Denmark.

Stockholm, June 1970