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Scandinavian Political Studies, Bind 9 (1974)ForewordThis ninth volume of Scandinavian Political Studies focuses on two major fields We have witnessed a mushrooming in recent years of studies of policy formation and policy outputs, of decision-making and governmental performance. This movement has also affected the priorities for research in the Nordic countries. We have seen several initiatives in this field. Perhaps the most interesting in an international context are the attempts to develop analytical models and empirical methods for the study of structures of power: distributions of resources and policies of reallocation. This is the focus of the DETA project initiated by Ilkka Heiskanen and Tuomo Martikainen in Finland: we present the theoretical framework for their work in this volume. It is also the focus of the major study of 'power in Norwegian society' directed by Gudmund Hernes and Johan P. Olsen: we hope to bring a full report on this in the next issue of SPS. These studies of the control of resources are closely linked with studies at the mass level of varieties of 'political poverty': the study of low-income groups carried out by Sten Johansson in Sweden,* the parallel study in Norway reported on by Stein Ringen (below, p. 187), and the four-country survey directed by Erik Allardt.f Within this general context it is also a pleasure to present an article by Ulf Torgersen and Lars Gulbrandsen in a novel field of research: the politics of the housing market in a capital city. Considering the great importance of public and semipublic housing in the political economy of cities, it is curious that so little attention has been given by political scientists to this obvious field of concern. We also bring two contributions to the analytical theory of public choice: one by a young Swede, Jan-Erik Lane, the other by an Icelandic scholar, Bjørn Stefånsson. The article by Stefånsson makes absorbing reading: it suggests abstract solutions to the problems of mass aggregations of preferences very similar to those advanced by James S. Coleman in his analysis of 'political money' but bases these suggestions on concrete observations of processes of decision-making in the local communities of his own country, Iceland. In our section on Parties and Parliaments we present two studies of Danish developments and one analysis of resource distributions in the Norwegian Storting. Erik Damgaard contributes a further study of the party constellations in the Danish Parliament, and Palle Svensson analyzes the history of the largest Danish party, the Social Democrats. Gudmund Hernes presents a fascinating examination
of the power structure of the Norwegian Parliament: this is based on two rounds of interviews with members elected in 1965 and 1969. We finally present, in a section of its own, an important contribution by Olof Ruin on the dialectic of individual participation and collective incorporation in contemporary Sweden. The balance between what has been called the channel of 'numerical democracy' and the channel of 'corporate bargaining' is a central theme in current research on developments in advanced societies. We feel confident that the analyses undertaken by Ruin in Sweden will be followed up in other countries of the North in the near future. The autumn of 1973 brought three dramatic elections in Scandinavia: in September in Norway and Sweden and in December in Denmark. Electoral research is by now a well-established profession in all the three countries, and we were able to commission first-hand analyses of the aggregate and the survey data for quick delivery to meet our publishing deadline. We are particularly grateful to Ole Borre for producing his report so quickly after the December election. We are most grateful to all the contributors for their co-operation and their patience. We also want to thank the Editorial Board for help and wise guidance, as well as the National Research Councils and the Political Science Associations in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden for their support. We have very much enjoyed working with our Nordic colleagues and look forward to continued cooperation with the editor of Volumes 10 and 11, Erik Allardt.
1974
Bergen,
Helen Aareskjold * S. Johansson. Politiska resurser. Stockholm, Allmanna Forlaget, 1971. + E. Allardt. About Dimensions of Welfare. An Exploratory Analysis of a Comparative Scandinavian Survey. Helsinki, Research Group for Comparative Sociology, 1973. Cf. the discussion in European Political Data 9, 1973, and 10, 1974. |