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- Bengtsson, Erik
(författare)
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The social origins of democracy in Sweden: the role of agrarian politics
- 2022
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Ingår i: Social History. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0307-1022 .- 1470-1200. ; 47:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In discussions of Scandinavian democratisation, it is commonplace to argue that long-standing farmer representation in parliament and a lack of feudalism facilitated early democratisation. The present essay questions this interpretation in the Swedish case. It centres on a re-interpretation of farmer politics at the national level from the 1866 two-chamber parliament reform to the alliance between the farmers’ party and Social Democrats in 1933. It is shown that democratisation was late and rapid; the 1866 reform was profoundly undemocratic. Swedish farmers did not organise themselves independently of nobles and landowners until the 1920s, and did not play the role of an independent pro-democratic force. The broad-based organisations of farmers in the 1920s and 1930s, with their democratic, participatory culture, were heavily influenced by the political culture of liberals and the labour movement. The implication for analyses of democratisation is that deep roots are less decisive than often supposed, and that modern political agency and organisation conversely, in contrast to influential research traditions and theories of democracy, can reverse undemocratic traditions.
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- Berg, Anne, 1981-
(författare)
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The market and ‘the making’ : The economics of the first workers' associations in nineteenth-century Sweden
- 2020
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Ingår i: Social history (London). - : Informa UK Limited. - 0307-1022 .- 1470-1200. ; 45:2, s. 167-192
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The first phase of class formation in mid-nineteenth-century Sweden was characterized by its liberal stance. The first workers’ organizations in continuous operation focused on attaining political rights and representation; offered self-help, education and social and economic support; and were engaged in neither socialist agitation nor contentious politics. The middle classes and even the bourgeoisie often supported these endeavours in various ways. The aim of this article is to provide a new explanation of why this first transitional phase developed. Previous explanations of class formation have paid scant attention to the material economic conditions behind the survival and stability of workers’ organizations. I argue that the material should be brought back into the analysis of class formation to further our understanding of organized class politics. By analysing the economics and strategies of a typical liberal workers’ association in Sweden, I show that organized politics were conditioned by the market. The organization’s main source of income were commercial activities. This strategy speaks to the structural significance of commercial economic thinking. In conclusion, the first phase of working-class organizational development was profoundly conditioned by the economic structures of an industrializing social formation.
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- Sennefelt, Karin
(författare)
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Citizenship and the political landscape of libelling in Stockholm, c. 1720-70
- 2008
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Ingår i: Social history (London). - : Informa UK Limited. - 0307-1022 .- 1470-1200. ; 33:2, s. 145-163
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The concept of the 'public sphere' has become central to the understanding of the construction of citizenship in the eighteenth century. This article addresses this concept and its implications for the study of political subjectivity, communication and public space by mapping the political landscape created by the practice of libelling in eighteenth-century Stockholm. Rejecting both a strict reading of the Habermasian public and a spatialization of the public sphere, this study looks at political action in public space and discusses the use of place in the creation of political identity. This is done by analysing libels posted in four different settings: on private property; in places associated with a specific social group; on official buildings; and at the pillory. The article draws a political landscape in which politicians were under public scrutiny, the social foundations of citizenship were under discussion, and where different views corresponded to specific places. Combined, places remade through libelling created an accessible political landscape where the most important challenges towards the state took place outside what would be deemed the 'public'. In conclusion, it is argued that the political life of the city was not organized in 'separate spheres' lacking intercommunication, but should be viewed as spatial practices and places that were part of, and should be treated as, one political landscape.
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