Between Private Interests and the State : Corporatist Strategies in the Swedish Railway Council, 1902–67

• This study explores the strategies employed by the Swedish RailwayCouncil to influence national railway policy from 1902 to 1967. The Council was a corporatist arrangement and functioned as a broker betweenindustrial and regional interests and the public railways. The resultsshow that though the Council's policy influence in many cases wasmarginal, there were occasions when the members could use the Council asa tool to influence railway policy, most notably the division of thenetwork into profitable and unprofitable lines, with different forms ofgovernment subsidies. The Council's influence gained from a shift inarguments from that tariffs should be high enough to deliver a return onthe invested capital, to an emphasis on having tariffs that could supportnational and regional economic development, even if it created commerciallosses. When Swedish transport policy shifted in the 1960s, the Railway Council gradually lost its importance and eventually dissolved.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Ekonomisk historia (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Economic History (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Railways

interest group

economic history

institutions

Sweden

ekonomisk historia

Economic History

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)