In 2015 a reform made the national Swe- dish police even more centralized as a means for improving efficiency and results. This was exactly fifty years after the origi- nal nationalization of the police –

a reform said to be done in the same spirit of centralizing for efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and problematize the arguments behind the nationalization in 1965. How and why was

the police nationalized and what was the chief political arguments for doing this? The paper also aims to discuss what the meaning of efficiency in policing means politically. 

During the 28 years from the first motion in the

Riksdag right up to 1980, when the fully cognatic

right of inheritance came into force, the question

of female succession to the throne principally dealt

with the monarchy as an institution. A critical -

and benevolent - interpretation on the introduction

of female succession is that it became easier to

accept at a time when the political role of the

monarchy had practically come to an end.

For the non-socialist parties the claim on female

succession was a way of retaining and consolidating

the monarchy, but this was done with overtones of

equality between women and men. For the Social

democrats and the Communists the resistance to

the introduction of female succession was a way

of avoiding a reinforcement of the monarchy which

in turn might be an obstacle to the future change-

over to republic. It should be pointed out that

succession to the throne was a relatively distinct

right – left question in the politics. The true picture

of the non – Socialist actions can be seen as an

interplay of normative and institutional starting-

points. In terms of purpose and means it was a

combination of those. The actions of the Social

democrats was characterized by pragmatism.

That the party did not carry the matter of republic

might above all be motivated by the fact that the

party assumed that the national support of the

monarchy was strong.

We want to emphasize that it was mostly male

politicians with the non - Socialist parties who

pursued the policy of introducing female

succession to the throne. An exception to this

was the participation of Ingrid Gärde - Widemar

in first motion in the Riksdag in 1952. This could

indicate that this was not a question of equality

between women and men, which aimed at

influencing the normative level, but was to a

greater extent a question of the institutional

level. Another explanation might have been that

the question of female succession to the throne

was a constitutional question and for that reason

of greater political importance.

It should be emphasized that the non – Socialist

politicians derived inspiration from the monarchies

in Europe which had female succession. They often

referred to Denmark, where cognatic succession

had been introduced in 1953. Hence it had been

conceivable that the Social democrats in Sweden

had referred to Norway as an example of a monarchy

which at that time had no female succession and

yet there had been Social democratic governments

for a long time. They did not however do so. None

of monarchies in Europe had fully cognatic succession.

In this manner Sweden was unique Europe at this time.

During 1952–1974 the Swedish municipal structure was radically reformed. In 22 years the number of municipalities was reduced from 2 498 to 278. What makes suchlarge-scale reforms possible? We answer this question by analyzing the politicsbehind the amalgamation reforms. We investigate (a) the main arguments for theamalgamations, (b) the degree of consensus behind the decisions, (c) if any alternativeswere presented in the debates leading up to the reforms, and finally (d) how itwas politically possible to push through these reforms. Two different models ofexplanation are put to the test; evolutionary accounts, which see the amalgamationsas rational adaptations to changing social and economic circumstances are contrastedwith a social conflict perspective, which explains the amalgamations in terms of theirdistributional consequences. We argue that an analysis of Sweden's municipal amalgamationreforms supports the social conflict perspective.

Arguments invoking increased functional efficiency have had a profound impact on local government reforms in advanced democracies during the past 60 years. Consequently, most mature democracies have implemented municipal amalgamation reforms, often through top-down coercion. In this article, we demonstrate how far central governments have been willing to go, in terms of coercion, by providing an in-depth historical account of Swedish municipal amalgamations between 1952 and 1974. Debates on amalgamation reforms have typically revolved around pros and cons of mergers. But very few discussions have addressed the more fundamental moral problem of enforcing amalgamations through coercion. Often, large-scale mergers are carried through against the expressed will of municipalities who wish to remain self-governing. In this article, we present a normative defense of strong local self-government, based partly on values of individual autonomy, and partly on group-based human rights, and we show how coerced amalgamations are at odds with these values.

A remarkable reform in modern Swedish political history was the transformation of the local government structure between 1952 and 1974. In a mere 22 years, the number of municipalities was reduced from 2,498 to 277. This study aims to answer how such large-scale reforms could come about politically, particularly since much of the literature on institutions and political reform asserts that carrying out large-scale political change should be a difficult task. Two opposing stories of institutional change are presented: evolutionary accounts, which see the amalgamations as rational adaptations to changing circumstances, are contrasted with a social conflict perspective, which explains amalgamations in terms of their distributional consequences. By investigating the processes leading up to this vast restructuring of Swedish local political geography, we demonstrate that an understanding of these reforms as rational adaptations to changing circumstances, made on the basis of consensus among leading political actors, is not accurate. The reforms were not as uncontroversial and non-conflictual as they often have been portrayed. Our results weaken the evolutionary approach to institutional change, whilst supporting the social conflict perspective.

The aim of the study is to describe experiences of the ‘While Waiting for the Ambulance’ (WWFA) assignment, as described by home healthcare nurses (HHCNs). Since the early 1990s, municipal resources in Sweden, preferably firefighters, have been dispatched on WWFA. In order to further assist the local residents on an island in the southwest of Sweden, HHCNs have recently begun accompanying firefighters on WWFA. A reflective lifeworld approach was used for data analysis including in-depth interviews with eight HHCNs. When WWFA was established, the HHCNs experienced lack of clarity in where their responsibilities start and end. A split role is described, and there is a paradox in that the responders are meant to collaborate toward saving lives, when the assignment itself has a lack of collaborative structure. Ethical dilemmas and inner emotional worries led to the nurses expressing a need for support before, during and after WWFA.

The primary aim of this book is to encourage and

facilitate the study of history of towns and

municipalities. Various forms of social science

research on Swedish local authorities might

derive advantage from this book. The staff of

local archives and prospective amateur researcher,

for example among the members of local folklore

society, also ought to enjoy the content of this

book. Another purpose of the publication is to suggest continuous comparative studies, where Swedish

municipalities are compared in different ways. The

number of Swedish municipalities was considerably

reduced during the second half of the 20th century.

For that reason it is now the proper time to pursue

comparative studies of municipalities which no longer

exist and are replaced by greater administrative units.

Too much of the previous research has been done as

case studies of one singular rural district. It should be emphasized that many local investigations have been

done by amateur researcher who have not always

used a reliable scholarly scientific course of action.

The source material for the proposed inquiries should

mostly be taken from the Swedish municipal archives.

In principle all the 290 present municipalities have their

own archives, which means that there is a large

supply of source material in the whole country.

This is one of the greatest advantages of working

with this type of historical source material. In

the archives material is stored from the introduction

of the current standard of municipality in 1863 and on.

It deals thus with the period of more than 140 years

during which the Swedish society has changed

dramatically. Local material from towns and rural

districts concerning the time up to 1862 is normally

found in the national provincial record offices, so it

is not always easily accessible from a geographical

point of view.

The book has been divided into a number of thematic

fields, such as municipal divisions, local politics,

the role of women in local politics, municipal finances

and economic expansion, social welfare, educational

systems, environmental issues, health care, fire

protection the technical sector and cultural and

recreational activities. This grouping means, that

strictly speaking it is enough to read the sphere

in which you show a keen interest, except the two

introductory chapters, considering comprehensive

facts in the field of municipal history. Each thematic

field is then regularly divided into four items,

background and earlier research, proposals for future

research, limits of interpretation and source material.

This order has not been used earlier, and the footnotes

should give comparatively many references to other

works which could be useful.

Key words: source material, archives, municipalities, local politics.

Joseph Stephen was far from the only foreign citizen who purchased landholdings in Småland County when he became the owner of the Huseby iron estate including its large agrarian and forest properties. Of the many new holders of landed property that entered the market in the late nineteenth century due to emigration from Sweden, a significant number were German and Danish citizens. During Stephens’ 67 years as estate owner and ironmaster, the estate’s land and forest economy came to prosper, whereas the industrial operations slowed down towards the end of his life. As a member of the Upper House of the Swedish Parliament, Stephens favoured the interests closest to Huseby’s manufacturing and agrarian production, and he supported protectionist trade policy. When he died in 1934, the estate passed on to his three daughters and Florence, the oldest, inherited the main part. The chapter locates the trajectory of the estate’s economy and Stephen’s interests and priorities within the economic, industrial, and demographic transformations of Sweden.

Following new laws regulating fire safety, instigated in 1944, all municipalities in Sweden were obligated to organize fire protection, starting in 1945. However, the municipalities were not obliged to arrange their own fire department, but were instead free to close deals with other municipalities or with voluntary as well as private contractors.

Before 1945 only larger cities, ‘köpingar’, and certain specific municipalities were forced to organize a fire department. When new regulations were put into effect, Sweden was still divided into old municipalities (sockenkommuner), which remained until 1952. This study follows the development of fire protection in at the local level from 1945 until 1976 when a major merging of municipalities, which mostly remains until this day, took place.

The study has two principal aims. The first one is to describe and analyse how revised legislation and the merging of municipalities effected the organization of fire protection in Swedish municipalities. The second aim is to explore decision-making on fire protection at the municipal level. In addition to the fire laws of 1944, 1962 and 1974 the two reforms on the merging of municipalities (1952, 1962-74) were the important junctures during the 30 year period of investigation.

Between 1952 and 1976 the number of independent fire departments was reduced by almost 50 percent, and this has to be viewed as a major geographic centralization. This centralization, moreover, was facilitated by several factors. The most important was the reduction of industries, and the reduced population, in rural areas, as well as the technological innovations within agriculture. Furthermore, two additional reasons for this centralization were firstly that roads were significantly improved at the country-side, and, secondly, that the remaining fire fighting equipment, not least fire trucks, were modernized. The conflicts that emerged at the municipal decision-making arena often had a geographical dimension, meaning, among other things, that the personal residence of politicians often meant more to their decision than their respective party-affiliation. Furthermore, Swedish municipalities were allowed to proceed with the centralization in spite of far-reaching state control in the area of fire protection, resulting from the fact that ‘länsstyrelsen’ always had to approve of their organization of fire security. Nonetheless, relevant state agencies displayed a great flexibility vis-à-vis the municipalities during this process of change.  

The primary aim of this study is to provide a deeper and more complete understanding of why the great municipal amalgamation (storkommunreformen) during the 1940s became the political solution to the problem that the Government believed many of Sweden’s municipalities had in satisfactorily providing for a local welfare society. The study also describes the results of this large-scale reorganization process. The events examined include the political decision-making process at the national level that took place during 1939-1949, as well as the regional/local realization of these decisions during 1946-1952.

The parliamentary treatment of the municipal division issue should be viewed as a good example of what researchers have termed a Swedish decision-making model. One clear manifestation of this was the fact that the national commission that investigated the question primarily formulated the principles for the reform. The committee’s proposal received strong endorsements in the reports from the reviewers of the proposal. The government authorities and many of the municipalities felt that a new division of municipalities was justified. Opposition that did occur came mostly from rural municipalities with small populations. Many of these municipalities believed that the present municipal divisions functioned well as they were.

Of those municipalities that were affected by amalgamation, 39 percent of them did not agree with the decision. The majority of these could agree to merge with other municipalities, but not with the municipalities stipulated by the authorities. Considering the fact that the then current divisions were based on a long tradition, demands for retaining independence could have been greater. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that 66 percent of all larger municipalities were formed using some level of force. This still indicated a relatively widely distributed opposition to the amalgamation decisions, however.

 In 1959, just seven years after Sweden had implemented a reform of the division of the municipalities, the Social Democratic government considered that there could be need for a second reform, and consequently a commission was launched. In the first part of 1961 a proposal for a reform was delivered. The country would be divided into municipal blocks, which should normally have at least inhabitants 1975. The blocks should be built up though the chief town principle, and should be economically and geographical continuous areas, which had a close relationship with the chief town principle. A parliamentary majority, considered of Social Democrats, Communists and Liberals, stood behind a policy decision, taken in early 1962, to implement the reform in accordance with the commission’s proposals. Only the municipal blocks formation was compulsory. All municipal aggregation would be done on a voluntary basis by Local Authorities own initiative.

During 1963 and 1964 the Government stipulated that the country’s 1006 municipalities would form 282 municipal blocks. In 1965, 1967 and 1969 the number of municipalities was reduced from 1006 to 848. The Social Democratic government considered that number insufficient. So the party, immediately after the victory in the 1968 election, went in for using a coercive law in order to complete the reform at the latest 1974. Parliamentary decision on compulsory legislation was adopted in 1969 with a conflict following the block boundary. The Social Democrats and the Left Communists wanted coercive legislation, while the three non-Socialist parties were against removing voluntariness. The Socialist reversal was a breach of faith in relation to the parliamentary decision 1962. The change in position was hardly in favor of the party in the elections in 1970 and 1973.

The reform was completed by aggregations in 1971 and 1974, where the largest aggregation time was 1971. Then the number of municipalities decreased from 848 to 464. By 1974 there were only 278 left. 49 municipalities were pooled coercively. Most of them had Conservative majority. There was a dividing line between the Social Democrats and the non-Socialists at the municipal aggregation decisions, where the non-Socialist parties to a much greater extent took a stand against aggregation. The main reason for the opposition was a fear of a loss of municipal services as a result of the centralization to the central town. Municipal democratic motives were raised, however, more sparingly. The same was true of reasons related to the concept of local identity.

The Swedish municipality block reform was more ambitions than in the other Nordic countries. An important reason for the scale of aggregating was that the Social Democratic government showed great energy to implement the reform fully, despite of a lot of local protests. Another reason may have been that the public expansion was greatest in Sweden. On the other hand lower government spending, another task allocation in the public sector, lower degree of urbanization and less influence for Socialist parties and credible explanations for sparse or non-existent municipal aggregations.

Holmön, situated in the county of Västerbotten, consists of several islands in the Gulf of Bothnia. At the end of the year 1973 these islands only had 155 citizens. However, in spite of the small population size, these islands formed an independent municipality between 1925 and 1973, making it the smallest one in Sweden.

This study deals with democracy and politics at the municipal level at Holmön, and the aim is to investigate the extent to which small political unites, such as Holmön, can manage the welfare duties imposed on all municipalities by national legislation.

The main group of elected officials at Holmön were composed of a small assembly of dominant men. Only very few women participated, and the limited involvement of women were restricted to committees dealing with issues solely related to social life and schooling. The general political activity of the Holmön municipality was restricted to duties made compulsory

by national legislation, and even though the municipality had a weak economy taxes were kept at low levels. Politics in the municipality was indeed characterized by economic thriftiness.

In the study, Holmön is furthermore compared with other small municipalities, in Sweden as well in other Western European countries. Several of these countries – e.g. Finland, Norway and Iceland – to this day have municipalities with population sizes as small as Holmön.

Before 1863 the rural parishes were responsible

for both the ecclesiastical and the local government

matters. By this time the parishes were divided in

two different units, one for the ecclesiastical matters

and one for the local government matters. Because

of that the parishes and the local government areas

were mostly the same. The mutal parish areas and the

local government areas coincide in very few cases.

The rare exceptions from that were combined town

and countryside mutal parishes.

When the parliament in 1919 decided a new law of

division it was emphasized that the local government

division was the most important division at the local l

evel. Because of that the local government division

should be totally independent from the parish division.

In spite of that it was not so important before the great municipal amalgamation in Sweden in 1952. During the parliamentary treatment of the municipal division it was discussed to what extent the new large municipalities

should coincide with the mutal parishes. The difficulty

was that many mutal parishes hade less than 2000

inhabitants, which was prescribed minimum population

for the new large municipalities. During the local

realization several municipalities wanted the mutal

parishes to be new large municipalities, despite they

hade less than 2000 inhabitants. Because of the

decision in principle at national level the demands

were mostly rejected. The great municipal

amalgamation in 1952 was the last occasion

when an ecclesiastical division was discussed as a

model for the municipal division.

At the mutal parish reform in 1962 the great municipals

became a very important model for the new bigger mutal parishes. The Swedish Church was not entirely satisfied

with this decision. There were probably two reasons.

Partly it was a desire to keep mutal parishes in spite of

the fact that they were located in more than one

municipal, partly it might be easier to keep mutal

parishes with rather few inhabitants. In 1962 70

percent of the Swedish municipalities were a mutal

parish at the same time.

The strong connection between the municipalities and

mutal parishes was not permanent for a long time.

Already in 1962 the parliament made a decision in

principle on a new municipal amalgamation. When

the new municipal division was decided in 1964 very

few municipalities had the same area as a mutal parish,

because the new municipalities at least should have

8000 inhabitants. Another consequence of the new

municipal division was that the number of mutal parishes

which were located in more than one municipality

increased. Because of that it was necessary to change

the mutal parish division. This process started in the

early 1970s, but was not yet fully completed in 1999.

These mutal parish adjustments have been the most

important changes of the ecclesiastical division in

Sweden during the last three decades of the 20th

century. Since 1952 nearly all changes of the

ecclesiastical division have been realized with the

municipality division as a model. The Church has

lacked fully freedom of action to change its own

ecclesiastical division.

This book, with the title Coalition rule - bloc rule - multiple rule, deals with the development of the forms of government that have been put into practice in Swedish municipalities during the period 1952-2002. Forms of government refer to how the power, in the form of chairmanship of local administrations, has been distributed between the majority and minority in the different municipal councils. Two levels are involved in this study. First a national investigation, which for the main part of the period is done in the form of a total survey. Second, more detailed case studies applicable to the development in the county of Kronoberg, Småland.

As the title indicates the development of the forms of government in Swedish municipalities can be classified into

three main phases. The first phase, coalition rule, means that the majority and the minority shared chairmanships of local administrations. This was valid at the time of the starting-point of the study and continued until the beginning of the 1970s. The second phase, bloc rule, was seriously modelled during the first half of the 1970s and implied that one of the traditional political blocs had all the chairmanships in a municipality. The third and last phase, multiple rule, can be said to have started in the mid 1990s. This phase was characterised by softened bloc politics, among other things as a consequence of the fact that the Green Party and various local parties had the position as the balance of power in considerably more municipalities.

The theoretical framework of the study is composed by the concepts of conflict and consensus, political culture, practice, hegemony and coalition formation. These five elements seem to be interrelated, and they should serve as suitable instruments of analysis. This should make the empirical results more possible to generalise. Conflict and consensus can be connected to the political culture by the fact that the political culture in a municipality can be characterised by either conflict or consensus. The political culture can then lead to a certain practice. For example, under a long succession of terms of office, a system is applied with as far-reaching majority marks

as the law allows, where one of the traditional political blocs always is in power in the municipality. There is also an ambition to develop the theoretical insights better, in particular in two cases. First, there is an effort to formulate ideal models of municipal politics on the basis of the conception of hegemony. Second, there is an attempt to integrate the human factor in the theories of coalition formation.

This study analyses the development of the use of unpublished source material in Swedish doctoral theses in history, 1959–2015. The results show that the proportion of theses which rely on such materials has dropped in relation to the level that existed up to and including the year 2007. From having dropped below 90% only twice during the time period 1959–2007, the average for the years 2008–2015 is 77%. There are several explanations as to why this decline in use of unpublished source material has occurred. An initial explanation is that more doctoral theses are now published within the subdiscipline of historical science, in which, for example, history didactics and uses of history are included. History didactics and uses of history have gained more ground within the overall field of historical research during the last 10 years. The next-to-lowest figures are found in the category history of ideas, culture, and opinion history; a category which during the time period 2008–2015 remained at a fairly constant share of the total number of doctoral defences in history in Sweden in relation to the situation at the beginning of the 2000s.