Abstract
The social democratic parties of Northern Europe arguably enjoy a special place in the history of this political family. Hardly anywhere else have parties been at the same time so deeply rooted in society through their ancillary organizations, and entrenched in the state apparatus through decades of dominance since the 1930s. Both their social presence and political hegemony have eroded over time across the region. In retrospect it is nevertheless interesting to reflect on the actual relationship that these parties have developed with the state, both as an apparatus, but also as a historical set of public policies, as well as an instrument of power. Is this relationship indexed on the length of incumbency? What are the institutional and social legacies?
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
This chapter draws partly on two older and unpublished works by the author: Aucante 2003, 2005.
- 2.
In the limited space of this chapter, I will not be able to quote every relevant research.
- 3.
SAP : Socialdemokratiska arbetarepartiet, later S : Socialdemokraterna ; DNA : Det norske arbeiderpartiet, later AP, Arbeiderpartiet.
- 4.
The Swedish Social Democrats—most prominently, Hjalmar Branting—helped allay concerns regarding Norway’s move toward independence in 1905, something that cannot be said of all of their Norwegian counterparts (Sejersted 2011: 131).
- 5.
Tage Erlander, proceedings of the SAP Steering Committee protocol, 25 September 1956, Labor Movement archives, Stockholm (translation mine).
- 6.
“Vill ni sitta i farbror statens knä”. Quoted in Elvander (1968: 396).
- 7.
While there have been ad hoc parliamentary coalitions, the system of “negative parliamentarism” equates abstention with tacit support of a policy.
References
Åmark, Klas. 2005. Hundra år av välfärdspolitik. Umeå: Boréa.
Andersson, Jenny. 2009. The Library and the Workshop. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Angell, Sven Ivar. 2002. Den svenske modellen og det norske systemet. Oslo: Det norske samlaget.
Aucante, Yohann. 2003. ‘L’hégémonie démocratique’: institutionnalisation des partis sociaux-démocrates suédois et norvégien comme partis d’Etat, Ph.D., Institut d’études politiques de Paris.
———. 2005. Democratic Hegemony: Justifications and Contradictions of Social Democratic Dominance in Sweden and Norway. Paper presented at the ECPR joint sessions, Granada, April 2005.
———. 2008. La domination social-démocrate en Suède et en Norvège: retour sur une exception complexe. Nordiques 15: 45–57.
———. (2016). Social Democracy in the Land of Black Gold. The Left, the State and Oil in Norway. Paper presented at the symposium “Socialisme, socialistes et Etat”, Centre d’histoire de Sciences Po, Paris, 5–7 December.
Aucante, Yohann, and Alexandre Dézé. 2008. Les transformations des systèmes de partis dans les démocraties Occidentales. Le modèle du parti-cartel en question. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.
Baldwin, Peter. 1990. The Politics of Social Solidarity. Class Bases of the European Welfare States 1875–1975. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Barker, Vanessa. 2019. Nordic Nationalism and Penal Order: Walling the Welfare State. Abingdon: Routledge.
Berman, Sheri M. 2006. The Primacy of Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Berntzen, Einar. 1992. Organizational background counts but family networks decide. The Norway case of the DNA in the 1990s. In Socialist parties in Europe II, ed. Gabriel Colome, 219–230. Barcelona: ICPS.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1994. Raisons pratiques. Sur la théorie de l’action. Paris: Seuil.
Brandal, Nick, et al. 2013. The Nordic Model of Social Democracy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Castles, Francis G. 1978. The Social Democratic Image of Society. London: Routledge and Kegan.
Dahl, Hans Fredrik. 1969. Fra klassekamp til nasjonal samling. Oslo: Pax forlag.
Duverger, Maurice. 1954. Political Parties. London: Methuen.
Elvander, Nils. 1968. Regeringsmakt och byråkrati. Tiden 6: 396–401.
Esping-Andersen, Gøsta. 1985. Politics against markets. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Finn Christiansen, Nils. (1992). socialismen og faedrelandet. Arbejderbevaegelsen mellem internationalism og national stolthed. In Dansk identitetshistorie, red, Ole Feldbark, 512–586. bd 3 Copenhagen.
Gröning, Lotta. 1988. Vägen till makten. SAP:s organisation och dess betydelse för den politiska verksamheten 1900–1933. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wicksell International.
Grønlie, Tore. 1999. Forvaltningens politisering. Politikk og utvikling 1945–1980. In Forvaltning for politikk, ed. Tore Grønlie, 45–66. Fagbokforlaget: Oslo.
Halvorsen, Knut, and Steinar Stjernø. 2008. Work, oil and welfare. The welfare state in Norway. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Hellström, Anders. 2016. Reproducing the Nation and the Scandinavian National Populist Parties. New York: Berghahn Books.
Hentilä, Seppo. 1979. Den svenska arbetarklassen och reformismens genombrott inom SAP före 1914. Helsingfors: Suomen historiallinen seura.
Hinnfors, Jonas. 2006. Reinterpreting Social Democracy. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Hinnfors, Jonas, Andrea Spehar, and Gregg Buchen-Knapp, eds. 2012. The Missing Factor: Why Social Democracy Can Lead to Restrictive Immigration Policy. Journal of European Public Policy 19 (4): 585–603.
Hjellum, Torstein. 1990. Massbevegelse og stat. Det norske sosialdemokratiets utvikling 1930–1940. Bergen: ISP.
Isaksson, Anders. 1986. Socialdemokratin ny politisk klass med egen karriär. Veckans Affärer 48.
Johansson, Mats. 1997. Den svenska socialdemokratin, Roberto Michels och partisprängningen 1917. In Historisk sociologi, ed. Ulf Drugge and Mats Johansson, 178–198. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
Jonsson, Tomas. 2000. Att anpassa sig efter det möjliga. Göteborg: Arachne.
Katz, Richard S., and Peter Mair. 1995. Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party. Party Politics 1 (1): 5–31.
Keul, Vidar, and Knud Kjestadli, eds. 1973. DNA – Fra folkebevegelse til statsstøtte. Oslo: Pax Forlag.
Klitgaard, Michael Baggesen. 2007. Why Are They Doing It? Social Democracy and Market Oriented Welfare State Reforms. West European Politics 30 (1).
Knudsen, Tim. 2001. Fra enevælde til Folkestyre. Dansk demokratihistorie indtil 1973. Copenhagen: Akademisk forlag.
———. 2007. Fra folkestyre til markedsdemokrati. Dansk demokratihistorie efter 1973. Copenhagen: Akademisk forlag.
Korpi, Walter. 1978. The Working Class in Welfare Capitalism. London: Routledge and Kegan.
Munk-Christiansen, Peter. 2008. Is the Welfare State Manageable? In Crisis, Miracles, and Beyond. Negotiated Adaptation of the Danish Welfare State, ed. Erik Albæk et al., 146–170. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Nordby, Trond. 1992. Statsutvikligen under Arbeiderpartiet. In Arbeiderpartiet og planstyret 1945–65, ed. Trond Nordby, 13–30. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Notermans, Ton. 2007. Money, markets and the state. In Social democratic economic policies since 1918. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Östberg, Kjell. 1990. Byråkrati och reformism. Lund: Arkiv.
Panebianco, Angelo. 1987. Political Parties: Organization and Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pedersen, Ove K. (2011), Konkurrencestaten, Hans Reitzels forlag.
Pempel, T.J. 1992. Uncommon Democracies. The One-Party Dominant Regimes. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Petersen, Jørn Henrik, et al., eds. 2014. Velfærsdsstaten I støbeskeen. Dansk velfærdshistorie bind III 1933–1956. Syddansk universitetsforlag.: Odense.
Pierre, Jon, and Anders Widfeldt. 1992. Sweden. In Party Organizations. A Data Handbook on Party Organizations in Western Democracies, ed. Richard S. Katz and Peter Mair, 824–825. London: SAGE.
Rokkan, Stein. 1966. Norway: Numerical Democracy and Corporate Pluralism. In Dahl, Political Oppositions in Western Democracies, ed. A. Robert, 70–115. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Rothstein, Bo. 1992. Den Korporativa staten. Stockholm: Norstedts.
———. 1996. The Social Democratic State. The Swedish Model and the Bureaucratic Problem of Social Reforms. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Rothstein, Bo, and Paula Blomqvist. 2008. Välfärdsstatens nya ansikte. Stockholm: Agora.
Seip, Jens Aarup. 1963. Fra embedsmannastat til ettpartistat og andre essays. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget.
Sejersted, Francis. 2011. The age of social democracy. Norway and Sweden in the 20th Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Simonson, Birger. 1987. Socialdemokratin och maktövertagandet. SAP:s politiska strategi 1889–1911, Avhandling (PhD), Göteborgs universitet.
Skjeie, Hege. 1999. Vanens makt. Styringstradisjoner i Arbeiderpartiet. Oslo: Ad notam Gyldendal.
Slagstad, Rune. 2001. De nasjonale strateger. Oslo: Pax forlag.
Socialdemokratins program 1897 till 1990. Stockholm, ARAB, 2001.
Steinmo, Svein. 1993. Taxation and Democracy. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Stephens, John D. 1980. The Transition from Capitalism to Socialism. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.
Stjernquist, Nils. 1966. Sweden: Stability or Deadlock? In Political Oppositions in Western Democracies, ed. Robert A. Dahl, 116–146. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Stråth, Bo. 1993. Den nordiska modellen. Nordisk tidskrift 1.
Svenson, Peter. 2002. Capitalists Against Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tingsten, Herbert. 1966. Från idéer till idyll: den lyckliga demokratien. Stockholm: Norstedt.
Trägårdh, Lars. 1993. The concept of the people and the construction of popular culture in Sweden and Germany 1848–1933. Berkeley: University of California.
Uddhammar, Emil. 1993. Partierna och den stora staten. Stockholm: City University Press.
Wallenberg, Jan. 1987. Socialdemokratins politiska problem: maktapparat eller koloss? Stockholm: Timbro.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Aucante, Y. (2020). Paradoxes of Hegemony: Scandinavian Social Democracy and the State. In: Fulla, M., Lazar, M. (eds) European Socialists and the State in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41540-2_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41540-2_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-41539-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-41540-2
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)