Scandinavian Politics latest

Dear all,

Greetings from Umeå to everyone on the mailing list for the PSA’s Scandinavian Politics Specialist Group. Four quick notices are timely.


FIRST, there have been changes at Scandinavian Political Studies. Lars Svåsand has written the following message:

"The editorship of Scandinavian Political Studies has now been passed to the University of Bergen, with Dag Arne Christensen, Per Lægreid and myself as editors. We hope that you and your political science colleagues in the Scandinavian studies associations will consider submitting your manuscript for publication in the journal and we would appreciate if you could make this email available to your colleagues working on Scandinavian topics. All manuscripts are reviewed anonymously by three referees and we try to keep the review process to within 3-4 weeks. Scandinavian Political Studies is published by Blackwell. For further information see: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journals/SCPS/descript.htm."


SECOND, I have received a call for papers and panel proposals from the organisers of the PSA conference at Lincoln University next April (5th-8th). The Scandinavian group did well with its panels last year, so let's keep it up.

A couple of ideas have already floated my way, so, if you have (a) an idea for a panel or (b) a paper you think you'd like to present, let me know. As usual, I'll play the co-ordinating role.


THIRD, there is a new textbook on Scandinavian politics, namely:

Einhorn, Eric S. and John Logue (2003), Modern Welfare States: Scandinavian Politics and Policy in the Global Age, 2nd ed. (Praeger/Greenwood). $27.95, £18.10. ISBN: 0-275-95058-1.

More information is available on the Greenwood website (www.greenwood.com). If someone wants to write a review, they would be more than welcome to air their thoughts over this list.


FOURTH, I can report that Sweden has a severe case of referendum fever. The vote on the euro on the 14th is now just a week and a half away. Temo still gives the No side a hefty lead, 48% to 37%, and frustration in the Yes camp at its failure to break through in the polls is beginning to show.

* In an interview last week, Göran Persson said that he never wanted a referendum in the first place! He's also said that, even in the event of a Yes to EMU, voters should still trust him to negotiate good terms of entry, which, he reckons, might not be entirely straightforward. This is a "soft Yes".

* Top Social Democrats have been risking the ire of the party's rank-and-file by cosying up to opposition politicians and big business in the pro-euro cause. Of course, this underlines the government's basic problem: the ruling party, and indeed the whole labour movement, is split. The chair of LO, the labour confederation, has been pushing the arguments for a Yes ever more enthusiastically. In a radio interview on Monday, she did the same - yet, presumably because LO decided to remain neutral in the campaign, she refused to say how she was actually going to vote!

Mind you, the absurd can be found on both sides. A group of professors argue in Dagens Nyheter today that Swedes in general, and women in particular, will be much less healthy if there's a Yes to the euro.


As usual, please forward this message to anyone you think might be interested.

Best,

Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, research fellow
Department of Political Science, Umeå University
www.pol.umu.se