News

Dear all on the Scandinavian Politics list,

Even though many of you will already be well into your summer breaks, I thought I'd send out a quick message about more Nordic-orientated events.


1. The Scandinavian Specialist Group now has its own website! To be honest, it doesn't contain very much more information that many of you will already have. But it can be built upon, of course. So do give it a quick surf (...). I hope you like its basic, simple style, which is carefully designed to promote a sense of rawness and edginess.

Can I draw your attention to two things in particular?

* If you'd like your name, institutional details and basic research/teaching interests mentioned on the members page (strictly speaking, the mailing-list recipients page), can you let me know? I thought I'd get people actively to say that they're happy for me to post their details.

* There was talk in the last few months about the possibility of the group's holding a special workshop or seminar some time in 2005. That is now off the agenda – pressure of work, etc, etc. Sorry. But something next spring, some time around the PSA conference (at which I expect us to hold panels as usual), is still a possibility.


2. Election fever is mounting in Norway and Sweden. All sorts of coalition-related flirting and rejections are going on in Norway, where there will be an election in September. Meanwhile, in Sweden, where the vote will be held in September 2006, the four-party centre-right "Alliance for Sweden" holds a commanding lead in all the polls over the governing Social Democrats and their two support parties. This raises the real possibility of the first change of government for what would be fully 15 years. But plenty can still happen. Excitingly, this is not least because several new parties look like they will enter the contest – and, unusually, each looks as if it could just arch itself over the bar and win parliamentary seats.

* One likely to entrant is a version of the Eurosceptical JUNE LIST that did so amazingly well in last summer's European elections. It's chair, Nils Lundgren, frequently sounds doubtful (with good reason, if you ask me) about whether his type of cross-spectrum list could work in a national election, in which government office is at stake. But it sounds like his lot are going to try, anyway.

* Another likely contender might be called "WELFARE IN SWEDEN". It would run largely on a more-resources-for-healthcare platform (and if you want my opinion again, the grievance, if not necessarily the proposed remedy, is far from unreasonable). While such a party's chances of clearing the national 4 per cent threshold for gaining parliamentary seats are slim, what it might do is to get in through the back door – in other words, by getting at least 12 per cent in at least one constituency. This is what the Norbotten Party got moderately near to achieving in 2002, and the northern unhappiness that it highlighted then might well be exploited again. A "Healthcare Party" won nearly a quarter of the vote in Norbotten in the county election of 2002.

* The hottest tip of all is the FEMINIST INITIATIVE (Fi), launched with much fanfare in May. But its chances may have been dealt a serious setback by an astonishingly intense debate that has blown up in Sweden (and which I should have written to the list about earlier).

This year, at least two well-known (male) political scientists had written about what they saw as the intolerant and extreme characteristics of certain elements within Swedish feminism. But this latest furore was sparked by a two-part documentary on Swedish televsion, entitled "Könskriget" (The war of the sexes). Screened soon after Fi's launch, it presented an exposé of these radical elements, centred on the main network of women's refuges, an influential professor at Uppsala University and a circle around Margareta Winberg, the former minister for equality of the sexes. Although some of these subjects have bitterly questioned the methods of the (female) investigative reporter behind the programmes, some of the positions attributed to them were eyebrow-raising, to put it rather mildly.

Former Left Party leader Gudrun Schyman, the main figure in Fi, was counter-attacking this week during the annual gathering for political speeches, debate and seminars on the island of Gotland. But although she didn't feature in the documentaries, it might be tough for Schyman's project to recover from her wilingness to associate it to the most radical bits of feminism in the country.

* One group of almost certain non-runners can be among modernisers in the Left Party, some of whom co-ordinate through an association called (roughly) the LEFT'S CHOICE (Vägval vänster). Its congress recently decided that, despite its unhappiness at the Left's apparent shift back towards its communist roots, a breakaway party would not be formed, at least not before the 2006 election. The congress preceded a rash of resignations by Left modernisers at all levels; some, including an MP, have defected to the Greens.

* During last week's seminars on Gotland, credulous journalists also reported that yet another party was to enter the race, when a batch of well-known actors and other arty types launched a CULTURE PARTY. The next day, however, the "party" admitted on its website, and in full-page adverts in the newspapers, that it was a hoax.

The declared aim of the Culture Party, and that of the hoaxers, was and is to attract more public subsidies for "culture" in Sweden. Given that its cost was estimated at SKr200,000 (€21,000) of taxpayers' money, which came via the National Theatre, some observers have suggested that this hilarious bluff might just have undermined rather than promoted its political objective.


Best,

Nick Aylott.

Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested. To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a message to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@pol.umu.se). If you want to send something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional messages, just let me know.