Scandinavian Politics latest

Hej to members of the Scandinavian Politics list,

Three quick notices - the first administrative, the others related to Scandinavian politics.


1. Here's a further appeal for potential paper-givers at the PSA ANNUAL CONFERENCE on April 4th-6th 2006 (www.psa.ac.uk/2006/default.htm). Any ideas, please let me know - and as soon as possible.


2. THE TSUNAMI REPORT. The findings of the "citizens' commission" that investigated the Swedish government's handling of the Asian disaster last Christmas, which claimed more Swedish lives than any incident since the battle of Poltava nearly 300 years ago, were published last week. My colleague Jacob Christensen summarises the reaction nicely on his blog ("The Perfect Flood I", http://blog.jacobchristensen.name/). There's also an English-language summary of the report, available at the commission's website (www.katastrofkommissionen.se). I can't say that I've read the report, so I can only add the following brief comments.

First, the commission's criticism of the government was unusually, even shockingly, severe. Not only were systemic and procedural flaws said to have delayed for a couple of days any state response to the suffering of so many Swedish citizens; individual ministers and under-secretaries of state were also singled out. Basically, it seems that pretty much every relevant decision-taker was enjoying Christmas and didn't want to be disturbed, so they thus totally misjudged the magnitude of the event. Although the under-secretary in her department probably received most criticism, foreign minister Laila Freivalds - who, it must be said, has looked completely miserable ever since she was surprisingly appointed to the job in late 2003 - has probably received the toughest media treatment.

Now, reasonable people can disagree about the fairness of these attacks. Can a European government really be blamed for what was, after all, a natural disaster on the other side of the world? Shouldn't cabinet ministers be able to enjoy Christmas? Whatever your views on that, it seems that the government's strategy of, as the Swedes say, "doing a poodle" - apologising profusely for your mistakes, accepting responsibility for what went wrong, but staying in your position - will bring about few immediate political consequences.

First, no one will be resigning. A cynic might suggest that nothing else could have been expected. Many observers, not least those on the citizens' commission (who included my esteemed colleague from Umeå, Professor Gunnel Gustafsson), have noted a problem of pinpointing responsibility and accountability in Swedish public administration. Certainly, compared with Britain, few ministers ever resign because of their own mistakes and misjudgments, never mind those of their underlings (deputy prime minister Bosse Ringholm, had he been British, would have surely resigned about 15 times during his career). But there's also a political factor here. The prime minister, Göran Persson, cannot allow anyone to resign - because, as he was explicitly criticised by the commission for failing in his overall responsibility for crisis-management, he cannot just allow someone else to shoulder the blame.

Second, the opposition seems unlikely to move a vote of no confidence in the government. There are some interesting tactical calculations going on here. But just now it seems that there's little appetite for inducing a vote that the opposition knows it would lose.

But, when the election comes around in September, will voters remember this sense that leading ministers are so out of touch that they don't bother to watch the news over a holiday? We'll see.


3. There are fun and games going on in COPENHAGEN CITY COUNCIL following last month's election. See Jacob's blog for details (http://blog.jacobchristensen.name/).


Best,

Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, research fellow (docent/forskarassistent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se

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