Hej to those on the Scandinavian Politics list,
Let me draw your attention to a workshop on April 26th 2007 that the Scandinavian Politics Specialist Group, in association with the FUSE-EUROPA research programme, is sponsoring.
It's being run by the Europe in the World Centre at the University of Liverpool, and convened by Lee Miles. Its title is:
THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE NORDIC STATES: FUSION AND THE FUTURE
Further details are available on our group's website (www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia).
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University College
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se/statsvetenskap
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@sh.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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
2006-12-18
2006-12-13
Scandinavian Politics latest
Hej to all on the Scandinavian Politics list,
Two quick notices.
1. We only managed to get one of our panels accepted for the PSA conference in Bath in April. This is a bit of a disappointment, and I'm not entirely happy about it. But the conference organisers have, apparently, been inundated with panel proposals, so sifting them was bound to be tricky.
The draft programme can be found at the conference website (www.psa.ac.uk/2007). We're in session B.
2. With the new Swedish government having settled down after its dreadful start, attention is now turning to the Social Democrats and their attempt to find a new leader. As was the case last time, in 1996, the slightly surreal competition revolves around who among the likely candidates can rule themselves out with the most conviction.
The early favourite, European commissioner Margot WALLSTRÖM, has now done so sufficiently often and firmly that some commentators have started to believe her. Still, the party's women's wing is still refusing to take no for an answer, and is still backing her. Meanwhile, one youthful contender, former foreign-aid minister Carin JÄMTIN, briefly looked to have surged into pole position a couple of weeks ago, when Aftonbladet, the left-leaning tabloid, backed her. Yet now she's saying that she wants to stay as opposition leader in Stockholm city council. She certainly has a bit of star quality. But she may have decided to keep her powder dry until the next contest.
Then there's another ex-minister, Ulrika MESSING. While obviously not being so reckless as to suggest that she might actually be interested in the job, she is clearly interested in the job. Somehow, though, few observers seem to take her crypto-candidature that seriously.
That leaves the outgoing leader's favourite, Per NUDER, the former finance minister. But he suffers from three major disadvantages. First, he's probably the candidate most associated with the "modernising" wing of the party, which is not obviously in the ascendancy. Second, he's not the most charismatic of politicians. Third, and probably fatally, he's a man. The clamour within the labour movement for a woman to lead the party, almost irrespective of who she is, seems too loud for it to ignore.
So, amazingly, a decade after the "Toblerone affair" did for her chances of the party leadership, it may well be Mona SAHLIN who gets the nod. Even since those "revelations" about her mildly chaotic domestic finances, her judgement hasn't always been entirely reliable: witness her involvement in the Masoud Kamali debacle (see this newsletter 060808). But the Social Democrats' election committee - which is sounding out the party's preferences and will, in January or February, propose a candidate, who will then (almost certainly) be confirmed by a special party congress in March - may not see many other options.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University College
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se/statsvetenskap
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@sh.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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
Two quick notices.
1. We only managed to get one of our panels accepted for the PSA conference in Bath in April. This is a bit of a disappointment, and I'm not entirely happy about it. But the conference organisers have, apparently, been inundated with panel proposals, so sifting them was bound to be tricky.
The draft programme can be found at the conference website (www.psa.ac.uk/2007). We're in session B.
2. With the new Swedish government having settled down after its dreadful start, attention is now turning to the Social Democrats and their attempt to find a new leader. As was the case last time, in 1996, the slightly surreal competition revolves around who among the likely candidates can rule themselves out with the most conviction.
The early favourite, European commissioner Margot WALLSTRÖM, has now done so sufficiently often and firmly that some commentators have started to believe her. Still, the party's women's wing is still refusing to take no for an answer, and is still backing her. Meanwhile, one youthful contender, former foreign-aid minister Carin JÄMTIN, briefly looked to have surged into pole position a couple of weeks ago, when Aftonbladet, the left-leaning tabloid, backed her. Yet now she's saying that she wants to stay as opposition leader in Stockholm city council. She certainly has a bit of star quality. But she may have decided to keep her powder dry until the next contest.
Then there's another ex-minister, Ulrika MESSING. While obviously not being so reckless as to suggest that she might actually be interested in the job, she is clearly interested in the job. Somehow, though, few observers seem to take her crypto-candidature that seriously.
That leaves the outgoing leader's favourite, Per NUDER, the former finance minister. But he suffers from three major disadvantages. First, he's probably the candidate most associated with the "modernising" wing of the party, which is not obviously in the ascendancy. Second, he's not the most charismatic of politicians. Third, and probably fatally, he's a man. The clamour within the labour movement for a woman to lead the party, almost irrespective of who she is, seems too loud for it to ignore.
So, amazingly, a decade after the "Toblerone affair" did for her chances of the party leadership, it may well be Mona SAHLIN who gets the nod. Even since those "revelations" about her mildly chaotic domestic finances, her judgement hasn't always been entirely reliable: witness her involvement in the Masoud Kamali debacle (see this newsletter 060808). But the Social Democrats' election committee - which is sounding out the party's preferences and will, in January or February, propose a candidate, who will then (almost certainly) be confirmed by a special party congress in March - may not see many other options.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University College
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se/statsvetenskap
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@sh.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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
2006-11-20
NISA conference, May 2007
Hej to all on the list,
Marjo Koivisto of the LSE has asked me to send out information about the
conference of Nordic International Studies Association (NISA) in May 2007.
Further details are below.
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@sh.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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University College
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se/statsvetenskap
----- Forwarded by Nicholas Aylott/Personal/Sodertorn on 2006-11-20 15:16
wrote on 2006-11-14 18:30:04:
***************************************************************************
>
>
> CALL FOR PANELS AND PAPERS
>
>
>
> The Nordic International Studies Association (NISA) invites panel
> and paper proposals for a new conference on topical issues in world
politics.
>
>
>
> The conference -
>
>
>
> Power, Vision and Order in World Politics
>
>
>
> - will be held on 23-25 May 2007 at the University of Southern
> Denmark, Odense, Denmark. All international studies academics and
> practitioners - members or non-members of NISA, Nordic or
> international - are welcome to participate. Participation of
> doctoral students is particularly encouraged, and they may apply for
> travel grants.
>
>
>
> The deadline for both panel and paper proposals is 1 December 2006.
> Please send your proposal to the head of the organising committee,
> Sten Rynning (sry@sam.sdu.dk).
>
>
>
> The best papers of the conference will be published in a special
> issue of Cooperation and Conflict in 2008.
>
>
>
> For more information about the focus of the conference, the
> organization, fees, travel and other issues, please consult the
NISAhomepage:
> http://www.ps.au.dk/nisa/
>
>
>
> *
>
>
>
> NISA has also decided to establish a
>
>
>
> PRIZE FOR THE BEST ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN COOPERATION AND CONFLICT
>
>
>
> The first Prize - 500 euros - covers the years 2005 and 2006. The
> Prize will be awarded at the 2007 conference. The board of NISA and
> the editors of Cooperation and Conflict act as the nomination committee.
>
>
>
> *
>
>
>
> NISA was founded in October 1991 to promote research, advanced study
> and contact among academics and practitioners in the field of
> international studies in the Nordic countries. NISA encourages the
> advancement of knowledge across disciplinary boundaries, analytical
> approaches, institutions, and nations. The journal Cooperation and
> Conflict has been the Association's most visible form of activity.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> NISA conference
>
> University of Southern Denmark
>
> 23-25 May 2007
>
>
>
> Power, Vision, and Order in World Politics
>
>
>
>
>
> When President H. W. Bush in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War called
> for a new world order he illuminated an enduring phenomenon in the
> history of international relations: the idea that the conclusion of
> major wars or confrontations become moments of creation and the
> source of new orders. Following more than a decade of uncertainty,
> turmoil, and sometimes war we ask the discipline of international
> studies to reassess this relationship between turning points and order.
>
>
>
> The original insight into the phenomenon usefully highlighted the
> connection between power and order: the great powers who won the
> contest that recently came to an end can now use their muscle to
> build a new order that reflects their vision of politics, society,
> and economics. Sometimes these great powers are in agreement and
> form concerts; sometimes they disagree and form hostile alliances.
> This view of power and order may not be an appropriate means for
> understanding current world politics where preponderant power seems
> to go hand-in-hand with disorder.
>
>
>
> Our ambition with this conference is therefore to invite debate on
> the relationship between power, vision, and order. We hope to
> provoke new thoughts on the conceptualization of power and order.
> Must we now give priority to conceptualizations of relations that
> transcend the state - processes of globalization and the formation
> of a type of stateless global governance? Must we emphasize ideas
> over material interests and investigate the formation of identities
> through social interaction and, perhaps, the making of a benevolent
> Kantian anarchy? Must we retain a focus on the state but privilege
> the ways in which restraint and legitimacy in state policy help
> generate enduring constitutional-type orders? Conversely, should we
> look at states and the way in which states in common develop
> international societies? Or, should we look at states and the way in
> which groups of states tend to come into confrontation because their
> conceptions of society and politics are at odds? With this topic -
> power and order - we hope to take stock of the intellectual field,
> clarify controversies, and suggest new research questions.
>
>
>
> We hope also to stimulate new empirical findings into the
> relationship between power, vision, and order. We encourage
> participants to present their studies of major turning points and
> processes of war, peace, and governance, and we welcome diversity in
> terms of approaches, method, and focus. We thus hope to generate new
> insights into, say, the great power conferences that ended up
> producing not peace but cold war following the Second World War, or,
> say, the macro-sociological processes that produced this cold war.
> And we hope that these insights will feed back into the debate on
theory.
>
>
>
Marjo Koivisto of the LSE has asked me to send out information about the
conference of Nordic International Studies Association (NISA) in May 2007.
Further details are below.
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@sh.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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University College
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se/statsvetenskap
----- Forwarded by Nicholas Aylott/Personal/Sodertorn on 2006-11-20 15:16
***************************************************************************
>
>
> CALL FOR PANELS AND PAPERS
>
>
>
> The Nordic International Studies Association (NISA) invites panel
> and paper proposals for a new conference on topical issues in world
politics.
>
>
>
> The conference -
>
>
>
> Power, Vision and Order in World Politics
>
>
>
> - will be held on 23-25 May 2007 at the University of Southern
> Denmark, Odense, Denmark. All international studies academics and
> practitioners - members or non-members of NISA, Nordic or
> international - are welcome to participate. Participation of
> doctoral students is particularly encouraged, and they may apply for
> travel grants.
>
>
>
> The deadline for both panel and paper proposals is 1 December 2006.
> Please send your proposal to the head of the organising committee,
> Sten Rynning (sry@sam.sdu.dk).
>
>
>
> The best papers of the conference will be published in a special
> issue of Cooperation and Conflict in 2008.
>
>
>
> For more information about the focus of the conference, the
> organization, fees, travel and other issues, please consult the
NISAhomepage:
> http://www.ps.au.dk/nisa/
>
>
>
> *
>
>
>
> NISA has also decided to establish a
>
>
>
> PRIZE FOR THE BEST ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN COOPERATION AND CONFLICT
>
>
>
> The first Prize - 500 euros - covers the years 2005 and 2006. The
> Prize will be awarded at the 2007 conference. The board of NISA and
> the editors of Cooperation and Conflict act as the nomination committee.
>
>
>
> *
>
>
>
> NISA was founded in October 1991 to promote research, advanced study
> and contact among academics and practitioners in the field of
> international studies in the Nordic countries. NISA encourages the
> advancement of knowledge across disciplinary boundaries, analytical
> approaches, institutions, and nations. The journal Cooperation and
> Conflict has been the Association's most visible form of activity.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> NISA conference
>
> University of Southern Denmark
>
> 23-25 May 2007
>
>
>
> Power, Vision, and Order in World Politics
>
>
>
>
>
> When President H. W. Bush in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War called
> for a new world order he illuminated an enduring phenomenon in the
> history of international relations: the idea that the conclusion of
> major wars or confrontations become moments of creation and the
> source of new orders. Following more than a decade of uncertainty,
> turmoil, and sometimes war we ask the discipline of international
> studies to reassess this relationship between turning points and order.
>
>
>
> The original insight into the phenomenon usefully highlighted the
> connection between power and order: the great powers who won the
> contest that recently came to an end can now use their muscle to
> build a new order that reflects their vision of politics, society,
> and economics. Sometimes these great powers are in agreement and
> form concerts; sometimes they disagree and form hostile alliances.
> This view of power and order may not be an appropriate means for
> understanding current world politics where preponderant power seems
> to go hand-in-hand with disorder.
>
>
>
> Our ambition with this conference is therefore to invite debate on
> the relationship between power, vision, and order. We hope to
> provoke new thoughts on the conceptualization of power and order.
> Must we now give priority to conceptualizations of relations that
> transcend the state - processes of globalization and the formation
> of a type of stateless global governance? Must we emphasize ideas
> over material interests and investigate the formation of identities
> through social interaction and, perhaps, the making of a benevolent
> Kantian anarchy? Must we retain a focus on the state but privilege
> the ways in which restraint and legitimacy in state policy help
> generate enduring constitutional-type orders? Conversely, should we
> look at states and the way in which states in common develop
> international societies? Or, should we look at states and the way in
> which groups of states tend to come into confrontation because their
> conceptions of society and politics are at odds? With this topic -
> power and order - we hope to take stock of the intellectual field,
> clarify controversies, and suggest new research questions.
>
>
>
> We hope also to stimulate new empirical findings into the
> relationship between power, vision, and order. We encourage
> participants to present their studies of major turning points and
> processes of war, peace, and governance, and we welcome diversity in
> terms of approaches, method, and focus. We thus hope to generate new
> insights into, say, the great power conferences that ended up
> producing not peace but cold war following the Second World War, or,
> say, the macro-sociological processes that produced this cold war.
> And we hope that these insights will feed back into the debate on
theory.
>
>
>
2006-10-16
Swedish resignations
Hej to all on the Scandinavian Politics list,
A week is a long time in politics, they say. It must have felt like that
for the new Swedish prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, who took office
only a week and a half ago. This morning, his cabinet sustained its second
resignation. Very briefly, this is what happened.
As soon as the new government was announced, Reinfeldt acknowledged that
two of its more suprising appointments - trade minister Maria Borelius and
exotically named culture minister Cecilia Stegö Chilò - had hired domestic
help in the 1990s on the black market, that is, without paying employer
charges. This, it seems, was just about forgiveable. What made life much
tougher for Stegö Chilò, though, was the revelation soon afterwards that
she hadn't paid her television licence fee since 1990. Nor, it turned out,
had a third cabinet member, migration minister Tobias Billström.
For both Borelius and Stegö Chilò, maybe the worst mistake was their
shifting explanations for their tax- and fee-dogding. Pressure built on
Borelius as the media revealed aspects of her business life that had never
quite become illegal, but which were somewhat opaque and generally just,
well, a bit dodgy. She resigned on Saturday. That, in turn, proved the
last straw for Stegö Chilò, although her position - a minister in charge
of public-service broadcasting who didn't pay her licence fee - looked
untenable from the start.
Of course, this is all disastrous for the new government. To cap it all,
Stegö Chilò's belated resignation has displaced this morning's other
event, a tax-cutting budget, as the main headline. Meanwhile, commentators
have been drawing inferences about the longer-term significance of this
debacle for Reinfeldt's Moderate Party (Borelius, Stegö Chilò and
Billström are all Moderates, and all belong to its more neo-liberal wing),
for women in politics, and for the risks of appointing to government
individuals who haven't been screened by long experience of party
politics. Maybe it's also that, just as a party can grow too accustomed to
sitting in government, a party can also grow too accustomed to being in
opposition.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University College
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se/statsvetenskap
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@sh.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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
A week is a long time in politics, they say. It must have felt like that
for the new Swedish prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, who took office
only a week and a half ago. This morning, his cabinet sustained its second
resignation. Very briefly, this is what happened.
As soon as the new government was announced, Reinfeldt acknowledged that
two of its more suprising appointments - trade minister Maria Borelius and
exotically named culture minister Cecilia Stegö Chilò - had hired domestic
help in the 1990s on the black market, that is, without paying employer
charges. This, it seems, was just about forgiveable. What made life much
tougher for Stegö Chilò, though, was the revelation soon afterwards that
she hadn't paid her television licence fee since 1990. Nor, it turned out,
had a third cabinet member, migration minister Tobias Billström.
For both Borelius and Stegö Chilò, maybe the worst mistake was their
shifting explanations for their tax- and fee-dogding. Pressure built on
Borelius as the media revealed aspects of her business life that had never
quite become illegal, but which were somewhat opaque and generally just,
well, a bit dodgy. She resigned on Saturday. That, in turn, proved the
last straw for Stegö Chilò, although her position - a minister in charge
of public-service broadcasting who didn't pay her licence fee - looked
untenable from the start.
Of course, this is all disastrous for the new government. To cap it all,
Stegö Chilò's belated resignation has displaced this morning's other
event, a tax-cutting budget, as the main headline. Meanwhile, commentators
have been drawing inferences about the longer-term significance of this
debacle for Reinfeldt's Moderate Party (Borelius, Stegö Chilò and
Billström are all Moderates, and all belong to its more neo-liberal wing),
for women in politics, and for the risks of appointing to government
individuals who haven't been screened by long experience of party
politics. Maybe it's also that, just as a party can grow too accustomed to
sitting in government, a party can also grow too accustomed to being in
opposition.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University College
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se/statsvetenskap
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@sh.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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
2006-10-06
PSA conference and new Swedish government
Hej to all on the Scandinavian Politics Specialist Group list,
Two quick notices.
1. We've proposed two panels for the PSA conference in April 2007. See the
Scandinavian Politics website for details (address below, click on
Conference panels and other events).
2. The new Swedish cabinet has this morning been announced. The only
rumour to have leaked out of the negotiations between the four allied
centre-right parties appeared yesterday in a Danish paper, and it turned
out to be true - as well as mildly sensational. Carl Bildt, former
Moderate leader and prime minister, will be the foreign minister. This is
a bold choice by the new prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt. He has
apparently disregarded the risk of being overshadowed by his
internationally well-known predecessor. What's more, relations between the
two when Bildt was party leader and Reinfeldt was chair of the
Moderates'youth wing were not, it seems, enormously warm.
Otherwise, the Moderates have bagged half of the 22 portfolios. Apart from
those of prime minister and foreign minister, they get get justice,
defence and finance, too - which probably amounts to rather more
heavyweight positions than most pundits had expected. The Centre Party's
successful election brings it four portfolios, including commerce, the one
that party leader Maud Olofsson clearly wanted and has got. The Liberals
also get four jobs. Party leader Lars Leijonborg gets education; MEP (and
political scientist) Cecilia Malmström gets the new job of EU minister.
The Christian Democrats' leader Göran Hägglund gets social affairs as one
of his party's three portfolios.
More information can be found at the usual sites, including Dagens Nyheter
(dn.se).
Best,
Nick.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University College
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se
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@sh.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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia
Two quick notices.
1. We've proposed two panels for the PSA conference in April 2007. See the
Scandinavian Politics website for details (address below, click on
Conference panels and other events).
2. The new Swedish cabinet has this morning been announced. The only
rumour to have leaked out of the negotiations between the four allied
centre-right parties appeared yesterday in a Danish paper, and it turned
out to be true - as well as mildly sensational. Carl Bildt, former
Moderate leader and prime minister, will be the foreign minister. This is
a bold choice by the new prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt. He has
apparently disregarded the risk of being overshadowed by his
internationally well-known predecessor. What's more, relations between the
two when Bildt was party leader and Reinfeldt was chair of the
Moderates'youth wing were not, it seems, enormously warm.
Otherwise, the Moderates have bagged half of the 22 portfolios. Apart from
those of prime minister and foreign minister, they get get justice,
defence and finance, too - which probably amounts to rather more
heavyweight positions than most pundits had expected. The Centre Party's
successful election brings it four portfolios, including commerce, the one
that party leader Maud Olofsson clearly wanted and has got. The Liberals
also get four jobs. Party leader Lars Leijonborg gets education; MEP (and
political scientist) Cecilia Malmström gets the new job of EU minister.
The Christian Democrats' leader Göran Hägglund gets social affairs as one
of his party's three portfolios.
More information can be found at the usual sites, including Dagens Nyheter
(dn.se).
Best,
Nick.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University College
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se
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@sh.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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia
2006-09-18
Swedish election results
There was a historic outcome in the Swedish election yesterday.
* The Moderates, with their best result since 1928 and the biggest jump in support ever by a Swedish party, led the opposition Alliance for Sweden to victory. The four Alliance parties will have a small but clear parliamentary majority. Moderate leader Fredrik Reinfeldt will take over as prime minister in three weeks or so.
* The ruling Social Democrats obtained their worst score since 1920. Göran Persson, party leader and prime minister since 1996, announced last night his intention to resign from both positions. A special party congress will elect his successor in March.
How could this electoral shift happen when the economy is growing so impressively? Much will be surely written on the subject, but, very briefly, two reasons can be identified.
1. In a speech on May 1st, Persson predicted that unemployment would not be a major issue in the campaign. He was wrong. The Alliance pushed it relentlessly, and their success in doing so was apparent in the campaign debates, in the main exit poll published this morning, and, crucially, in the criticism aired from within the labour movement that the Social Democrats - remarkably, given their historical emphasis on it - lacked a convincing strategy for addressing the issue.
2. The effort put into the Alliance by its four parties has been immense, and clearly boosted their collecive credibility as an alternative government. It also presented a favourable contrast with the left bloc, whose three parties preferred to leave policy compromises and, perhaps just as importantly, the form of their co-operation - full coalition, semi-coalition or something else - until after the election. The Left and the Greens' leaders criticised the Social Democrats for their refusal to promise a coalition in advance.
There may still be small adjustments in the final results, but just now they stand as the following (with their 2002 equivalents in brackets).
+ Left Party: 5.8% (8.3%), 22 seats (30)
+ Social Democrats: 35.2% (39.8%), 130 seats (144)
+ Greens: 5.2% (4.6%), 19 seats (17)
LEFT BLOC: 46.2% (52.7%), 171 seats (191)
+ Centre Party: 7.9% (6.1%), 29 seats (22)
+ Liberals: 7.5% (13.3%), 28 seats (48)
+ Christian Democrats: 6.6% (9.1%), 24 seats (33)
+ Moderates: 26.1% (15.2%), 97 seats (55)
ALLIANCE: 48.1% (43.7%), 178 seats (158)
Turnout seems set to be comfortably above 80%.
Source: Election Authority (val.se).
As can be seen, the Left, Liberals and Christian Democrats all suffered significant losses - but probably not to the extent that, given the circumstances, their party leaders' positions will be threatened. Apart from the Moderates, the big winners were the Centre. Votes given to parties outside parliament rose markedly, with the far-right Sweden Democrats winning nearly 2% and Feminist Initiative about 1%.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University College
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se
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@sh.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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
* The Moderates, with their best result since 1928 and the biggest jump in support ever by a Swedish party, led the opposition Alliance for Sweden to victory. The four Alliance parties will have a small but clear parliamentary majority. Moderate leader Fredrik Reinfeldt will take over as prime minister in three weeks or so.
* The ruling Social Democrats obtained their worst score since 1920. Göran Persson, party leader and prime minister since 1996, announced last night his intention to resign from both positions. A special party congress will elect his successor in March.
How could this electoral shift happen when the economy is growing so impressively? Much will be surely written on the subject, but, very briefly, two reasons can be identified.
1. In a speech on May 1st, Persson predicted that unemployment would not be a major issue in the campaign. He was wrong. The Alliance pushed it relentlessly, and their success in doing so was apparent in the campaign debates, in the main exit poll published this morning, and, crucially, in the criticism aired from within the labour movement that the Social Democrats - remarkably, given their historical emphasis on it - lacked a convincing strategy for addressing the issue.
2. The effort put into the Alliance by its four parties has been immense, and clearly boosted their collecive credibility as an alternative government. It also presented a favourable contrast with the left bloc, whose three parties preferred to leave policy compromises and, perhaps just as importantly, the form of their co-operation - full coalition, semi-coalition or something else - until after the election. The Left and the Greens' leaders criticised the Social Democrats for their refusal to promise a coalition in advance.
There may still be small adjustments in the final results, but just now they stand as the following (with their 2002 equivalents in brackets).
+ Left Party: 5.8% (8.3%), 22 seats (30)
+ Social Democrats: 35.2% (39.8%), 130 seats (144)
+ Greens: 5.2% (4.6%), 19 seats (17)
LEFT BLOC: 46.2% (52.7%), 171 seats (191)
+ Centre Party: 7.9% (6.1%), 29 seats (22)
+ Liberals: 7.5% (13.3%), 28 seats (48)
+ Christian Democrats: 6.6% (9.1%), 24 seats (33)
+ Moderates: 26.1% (15.2%), 97 seats (55)
ALLIANCE: 48.1% (43.7%), 178 seats (158)
Turnout seems set to be comfortably above 80%.
Source: Election Authority (val.se).
As can be seen, the Left, Liberals and Christian Democrats all suffered significant losses - but probably not to the extent that, given the circumstances, their party leaders' positions will be threatened. Apart from the Moderates, the big winners were the Centre. Votes given to parties outside parliament rose markedly, with the far-right Sweden Democrats winning nearly 2% and Feminist Initiative about 1%.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University College
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se
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@sh.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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
2006-09-13
Scandinavian Politics: election latest
1. The Swedish campaign has entered its last few days. Most polls give the
bourgeois Alliance a very small lead, but basically the rival blocs are
neck and neck.
The hacking scandal rumbles on. (Some are suggesting that the former
Liberal party secretary, who resigned last week, has not been entirely
straight about how he reacted when he heard in March about the intrusion
into the Social Democrats' intranet.) But while the Liberals have clearly
lost support, their decline hasn't (so far) been quite as catastrophic as
some predicted; and most of that supoprt seems to have gone to other
Alliance parties.
Otherwise, the tightness of the contest has been reflected by the
unusually harsh words that have been exchanged by the prime minister and
the Alliance leader in their most recent debates. It really could go
either way on Sunday.
Members of the list might be interested in a longish article about the
election and the Swedish model in general that's in this week's Economist.
It's available free via the magazine's website
(economist.com/world/europe). The Economist's liberal view on things is,
as usual, fairly apparent; and there are a few slightly irritating factual
errors. But it's not a bad discussion.
2. For rather mysterious technical reasons, I'm having trouble updating
the group's website. But I can at least inform you via this message that I
have new co-ordinates (see below), effective from now.
Best,
Nick.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University College
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se
nicholas.aylott@sh.se
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@sh.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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
bourgeois Alliance a very small lead, but basically the rival blocs are
neck and neck.
The hacking scandal rumbles on. (Some are suggesting that the former
Liberal party secretary, who resigned last week, has not been entirely
straight about how he reacted when he heard in March about the intrusion
into the Social Democrats' intranet.) But while the Liberals have clearly
lost support, their decline hasn't (so far) been quite as catastrophic as
some predicted; and most of that supoprt seems to have gone to other
Alliance parties.
Otherwise, the tightness of the contest has been reflected by the
unusually harsh words that have been exchanged by the prime minister and
the Alliance leader in their most recent debates. It really could go
either way on Sunday.
Members of the list might be interested in a longish article about the
election and the Swedish model in general that's in this week's Economist.
It's available free via the magazine's website
(economist.com/world/europe). The Economist's liberal view on things is,
as usual, fairly apparent; and there are a few slightly irritating factual
errors. But it's not a bad discussion.
2. For rather mysterious technical reasons, I'm having trouble updating
the group's website. But I can at least inform you via this message that I
have new co-ordinates (see below), effective from now.
Best,
Nick.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University College
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se
nicholas.aylott@sh.se
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@sh.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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
2006-09-07
Scandinavian Politics: more notices
Hej to all on the Scandinavian Politics list,
Two items.
1. PSA CONFERENCE 2007. It’s time once again for us to apply for panels at
the PSA’s annual conference (www.psa.ac.uk/2007), which next year will be
at the University of Bath on April 11th-13th.
The deadline for panel proposals is just a few weeks away, on September
30th, so send ideas for panels and individual papers to me as soon as you
can. We didn't manage to organise any panels last year, so let's make a
special effort this time. For those of you who haven't been to a PSA
conference before, I can say that the atmosphere is usually relaxed and
constructive, so no one should be apprehensive about presenting research,
even if the paper submitted is still work in progress. I could think of
presenting something along the lines of "Europe and party organisational
change", but it's very likely that we can accommodate papers with rather
different themes.
There will also be the chance for postgraduate students to receive a
modest subsidy for their travel costs and conference fees from our group's
funds. Anyone who's interested, or who can think or someone who might be
interested, should get in touch with me.
2. SWEDISH CAMPAIGN LATEST. As many will have heard, the hacking scandal
that blew up at the start of the week has definitely not fizzled out. The
chief hacker, the press secretary of the Liberals' youth wing, was
immediately sacked. But on Tuesday the national party's own press
secretary, who seems to have used information from the Social Democrats'
intranet to schedule Liberal policy initiatives, took a "time-out" (sic)
from her job after being questioned by the police. Then, just a few hours
later, the Liberal party secretary resigned, after he admitted knowing
about the intrusion way back in March. He'd apparently told the chief
hacker then that it had to stop. But he failed to make sure that it did
stop – and, worse, he lied on Monday about how much he'd known and when.
No one has yet suggested that the party leader, Lars Leijonborg, knew
anything about the instrusion until last Sunday. But he, too, failed to
come clean until Tuesday about how much the party secretary had known, and
Leijonborg's own position seemed thus to be crumbling. His questioning by
journalists on TV tonight, scheduled long ago, might be his last chance to
recover his standing.
Now, I wonder if the reaction to this political espionage has been
somewhat over the top. Everyone agrees that the Social Democrats' intranet
security was pathetically weak. But the hitherto embattled ruling party
has, of course, seized gleefully on the affair (and usually not as crassly
as the Social Democrats' own party secretary, who responded to Liberal
suggestions that they were overdoing their indignation by accusing
Leijonborg of acting "like a rapist who blames his victim"). The prime
minister, Göran Persson, has taken the opportunity to come over all grave
and statesmanlike. Certainly, although the scandal wasn't discussed, he
was in crushing form in last night's TV debate with Fredrik Reinfeldt, the
opposition Alliance's informal leader. Reinfeldt also gave a decent
account of himself. But there are already indications that Liberal support
will be hit hard by the scandal, and the Social Democrats clearly feel
that they now have every chance of retaining power.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
Two items.
1. PSA CONFERENCE 2007. It’s time once again for us to apply for panels at
the PSA’s annual conference (www.psa.ac.uk/2007), which next year will be
at the University of Bath on April 11th-13th.
The deadline for panel proposals is just a few weeks away, on September
30th, so send ideas for panels and individual papers to me as soon as you
can. We didn't manage to organise any panels last year, so let's make a
special effort this time. For those of you who haven't been to a PSA
conference before, I can say that the atmosphere is usually relaxed and
constructive, so no one should be apprehensive about presenting research,
even if the paper submitted is still work in progress. I could think of
presenting something along the lines of "Europe and party organisational
change", but it's very likely that we can accommodate papers with rather
different themes.
There will also be the chance for postgraduate students to receive a
modest subsidy for their travel costs and conference fees from our group's
funds. Anyone who's interested, or who can think or someone who might be
interested, should get in touch with me.
2. SWEDISH CAMPAIGN LATEST. As many will have heard, the hacking scandal
that blew up at the start of the week has definitely not fizzled out. The
chief hacker, the press secretary of the Liberals' youth wing, was
immediately sacked. But on Tuesday the national party's own press
secretary, who seems to have used information from the Social Democrats'
intranet to schedule Liberal policy initiatives, took a "time-out" (sic)
from her job after being questioned by the police. Then, just a few hours
later, the Liberal party secretary resigned, after he admitted knowing
about the intrusion way back in March. He'd apparently told the chief
hacker then that it had to stop. But he failed to make sure that it did
stop – and, worse, he lied on Monday about how much he'd known and when.
No one has yet suggested that the party leader, Lars Leijonborg, knew
anything about the instrusion until last Sunday. But he, too, failed to
come clean until Tuesday about how much the party secretary had known, and
Leijonborg's own position seemed thus to be crumbling. His questioning by
journalists on TV tonight, scheduled long ago, might be his last chance to
recover his standing.
Now, I wonder if the reaction to this political espionage has been
somewhat over the top. Everyone agrees that the Social Democrats' intranet
security was pathetically weak. But the hitherto embattled ruling party
has, of course, seized gleefully on the affair (and usually not as crassly
as the Social Democrats' own party secretary, who responded to Liberal
suggestions that they were overdoing their indignation by accusing
Leijonborg of acting "like a rapist who blames his victim"). The prime
minister, Göran Persson, has taken the opportunity to come over all grave
and statesmanlike. Certainly, although the scandal wasn't discussed, he
was in crushing form in last night's TV debate with Fredrik Reinfeldt, the
opposition Alliance's informal leader. Reinfeldt also gave a decent
account of himself. But there are already indications that Liberal support
will be hit hard by the scandal, and the Social Democrats clearly feel
that they now have every chance of retaining power.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
2006-09-05
Scandinavian Politics: elections
Hej to all on the Scandinavia Politics mailing list,
I have two notices about elections in this part of the world.
1. First, the Norwegian election of a year ago. The first report from the
Norwegian Election Studies group - Bernt Aaardal and Stavn Guro, "Enda
flere skifter parti" (www.ssb.no/samfunnsspeilet) - has now been published
by Statistics Norway. As the title suggests, it's in Norwegian. But one of
the authors, Bernt Aaardal, has also written a preliminary report in
English, "How to Lose a Walk-Over Election"
(www.samfunnsforskning.no/page/Publikasjoner/Publikasjoner_Rapporter/7457/29622.html),
based on exit polls and official statistics. (Thanks to Elin Haugsgjerd
Allern of the Institute for Social Research in Oslo for this tip.)
2. Meanwhile, with less than a fortnight to go before polling day, the
already exciting Swedish election campaign is becoming even more so. On
Sunday evening, in a scandal that one political scientist compared to
Watergate (which was perhaps just a slight exaggeration), it was revealed
that senior figures in the Liberal campaign had repeatedly gained access
to the Social Democrats' intranet, which contains sensitive information
about the Social Democrats' election strategy and tactics. The police have
raided the Liberals' central office, and prosecutions are likely. The
Liberal leader has deplored the intrusion, and the trespassers so far
revealed have all been from Liberal Youth. But it seems unlikely that they
kept their information entirely to themselves, and some Social Democrats'
have complained that Liberal campaign initiatives have been uncannily
well-timed to pre-empt those of the ruling party.
This scandal may just fizzle out, or it may help the Social Democrats to
recover in a campaign that has hitherto gone rather badly for them. After
pulling back the lead enjoyed by the four-party, centre-right "Alliance
for Sweden", the Social Democrats and their allies have - according to
most, but not all, opinion polls - slipped back again since the Alliance
agreed, some weeks ago, to abolish the current system of property tax.
(That agreement subsequently unravelled somewhat, but the lead in the
polls remained.)
The real possibility of a rare election defeat for the Social Democrats
might seem odd in the context of the vigorous growth of the Swedish
economy. But this growth has, at least until recently, been pretty much of
the jobless variety, and the Alliance has succeeded in placing
unemployment - which, when people on public retraining schemes are
counted, is about 9 per cent, and considerably higher among the young - at
the centre of the campaign. Indeed, some of the more outspoken Social
Democrats have criticised the response of the party leadership to the
Alliance's emphasis on unemployment, which has basically been to deny that
it's much of a problem.
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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia.
I have two notices about elections in this part of the world.
1. First, the Norwegian election of a year ago. The first report from the
Norwegian Election Studies group - Bernt Aaardal and Stavn Guro, "Enda
flere skifter parti" (www.ssb.no/samfunnsspeilet) - has now been published
by Statistics Norway. As the title suggests, it's in Norwegian. But one of
the authors, Bernt Aaardal, has also written a preliminary report in
English, "How to Lose a Walk-Over Election"
(www.samfunnsforskning.no/page/Publikasjoner/Publikasjoner_Rapporter/7457/29622.html),
based on exit polls and official statistics. (Thanks to Elin Haugsgjerd
Allern of the Institute for Social Research in Oslo for this tip.)
2. Meanwhile, with less than a fortnight to go before polling day, the
already exciting Swedish election campaign is becoming even more so. On
Sunday evening, in a scandal that one political scientist compared to
Watergate (which was perhaps just a slight exaggeration), it was revealed
that senior figures in the Liberal campaign had repeatedly gained access
to the Social Democrats' intranet, which contains sensitive information
about the Social Democrats' election strategy and tactics. The police have
raided the Liberals' central office, and prosecutions are likely. The
Liberal leader has deplored the intrusion, and the trespassers so far
revealed have all been from Liberal Youth. But it seems unlikely that they
kept their information entirely to themselves, and some Social Democrats'
have complained that Liberal campaign initiatives have been uncannily
well-timed to pre-empt those of the ruling party.
This scandal may just fizzle out, or it may help the Social Democrats to
recover in a campaign that has hitherto gone rather badly for them. After
pulling back the lead enjoyed by the four-party, centre-right "Alliance
for Sweden", the Social Democrats and their allies have - according to
most, but not all, opinion polls - slipped back again since the Alliance
agreed, some weeks ago, to abolish the current system of property tax.
(That agreement subsequently unravelled somewhat, but the lead in the
polls remained.)
The real possibility of a rare election defeat for the Social Democrats
might seem odd in the context of the vigorous growth of the Swedish
economy. But this growth has, at least until recently, been pretty much of
the jobless variety, and the Alliance has succeeded in placing
unemployment - which, when people on public retraining schemes are
counted, is about 9 per cent, and considerably higher among the young - at
the centre of the campaign. Indeed, some of the more outspoken Social
Democrats have criticised the response of the party leadership to the
Alliance's emphasis on unemployment, which has basically been to deny that
it's much of a problem.
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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia.
2006-08-08
Scandinavian Politics latest
Hej to everyone on the Scandinavian politics list,
Many apologies for the long period of silence from me, which can only partly be explained by the tradition, in Sweden at least, of the country more or less closing down during the summer. I've also had (happy) distractions on the family front, which I won't bore you with.
I have two brief notices and some short comments about political developments in Scandinavia.
1. I'm told by the PSA that "The editors of the PSA News are planning to make the September edition of the News a special ‘specialist group’ issue and would appreciate and welcome all reports from all on specialist group activities. Copy deadline is 14th August so can you please get your items by e-mail to the editorial team".
We've had plans to do stuff other than simply use this mailing list as a forum for communication, but time pressure always seems to frustrate these plans, so nothing much has happened since our London seminar a few years ago. We do have some cash (a few hundred pounds) in the kitty, however, which is available for anyone to use in ways that are (a) academic and (b) related somehow to Nordic politics. This could involve hosting a small conference or workshop, which would ideally be open to everyone but need not necessarily be so. I'm completely open to other ideas, too.
Meanwhile, do send me absolutely anything that you think might be appropriate for the mailing list – book news and reviews, articles, events, comments on current politics, whatever.
2. This will probably be my last message from my current institutional address. Again, I won't bore you with details. But, after nearly five tremendous years in Umeå, I'm moving next term to Södertörn University College, outside Stockholm.
3. The possible reorientation of the Danish party system seems – possibly – to be continuing.
At least some Social Liberals, long in bed with the Social Democrats, seem to be becoming increasingly open to a deal with the Liberal-Conservative government. The attraction for the Social Liberals is not only to get closer to where power lies. It's also to pull the government away from its relationship with the increasingly truculent Danish People's Party - one of whose leading lights made, even by his party's standards, some extraordinarily apocalyptic comments about Muslims recently in the newish Swedish news magazine, Fokus (fokus.se). Current Social Liberal leader Marianne Jelved is still cool on the idea of a shift, but others – most loudly, MP Nasar Khader – are keener.
My colleague Jacob Christensen will no doubt give this more attention on his excellent blog (blog.jacobchristensen.name) when he gets back from holiday.
4. Earlier in Denmark, broad cross-party agreement was reached on a major long-term package of welfare reforms. For brief details in English, see the June editions of the not-bad-at-all newspaper, the Copenhagen News, available online (www.cphpost.dk).
5. The Swedish election campaign is finally getting underway this week. With the two blocs neck and neck in the polls, one underlying issue is whether the four parties in the centre-right "Alliance for Sweden" can resist the temptation to turn their fire on each other in their desperation for votes, which they usually end up doing. It promises to be an exciting time for a political scientist. The election is on September 17th.
6. Meanwhile, a major topic of Swedish domestic political discussion in the last few weeks (admittedly, there's been little competition) has been the impending final report in an official "Inquiry into Power, Integration and Structural Discrimination" – that is, on ethnic relations in Sweden. Chief investigator has been a professor of "social work" ("applied sociology" might be better translation), Masoud Kamali, who has attracted massive criticism from all quarters of the media. The story of his inquiry is a long and rather bizarre one, but I'll keep this summary brief.
Basically, Kamali has a big idea, which he applies in pretty much all his very frequent appearances in the printed media. It is that Swedish society and Swedish culture, like others in Europe, are fundamentally racist; that their very essence rests on an identification of "the other", that is, non-European peoples; and that this explains the disadvantages suffered by ethnic minorities in the country today. Few academics would argue that there is obviously nothing in this argument. But not many, even those of a post-modern persuasion, would push it in such a rigid, encompassing and downright provocative form – especially in an official report. "Sweden needs a new [social integration] policy," he wrote recently. "The era of creating an integrated society based on the concept of ein Volk, ein Reich [sic] is past" (DN July 13th).
These eyebrow-raising allusions aren't the only reason why Kamali is controversial. He has been accused of offering little or no empirical evidence for his sweeping arguments. (I can't say I've read the official reports, but I have read the accompanying summaries published in the newspaper, DN. The one on political parties, on Dec 22nd 2005, was of particular interest to me, of course. I must say that it read like a sentence that had been painfully stretched to 1,500 words.) He also tends to respond to critics by attacking their sincerity or motives. Public figures of non-European extraction are said to have sold out to the dominant Swedish culture; apparently, he once referred in print to some of them as "Uncle Toms". On Sunday he told DN that the criticism he'd suffered while leading the inquiry had been worse than the physical torture he'd endured in his native Iran.
The saga has also been rather embarrassing for the Social Democratic government. This is because the original inquiry was led by someone else, a political scientist from Uppsala. In 2003 Kamali, a member of the inquiry, in effect staged a coup, by persuading the responsible minister to downgrade the original investigation and to appoint him as leader of a new one. Numerous political scientists in Sweden were furious at what they saw as the ideological manipulation of these official reports, which are supposed to be politically impartial. The relevant minister was Mona Sahlin, who must be quite relieved that she now has another portfolio.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
Many apologies for the long period of silence from me, which can only partly be explained by the tradition, in Sweden at least, of the country more or less closing down during the summer. I've also had (happy) distractions on the family front, which I won't bore you with.
I have two brief notices and some short comments about political developments in Scandinavia.
1. I'm told by the PSA that "The editors of the PSA News are planning to make the September edition of the News a special ‘specialist group’ issue and would appreciate and welcome all reports from all on specialist group activities. Copy deadline is 14th August so can you please get your items by e-mail to the editorial team".
We've had plans to do stuff other than simply use this mailing list as a forum for communication, but time pressure always seems to frustrate these plans, so nothing much has happened since our London seminar a few years ago. We do have some cash (a few hundred pounds) in the kitty, however, which is available for anyone to use in ways that are (a) academic and (b) related somehow to Nordic politics. This could involve hosting a small conference or workshop, which would ideally be open to everyone but need not necessarily be so. I'm completely open to other ideas, too.
Meanwhile, do send me absolutely anything that you think might be appropriate for the mailing list – book news and reviews, articles, events, comments on current politics, whatever.
2. This will probably be my last message from my current institutional address. Again, I won't bore you with details. But, after nearly five tremendous years in Umeå, I'm moving next term to Södertörn University College, outside Stockholm.
3. The possible reorientation of the Danish party system seems – possibly – to be continuing.
At least some Social Liberals, long in bed with the Social Democrats, seem to be becoming increasingly open to a deal with the Liberal-Conservative government. The attraction for the Social Liberals is not only to get closer to where power lies. It's also to pull the government away from its relationship with the increasingly truculent Danish People's Party - one of whose leading lights made, even by his party's standards, some extraordinarily apocalyptic comments about Muslims recently in the newish Swedish news magazine, Fokus (fokus.se). Current Social Liberal leader Marianne Jelved is still cool on the idea of a shift, but others – most loudly, MP Nasar Khader – are keener.
My colleague Jacob Christensen will no doubt give this more attention on his excellent blog (blog.jacobchristensen.name) when he gets back from holiday.
4. Earlier in Denmark, broad cross-party agreement was reached on a major long-term package of welfare reforms. For brief details in English, see the June editions of the not-bad-at-all newspaper, the Copenhagen News, available online (www.cphpost.dk).
5. The Swedish election campaign is finally getting underway this week. With the two blocs neck and neck in the polls, one underlying issue is whether the four parties in the centre-right "Alliance for Sweden" can resist the temptation to turn their fire on each other in their desperation for votes, which they usually end up doing. It promises to be an exciting time for a political scientist. The election is on September 17th.
6. Meanwhile, a major topic of Swedish domestic political discussion in the last few weeks (admittedly, there's been little competition) has been the impending final report in an official "Inquiry into Power, Integration and Structural Discrimination" – that is, on ethnic relations in Sweden. Chief investigator has been a professor of "social work" ("applied sociology" might be better translation), Masoud Kamali, who has attracted massive criticism from all quarters of the media. The story of his inquiry is a long and rather bizarre one, but I'll keep this summary brief.
Basically, Kamali has a big idea, which he applies in pretty much all his very frequent appearances in the printed media. It is that Swedish society and Swedish culture, like others in Europe, are fundamentally racist; that their very essence rests on an identification of "the other", that is, non-European peoples; and that this explains the disadvantages suffered by ethnic minorities in the country today. Few academics would argue that there is obviously nothing in this argument. But not many, even those of a post-modern persuasion, would push it in such a rigid, encompassing and downright provocative form – especially in an official report. "Sweden needs a new [social integration] policy," he wrote recently. "The era of creating an integrated society based on the concept of ein Volk, ein Reich [sic] is past" (DN July 13th).
These eyebrow-raising allusions aren't the only reason why Kamali is controversial. He has been accused of offering little or no empirical evidence for his sweeping arguments. (I can't say I've read the official reports, but I have read the accompanying summaries published in the newspaper, DN. The one on political parties, on Dec 22nd 2005, was of particular interest to me, of course. I must say that it read like a sentence that had been painfully stretched to 1,500 words.) He also tends to respond to critics by attacking their sincerity or motives. Public figures of non-European extraction are said to have sold out to the dominant Swedish culture; apparently, he once referred in print to some of them as "Uncle Toms". On Sunday he told DN that the criticism he'd suffered while leading the inquiry had been worse than the physical torture he'd endured in his native Iran.
The saga has also been rather embarrassing for the Social Democratic government. This is because the original inquiry was led by someone else, a political scientist from Uppsala. In 2003 Kamali, a member of the inquiry, in effect staged a coup, by persuading the responsible minister to downgrade the original investigation and to appoint him as leader of a new one. Numerous political scientists in Sweden were furious at what they saw as the ideological manipulation of these official reports, which are supposed to be politically impartial. The relevant minister was Mona Sahlin, who must be quite relieved that she now has another portfolio.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
2006-04-10
Scandinavian Politics latest
Hej to all members of the Scandinavian Politics mailing list,
Here are a couple of brief updates on recent political events in Scandinavia.
First, to DENMARK. With the cartoons crisis having died down, a development occurred last week that may be of even greater interest to political scientists. (Thanks to Flemming Juul Christiansen of the University of Århus for his thoughts.)
On Friday the Social Liberal (Radikale Venstre) parliamentary group announced (in a "letter of freedom") that, after 13 years of close co-operation with the Social Democrats, the party would no longer support the Social Democrats' leader as their candidate for prime minister. The Social Liberals say that that their own leader, Marianne Jelved, is the person who they'd like to take the job. A more realistic development, though, is that the Social Liberals will try to displace the Danish People's Party as the Liberal-Conservative coalition's main support party in government. Indeed, some leading Social Liberals have stated this goal explicitly.
In some ways, this is yet another blow to the Social Democrats and their newish leader, Helle Thorning-Schmidt. It follows the publication of an opinion poll that puts them on just 19 per cent, which, if it were an election result, would be the party's worst score for 103 years. With the Social Liberals' poll rating now not too far behind the Social Democrats'
(and the Danish People's Party's), Jelved's party has clearly concluded that – to over-simplify the issue – policy influence will be more easily secured though pulling the government to the left than through pulling the Social Democrats to the right.
The extent to which the Liberals and Conservatives will be interested in forming a new constellation remains to be seen. The Danish People's Party has proved a noisy but fairly reliable supporter in parliament (although there is currently a row between the party and the government over a scandal concerning the minister for consumer and family affairs), and the party might well attract even more votes if it were relegated to a purer opposition role. Moreover, the divide over immigration policy, in which the Social Liberals take a much softer line than the government does (or, for that matter, the Social Democrats do), is still wide. Whatever, the new situation may well affect cross-party discussions on a major package of long-term welfare and labour-market policy proposals that the government proposed last Tuesday.
Meanwhile, in SWEDEN, the Social Democratic government's fortunes have taken some entertaining twists and turns recently.
* The resignation two and half weeks ago of the foreign minister was, of course, a blow to the government's image. But it had a silver lining.
As I wrote previously, Laila Freivalds was a political liability, and her disappearance from the political frontline will probably save as many votes in September's election as her resignation loses, if not more. (Her replacement, Jan Eliasson, is a diplomatic heavyweight. But his membership of the Social Democratic party had long since lapsed, and many have seen his appointment as another step towards the departification or presidentialisation of the Swedish cabinet.)
What's more, her resignation largely defused the impending report on the government's handling of the Asian tsunami in 2004 by the parliamentary Committee on the Constitution, which came out a week later. Its severe criticism of Freivalds's actions had been widely anticipated, and one of the government's support parties, the Greens, had pretty much committed itself to voting with the opposition if it moved a vote of no confidence in Freivalds. The prime minister, Göran Persson, had implied that if one of his ministers was forced out, he'd take the whole government out, too.
Presumably the Greens were vote-fishing or, perhaps more likely, signalling to the Social Democrats that their support for Persson's staying in power after the election could not be taken for granted. Whatever, Freivalds's resignation obviated this confrontation, and Persson could dismiss the parliamentary committee's biting criticism of him and five of his ministers as containing "little new".
* But last Friday became, in the words of one commentator, yet another "black day" for the Social Democrats.
(1) Persson himself was prosecuted for deficiencies in the planning of the building work on his estate in southern Sweden. This technical oversight is not such a embarrassment in itself. But it reminds voters of his rather grand private residence, which doesn't draw much admiration among Social Democrats. And the timing was unfortunate.
(2) The Social Democratic mayor of Malmö was prosecuted for accepting an exotic holiday from a contractor who his municipal government had given a lot of work to.
(3) Worst of all, the chair of Social Democratic Youth faced four charges in connection with a drunken pub-fight in January. Apparently, no independent witnesses heard her racially abusing the bar's bouncers, as they claim. But the police report does state that she and her mates threatened both the staff and the police that they would exploit their political "contacts", among whom the minister of justice was explicitly named. Again, this does nothing for the Social Democrats' image. The same political commentator described the gang as "young Social Democratic careerists who behave as if they belonged to a political aristocracy".
* All this overshadowed a demand a week ago by the Swedish equal opportunities ombudsman that the Swedish national team withdraw from this summer's football World Cup in Germany, as a protest against the use of prostitutes that he expects to occur there. That proposal raised lively discussion in my workplace.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
Here are a couple of brief updates on recent political events in Scandinavia.
First, to DENMARK. With the cartoons crisis having died down, a development occurred last week that may be of even greater interest to political scientists. (Thanks to Flemming Juul Christiansen of the University of Århus for his thoughts.)
On Friday the Social Liberal (Radikale Venstre) parliamentary group announced (in a "letter of freedom") that, after 13 years of close co-operation with the Social Democrats, the party would no longer support the Social Democrats' leader as their candidate for prime minister. The Social Liberals say that that their own leader, Marianne Jelved, is the person who they'd like to take the job. A more realistic development, though, is that the Social Liberals will try to displace the Danish People's Party as the Liberal-Conservative coalition's main support party in government. Indeed, some leading Social Liberals have stated this goal explicitly.
In some ways, this is yet another blow to the Social Democrats and their newish leader, Helle Thorning-Schmidt. It follows the publication of an opinion poll that puts them on just 19 per cent, which, if it were an election result, would be the party's worst score for 103 years. With the Social Liberals' poll rating now not too far behind the Social Democrats'
(and the Danish People's Party's), Jelved's party has clearly concluded that – to over-simplify the issue – policy influence will be more easily secured though pulling the government to the left than through pulling the Social Democrats to the right.
The extent to which the Liberals and Conservatives will be interested in forming a new constellation remains to be seen. The Danish People's Party has proved a noisy but fairly reliable supporter in parliament (although there is currently a row between the party and the government over a scandal concerning the minister for consumer and family affairs), and the party might well attract even more votes if it were relegated to a purer opposition role. Moreover, the divide over immigration policy, in which the Social Liberals take a much softer line than the government does (or, for that matter, the Social Democrats do), is still wide. Whatever, the new situation may well affect cross-party discussions on a major package of long-term welfare and labour-market policy proposals that the government proposed last Tuesday.
Meanwhile, in SWEDEN, the Social Democratic government's fortunes have taken some entertaining twists and turns recently.
* The resignation two and half weeks ago of the foreign minister was, of course, a blow to the government's image. But it had a silver lining.
As I wrote previously, Laila Freivalds was a political liability, and her disappearance from the political frontline will probably save as many votes in September's election as her resignation loses, if not more. (Her replacement, Jan Eliasson, is a diplomatic heavyweight. But his membership of the Social Democratic party had long since lapsed, and many have seen his appointment as another step towards the departification or presidentialisation of the Swedish cabinet.)
What's more, her resignation largely defused the impending report on the government's handling of the Asian tsunami in 2004 by the parliamentary Committee on the Constitution, which came out a week later. Its severe criticism of Freivalds's actions had been widely anticipated, and one of the government's support parties, the Greens, had pretty much committed itself to voting with the opposition if it moved a vote of no confidence in Freivalds. The prime minister, Göran Persson, had implied that if one of his ministers was forced out, he'd take the whole government out, too.
Presumably the Greens were vote-fishing or, perhaps more likely, signalling to the Social Democrats that their support for Persson's staying in power after the election could not be taken for granted. Whatever, Freivalds's resignation obviated this confrontation, and Persson could dismiss the parliamentary committee's biting criticism of him and five of his ministers as containing "little new".
* But last Friday became, in the words of one commentator, yet another "black day" for the Social Democrats.
(1) Persson himself was prosecuted for deficiencies in the planning of the building work on his estate in southern Sweden. This technical oversight is not such a embarrassment in itself. But it reminds voters of his rather grand private residence, which doesn't draw much admiration among Social Democrats. And the timing was unfortunate.
(2) The Social Democratic mayor of Malmö was prosecuted for accepting an exotic holiday from a contractor who his municipal government had given a lot of work to.
(3) Worst of all, the chair of Social Democratic Youth faced four charges in connection with a drunken pub-fight in January. Apparently, no independent witnesses heard her racially abusing the bar's bouncers, as they claim. But the police report does state that she and her mates threatened both the staff and the police that they would exploit their political "contacts", among whom the minister of justice was explicitly named. Again, this does nothing for the Social Democrats' image. The same political commentator described the gang as "young Social Democratic careerists who behave as if they belonged to a political aristocracy".
* All this overshadowed a demand a week ago by the Swedish equal opportunities ombudsman that the Swedish national team withdraw from this summer's football World Cup in Germany, as a protest against the use of prostitutes that he expects to occur there. That proposal raised lively discussion in my workplace.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
2006-03-21
Swedish foreign minister resigns
Dear all on the Scandinavian Politics mailing list,
The political near-consensus in Denmark over the cartoons crisis has broken down, with the left-wing opposition openly blaming the prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, for aggravating the crisis for political ends. (The prime minister's party, the Liberals, has thrown the same accusations back. The Socialist People's Party's leader, for example, apparently described back in December the publication of the cartoons as "liberating".)
But the affair has just claimed its first political victim, albeit indirectly, and that victim is not Danish but Swedish. At a press conference an hour ago, Swedish foreign minister Laila Freivalds announced her resignation.
Why?
On February 10th this newsletter reported "the cartoons' appearance on a website run by the Sweden Democrats, the small far-right party." It went on: "Extraordinarily, the firm that hosts the Sweden Democrats' website removed the pictures yesterday evening...after being approached yesterday by both the Swedish Foreign Ministry and the security service." The newsletter also suggested that comments the previous day by the foreign minister "anticipated [sic] this action" (see the Scandinavian Politics group's website for these comments).
But, crucially, Freivalds subsequently denied - in terms that left only the tiniest room for semantic wriggling - that she'd known that her underling in the Foreign Ministry would contact the web host. Even more crucially, the prime minister, Göran Persson, condemned the civil servant's intervention (DN Feb 15th), which raised obvious freedom-of-speech issues. In fact, there were only fairly mild protests from a few newspapers and politicians. But they were enough to prompt an investigation by the chancellor of justice.
Yesterday morning the headline news on the radio was that the chancellor of justice had been informed by the Foreign Ministry that its official had, in fact, contacted the web host AFTER consulting the foreign minister. Now, my powers of political forecasting are not exactly renowned. But I felt immediately that Freivalds was done for. Opposition politicians demanded her sacking. Her desperate attempts to explain what she claimed was a misunderstanding never sounded persuasive. And having been so thoroughly criticised before Christmas by the tsunami investigation, she had no political capital left.
The political consequences are probably negative for the Social Democratic government. It adds to recent minor scandals - the party youth wing's leader getting involved in a drunken pub fight, revelations about libellous rumour-mongering by a party functionary, a massively generous pension plan awarded to the chief executive of the Swedish Alcohol Retail Monopoly, who happens to be the prime minister's wife - that create the impression of a party that's grown too comfortable with government office. (British readers might note comparable developments in the Labour Party.)
On the other hand, Freivalds had become such a political liability during her two and a half years as foreign minister that, with over five months to go before the election, Social Democratic strategists might secretly be pleased to see the back of her.
Best,
Nick.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
The political near-consensus in Denmark over the cartoons crisis has broken down, with the left-wing opposition openly blaming the prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, for aggravating the crisis for political ends. (The prime minister's party, the Liberals, has thrown the same accusations back. The Socialist People's Party's leader, for example, apparently described back in December the publication of the cartoons as "liberating".)
But the affair has just claimed its first political victim, albeit indirectly, and that victim is not Danish but Swedish. At a press conference an hour ago, Swedish foreign minister Laila Freivalds announced her resignation.
Why?
On February 10th this newsletter reported "the cartoons' appearance on a website run by the Sweden Democrats, the small far-right party." It went on: "Extraordinarily, the firm that hosts the Sweden Democrats' website removed the pictures yesterday evening...after being approached yesterday by both the Swedish Foreign Ministry and the security service." The newsletter also suggested that comments the previous day by the foreign minister "anticipated [sic] this action" (see the Scandinavian Politics group's website for these comments).
But, crucially, Freivalds subsequently denied - in terms that left only the tiniest room for semantic wriggling - that she'd known that her underling in the Foreign Ministry would contact the web host. Even more crucially, the prime minister, Göran Persson, condemned the civil servant's intervention (DN Feb 15th), which raised obvious freedom-of-speech issues. In fact, there were only fairly mild protests from a few newspapers and politicians. But they were enough to prompt an investigation by the chancellor of justice.
Yesterday morning the headline news on the radio was that the chancellor of justice had been informed by the Foreign Ministry that its official had, in fact, contacted the web host AFTER consulting the foreign minister. Now, my powers of political forecasting are not exactly renowned. But I felt immediately that Freivalds was done for. Opposition politicians demanded her sacking. Her desperate attempts to explain what she claimed was a misunderstanding never sounded persuasive. And having been so thoroughly criticised before Christmas by the tsunami investigation, she had no political capital left.
The political consequences are probably negative for the Social Democratic government. It adds to recent minor scandals - the party youth wing's leader getting involved in a drunken pub fight, revelations about libellous rumour-mongering by a party functionary, a massively generous pension plan awarded to the chief executive of the Swedish Alcohol Retail Monopoly, who happens to be the prime minister's wife - that create the impression of a party that's grown too comfortable with government office. (British readers might note comparable developments in the Labour Party.)
On the other hand, Freivalds had become such a political liability during her two and a half years as foreign minister that, with over five months to go before the election, Social Democratic strategists might secretly be pleased to see the back of her.
Best,
Nick.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
2006-02-14
a domestic perspective on the cartoon crisis
Hej to members of the Scandinavian Politics list,
The debate about the cartoons crisis continues in Sweden. On the radio this morning, an MP from the Liberals, the only Swedish party to have even half-defended the Danish government's handling of it, clashed with a vetaren politician from the Greens, who was fiercely critical. The debate illuminated a rather fascinating divide in Sweden about the limits of free expression, which some here clearly regard as both flexible and dependent on the aims of the person or organisation exercising it.
Denmark, however, is obviously at the epicentre of the crisis. Below is a summary and analysis that emphasises Danish domestic politics. It's written by Flemming Juul Christiansen of the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University.
-----
In the last few weeks Denmark has been in the centre of an international crisis. Nordic embassies have been burned. Other embassies have been evacuated. Here, however, I will mainly consider domestic aspects of the crisis.
The 12 cartoons were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllandsposten on September 30th 2005. The purpose was to show that the newspaper did not impose self-censorship. Shortly before, it had only been possible to illustrate a book told for children on the Koran and the life of Muhammad if the illustrator was granted anonymity. The book, authored by Kåre Bluitgen, was published January 2006. Jyllandsposten is the only national, broadsheet daily based outside Copenhagen, in Aarhus. The views expressed by the newspaper are generally clearly marked right-wing, including on immigration, and mostly supportive of the present centre-right government.
In October a group of 11 ambassadors from the Muslim world asked for a meeting with the prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The wanted him to take legal steps against the newspaper, but Rasmussen refused to schedule such a meeting, arguing that he could not interfere with Danish freedom of speech, protected by the constitution. (In fact, the press historically falls under a portfolio belonging to the office of the prime minister.) The prime minister also refused to comment on the drawings. In January the public prosecutor found no reason to believe the newspaper had broken the criminal code on blasphemy.
I guess it should be noted that, at this point, there seemed to be a general public mood that foreign involvement was not appropriate, especially not from a group of countries run as dictatorships with limited freedom of speech. Debate on the appropriateness of the cartoons was on the rise. But few questioned the right of Jyllandsposten to print them, only the wisdom of doing it.
Meanwhile, municipal elections took place. They resulted overall, in a Social Democratic victory, with 34% support. The drawings did not seem to play any important role in the election campaign.
In December a group of retired Danish diplomats criticized the prime minister for his stance. So did Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, a former newspaper editor and TV journalist, minister of foreign affairs in 1982-1993 and predecessor of the prime minister as leader of the Liberal Party. So too did parts of the opposition.
In his traditional new years’ speech, with more than a million viewers, the prime minister stressed the importance of not offending religious feelings, but most of all he insisted on freedom of speech and a tradition of open debate using satire. Overall, the speech was seen as moderation on the part of the prime minister to calm things down. The night before, the queen had stressed similar topics.
But it only worked for a while. Most likely initiated by visits from Danish imams to Middle Eastern countries, protests and boycotts of Danish products began. The major Danish-Swedish dairy Arla was severely hit and Danish Industry – a major branch organization – began to protest. Later followed the more violent incidents viewed on television.
Since then, the Danish government has taken a more active approach. The prime minister has been on Arab TV channels saying that he would not have condoned such drawings, but he has refused to apologize on behalf of the government, pointing to the freedom of speech. Jyllandsposten has on several occasions apologized for hurting Muslim feelings, but not for printing them in the first place. Now there has been a meeting with all ambassadors to Denmark at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A major domestic reaction to cartoons may have been noted this weekend. An opinion poll printed in Jyllandsposten showed a gain of eight seats for the Danish People’s Party (DF), to 32, and a loss of nine seats for the Social Democrats, to 38 (21%). The difference of the two parties has never been smaller. Support for the two parties in government remained unchanged.
This opinion poll is the only one yet showing such dramatic trends, so it remains to be confirmed. In addition, things may calm down in a few months and this topic may become less exposed. But several analysts have pointed out that the Social Democrats have had problems regaining voters once they have been lost to DF. The two parties share a group of voters with relatively low education and often ‘right-wing’ views on ‘new-politics’ issues such as immigration and crime. If the trend in the opinion poll represents a more permanent realignment, the government’s chance of winning the next election has increased. It would, however, more dependent on DF.
Other opinion polls have shown that Danes have a more nuanced view of the incidents. In Berlingske Tidende, 56% understood that Muslims were offended by the drawings. It also showed belief in the idea of combining Islam with democracy. Yet other opinion polls have shown that 79% felt that the prime minister should not apologize; 58% thought it was the right of the newspaper to print the drawings, but at the same time understand Muslim feelings was hurt.
Throughout these events, the prime minister has had a domestic level to consider – namely, public opinion plus the government's support party, DF. At some point, pressure rose on the international level; but the government has never had a free hand to apologize for the drawings too explicitly, even if it had wanted to. It has been a Putnamesque two-level game. The prime minister seems to have followed the line of the public, though only on the domestic level.
The opposition has generally supported the defence of freedom of speech, but it has attempted to criticize the government’s handling of the affair. The government and DF has also been blamed for creating a ‘climate’ for such drawings with its very strict policies on immigration.
A major incident occurred in question time in parliament two weeks ago. The prime minister clashed with Social Democratic leader Helle Thorning-Schmidt, as well as one of her predecessors, the vetaren Svend Auken, who is associated with the left wing of the party. This broke a ‘ceasefire’ agreed the day before. It has been noted by political journalists, however, that the government provoked the Social Democrats and that the prime minister presented himself for question time during the agreed ceasefire.
Some analysts have pointed to this incident as leading to the opinion polls described above. For my part, I am more inclined to believe that the general exposure of this topic has had an effect on a section of Social Democratic voters. During the crisis, DF has deliberately chosen a low profile, probably in order to support the government. In addition, and as the polls show, DF ‘owns’ this issue. However, the DF leader, Pia Kjærsgaard, has labelled the imams who travelled to the Middle East as ‘traitors’.
Another major long term effect can happen if Denmark at some point is hit by terrorist attacks. Denmark is also present in Iraq and Afghanistan as US allies. This cartoon crisis could bring Denmark, and maybe also other Nordic
countries, to the fore in the minds of fanatics.
The debate has also revealed that Danish Muslims are not as coherent as a group as is often conceived in the press. It is a very mixed group about which we lack knowledge.
-----
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
The debate about the cartoons crisis continues in Sweden. On the radio this morning, an MP from the Liberals, the only Swedish party to have even half-defended the Danish government's handling of it, clashed with a vetaren politician from the Greens, who was fiercely critical. The debate illuminated a rather fascinating divide in Sweden about the limits of free expression, which some here clearly regard as both flexible and dependent on the aims of the person or organisation exercising it.
Denmark, however, is obviously at the epicentre of the crisis. Below is a summary and analysis that emphasises Danish domestic politics. It's written by Flemming Juul Christiansen of the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University.
-----
In the last few weeks Denmark has been in the centre of an international crisis. Nordic embassies have been burned. Other embassies have been evacuated. Here, however, I will mainly consider domestic aspects of the crisis.
The 12 cartoons were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllandsposten on September 30th 2005. The purpose was to show that the newspaper did not impose self-censorship. Shortly before, it had only been possible to illustrate a book told for children on the Koran and the life of Muhammad if the illustrator was granted anonymity. The book, authored by Kåre Bluitgen, was published January 2006. Jyllandsposten is the only national, broadsheet daily based outside Copenhagen, in Aarhus. The views expressed by the newspaper are generally clearly marked right-wing, including on immigration, and mostly supportive of the present centre-right government.
In October a group of 11 ambassadors from the Muslim world asked for a meeting with the prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The wanted him to take legal steps against the newspaper, but Rasmussen refused to schedule such a meeting, arguing that he could not interfere with Danish freedom of speech, protected by the constitution. (In fact, the press historically falls under a portfolio belonging to the office of the prime minister.) The prime minister also refused to comment on the drawings. In January the public prosecutor found no reason to believe the newspaper had broken the criminal code on blasphemy.
I guess it should be noted that, at this point, there seemed to be a general public mood that foreign involvement was not appropriate, especially not from a group of countries run as dictatorships with limited freedom of speech. Debate on the appropriateness of the cartoons was on the rise. But few questioned the right of Jyllandsposten to print them, only the wisdom of doing it.
Meanwhile, municipal elections took place. They resulted overall, in a Social Democratic victory, with 34% support. The drawings did not seem to play any important role in the election campaign.
In December a group of retired Danish diplomats criticized the prime minister for his stance. So did Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, a former newspaper editor and TV journalist, minister of foreign affairs in 1982-1993 and predecessor of the prime minister as leader of the Liberal Party. So too did parts of the opposition.
In his traditional new years’ speech, with more than a million viewers, the prime minister stressed the importance of not offending religious feelings, but most of all he insisted on freedom of speech and a tradition of open debate using satire. Overall, the speech was seen as moderation on the part of the prime minister to calm things down. The night before, the queen had stressed similar topics.
But it only worked for a while. Most likely initiated by visits from Danish imams to Middle Eastern countries, protests and boycotts of Danish products began. The major Danish-Swedish dairy Arla was severely hit and Danish Industry – a major branch organization – began to protest. Later followed the more violent incidents viewed on television.
Since then, the Danish government has taken a more active approach. The prime minister has been on Arab TV channels saying that he would not have condoned such drawings, but he has refused to apologize on behalf of the government, pointing to the freedom of speech. Jyllandsposten has on several occasions apologized for hurting Muslim feelings, but not for printing them in the first place. Now there has been a meeting with all ambassadors to Denmark at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A major domestic reaction to cartoons may have been noted this weekend. An opinion poll printed in Jyllandsposten showed a gain of eight seats for the Danish People’s Party (DF), to 32, and a loss of nine seats for the Social Democrats, to 38 (21%). The difference of the two parties has never been smaller. Support for the two parties in government remained unchanged.
This opinion poll is the only one yet showing such dramatic trends, so it remains to be confirmed. In addition, things may calm down in a few months and this topic may become less exposed. But several analysts have pointed out that the Social Democrats have had problems regaining voters once they have been lost to DF. The two parties share a group of voters with relatively low education and often ‘right-wing’ views on ‘new-politics’ issues such as immigration and crime. If the trend in the opinion poll represents a more permanent realignment, the government’s chance of winning the next election has increased. It would, however, more dependent on DF.
Other opinion polls have shown that Danes have a more nuanced view of the incidents. In Berlingske Tidende, 56% understood that Muslims were offended by the drawings. It also showed belief in the idea of combining Islam with democracy. Yet other opinion polls have shown that 79% felt that the prime minister should not apologize; 58% thought it was the right of the newspaper to print the drawings, but at the same time understand Muslim feelings was hurt.
Throughout these events, the prime minister has had a domestic level to consider – namely, public opinion plus the government's support party, DF. At some point, pressure rose on the international level; but the government has never had a free hand to apologize for the drawings too explicitly, even if it had wanted to. It has been a Putnamesque two-level game. The prime minister seems to have followed the line of the public, though only on the domestic level.
The opposition has generally supported the defence of freedom of speech, but it has attempted to criticize the government’s handling of the affair. The government and DF has also been blamed for creating a ‘climate’ for such drawings with its very strict policies on immigration.
A major incident occurred in question time in parliament two weeks ago. The prime minister clashed with Social Democratic leader Helle Thorning-Schmidt, as well as one of her predecessors, the vetaren Svend Auken, who is associated with the left wing of the party. This broke a ‘ceasefire’ agreed the day before. It has been noted by political journalists, however, that the government provoked the Social Democrats and that the prime minister presented himself for question time during the agreed ceasefire.
Some analysts have pointed to this incident as leading to the opinion polls described above. For my part, I am more inclined to believe that the general exposure of this topic has had an effect on a section of Social Democratic voters. During the crisis, DF has deliberately chosen a low profile, probably in order to support the government. In addition, and as the polls show, DF ‘owns’ this issue. However, the DF leader, Pia Kjærsgaard, has labelled the imams who travelled to the Middle East as ‘traitors’.
Another major long term effect can happen if Denmark at some point is hit by terrorist attacks. Denmark is also present in Iraq and Afghanistan as US allies. This cartoon crisis could bring Denmark, and maybe also other Nordic
countries, to the fore in the minds of fanatics.
The debate has also revealed that Danish Muslims are not as coherent as a group as is often conceived in the press. It is a very mixed group about which we lack knowledge.
-----
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
2006-02-10
Scandinavian Politics: yet more on the cartoon crisis
The Economist today describes the cartoon saga as, "For Denmark...the biggest crisis since the Nazi occupation during the second world war."
Meanwhile, a row has broken out in Norway over comments made by prime minister Jens Stoltenberg on Monday. He put part of the blame for the sacking of the Norwegian embassy in Damascus last week on the small Christian publication Magasinet, which published the notorious cartoons of Mohammed in January. This prompted a furious defence of free expression from ten of the country's cultural elite. "Those who burned down the embassy...are responsible [for doing so], and no one else," thundered author Roy Jacobsen (VG 7/2).
And the papers here are reporting today that Sweden may be dragged into the crisis. An Israeli newspaper and the (apparently widely watched) TV station run by the Lebanese party-cum-militia Hezbollah have broadcast that Swedish publications are also showing the cartoons. This seems to be a reference to the cartoons' appearance on a website run by the Sweden Democrats, the small far-right party (it won 1.4% in the 2002 parliamentary election).
Extraordinarily, the firm that hosts the Sweden Democrats' website removed the pictures yesterday evening. As its executives explained on the radio this morning, they acted after being approached yesterday by both the Swedish Foreign Ministry and the security service.
Comments yesterday by foreign minister Laila Freivalds - who a week ago said on the radio that, of course, she supported freedom of expression, but "there are limits" (which she declined to define) - anticipated this action. "We have freedom of expression in our country, and each of us has to take responsibility within the framework of freedom of expression," Freivalds commented (quoted on Svenska Dagbladet's website today). "I apologise that we in Sweden have individuals who are so inconsiderate as to deliberately insult other people's religion." She added (quoted on Dagens Nyheter's site): "It is dreadful that a small group of Swedish extremists should expose Swedes to such palpable danger."
That is one way of looking at it. An alternative view might be that it is dreadful that a Swedish minister could bow so cravenly to implicit threats of violence and actively condone such a significant restriction on freedom of expression in her country. I imagine that she will have already have been struck off a few Danish ministers' Christmas-card lists.
No doubt there will a range of views on this among members of the Scandinavian Politics list.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
Meanwhile, a row has broken out in Norway over comments made by prime minister Jens Stoltenberg on Monday. He put part of the blame for the sacking of the Norwegian embassy in Damascus last week on the small Christian publication Magasinet, which published the notorious cartoons of Mohammed in January. This prompted a furious defence of free expression from ten of the country's cultural elite. "Those who burned down the embassy...are responsible [for doing so], and no one else," thundered author Roy Jacobsen (VG 7/2).
And the papers here are reporting today that Sweden may be dragged into the crisis. An Israeli newspaper and the (apparently widely watched) TV station run by the Lebanese party-cum-militia Hezbollah have broadcast that Swedish publications are also showing the cartoons. This seems to be a reference to the cartoons' appearance on a website run by the Sweden Democrats, the small far-right party (it won 1.4% in the 2002 parliamentary election).
Extraordinarily, the firm that hosts the Sweden Democrats' website removed the pictures yesterday evening. As its executives explained on the radio this morning, they acted after being approached yesterday by both the Swedish Foreign Ministry and the security service.
Comments yesterday by foreign minister Laila Freivalds - who a week ago said on the radio that, of course, she supported freedom of expression, but "there are limits" (which she declined to define) - anticipated this action. "We have freedom of expression in our country, and each of us has to take responsibility within the framework of freedom of expression," Freivalds commented (quoted on Svenska Dagbladet's website today). "I apologise that we in Sweden have individuals who are so inconsiderate as to deliberately insult other people's religion." She added (quoted on Dagens Nyheter's site): "It is dreadful that a small group of Swedish extremists should expose Swedes to such palpable danger."
That is one way of looking at it. An alternative view might be that it is dreadful that a Swedish minister could bow so cravenly to implicit threats of violence and actively condone such a significant restriction on freedom of expression in her country. I imagine that she will have already have been struck off a few Danish ministers' Christmas-card lists.
No doubt there will a range of views on this among members of the Scandinavian Politics list.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
2006-02-08
Scandinavian politics: three notices
Hej to members of the Scandinavian Politics mailing list,
Three items.
1. The cartoons-of-Mohammed crisis rolls bizarrely and depressingly on, with former Danish foreign minister, Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, urging the editor of Jyllands-Posten to resign. Meanwhile, France's President Chirac today echoed the Swedish and British foreign secretaries in declaring that, while he naturally supports freedom of expression, publication of the pictures was "an 'overt provocation'" and that "any subject matter that could hurt other people's convictions should be avoided" (paraphrased on the BBC News website). The general message - that freedom of expression if great, as long as you don't exercise it - is of course a triumph of both logic and principal.
As well as my colleague Jacob Christensen's very informative blog (http://blog.jacobchristensen.name/), the online encyclopedia Wikipedia
(www.wikipedia.org) already has a comprehensive section on the saga.
2. I have scandalously neglected the recent Finnish presidential election. A good account in English is provided by Helsingin Sanomat:
www.hs.fi/english/article/Tarja+Halonen+elected+to+second+term+as+President+
after+close+race/1135218562413
3. Finally, Mary Hilson of University College London has kindly offered members of the list an exclusive preview of her summary of Nordic politics in 2005, which she's compiled for the Annual Register (a journal that, according to its website, "began publication in 1758...[and]...is now published by Longmans"). Mary writes that the Register's editor "has agreed that I can circulate this to the list, as long as it is made clear that this is appearing in the Annual Register and that it should not be quoted or cited without permission." It might well be useful for some on our mailing list. I attach the entry.
Best,
Nick.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
Three items.
1. The cartoons-of-Mohammed crisis rolls bizarrely and depressingly on, with former Danish foreign minister, Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, urging the editor of Jyllands-Posten to resign. Meanwhile, France's President Chirac today echoed the Swedish and British foreign secretaries in declaring that, while he naturally supports freedom of expression, publication of the pictures was "an 'overt provocation'" and that "any subject matter that could hurt other people's convictions should be avoided" (paraphrased on the BBC News website). The general message - that freedom of expression if great, as long as you don't exercise it - is of course a triumph of both logic and principal.
As well as my colleague Jacob Christensen's very informative blog (http://blog.jacobchristensen.name/), the online encyclopedia Wikipedia
(www.wikipedia.org) already has a comprehensive section on the saga.
2. I have scandalously neglected the recent Finnish presidential election. A good account in English is provided by Helsingin Sanomat:
www.hs.fi/english/article/Tarja+Halonen+elected+to+second+term+as+President+
after+close+race/1135218562413
3. Finally, Mary Hilson of University College London has kindly offered members of the list an exclusive preview of her summary of Nordic politics in 2005, which she's compiled for the Annual Register (a journal that, according to its website, "began publication in 1758...[and]...is now published by Longmans"). Mary writes that the Register's editor "has agreed that I can circulate this to the list, as long as it is made clear that this is appearing in the Annual Register and that it should not be quoted or cited without permission." It might well be useful for some on our mailing list. I attach the entry.
Best,
Nick.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
2006-02-02
Scandinavian politics: two notices
Hej to all on the Scandinavian Politics mailing list,
Sorry about the lack of communication recently - pressures or work, etc, etc. I have just two quick notices.
1. PSA CONFERENCE in April. Unfortunately, the Scandinavian Politics Specialist Group won't be sponsoring panels this year. This is due to my inability to attend the conference and a relative lack of interest from Nordic-orientated in presenting papers.
Let's make a big effort to make up for this next year.
2. THE CARTOONS-OF-MOHAMMED CRISIS. I can't say that I've had time to monitor the political fallout in Denmark too closely (once again, lack of time). But it seems to have sucked in Norway, too, due to a Christian magazine's publication of the cartoons that were originally published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten.
Characteristically interesting context is, however, provided by my colleague Jacob Christiansen on his blog (http://blog.jacobchristensen.name/). Read the two postings entitled "By the Beard of the Prophet…!".
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
Sorry about the lack of communication recently - pressures or work, etc, etc. I have just two quick notices.
1. PSA CONFERENCE in April. Unfortunately, the Scandinavian Politics Specialist Group won't be sponsoring panels this year. This is due to my inability to attend the conference and a relative lack of interest from Nordic-orientated in presenting papers.
Let's make a big effort to make up for this next year.
2. THE CARTOONS-OF-MOHAMMED CRISIS. I can't say that I've had time to monitor the political fallout in Denmark too closely (once again, lack of time). But it seems to have sucked in Norway, too, due to a Christian magazine's publication of the cartoons that were originally published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten.
Characteristically interesting context is, however, provided by my colleague Jacob Christiansen on his blog (http://blog.jacobchristensen.name/). Read the two postings entitled "By the Beard of the Prophet…!".
Best,
Nick Aylott.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) | Department of Political Science, Umeå University | SE-901 87, Sweden | www.pol.umu.se
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. See also www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/
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