Jacob Christensen

Try imagining France and the U.K. merge to form a single political unit with the British Queen as the head of state.

Okay, you may get up from the floor and stop laughing now. According to the BBC, the French government actually made advances back in 1956 with the intention of discussing the prospect of either a political union with the Queen as the head of state or France joining the British Commonwealth.

Just as fascinating the prospect of Great Fritain is, are the motives behind the French government’s advances: France was stuck in Algiers where a certain Mr. Nasser was supporting insurgents and faced problems as Israel and Jordan were on the verge of war. France was an ally of Israel while the U.K supported Jordan. (Mr. Nasser played a role here as well)

British media are all over the place with the story: The Guardian – France and UK considered 1950s ‘merger’, Daily Telegraph – The Queen, La Reine, The Times – Were we nearly les franglais? (A typically Europhobic English take on the subject as the French were clearly the weaker partner – Fritons speaking Frenglish would have been the more likely outcome)In the end, the idea came to nothing and while it is fascinating to entertain a “what if” discussion, the true significance of the events is that they show how desperately weakened the French government was by the mid-1950s due to the Algerian crisis and a host of other problems and add to our understanding of the British reluctance to enter the EEC. After all, the British impression at this time was that the Commonwealth was not only a viable but also an attractive alternative to engaging with France and Germany.

Given that gender equality is … how shall I put it … not exactly at the top of the agenda for the Swedish Conservatives – still a Man’s Party if ever there was one – it is slightly surprising to read that the Finance Minister Anders Borg declares himself a feminist in an interview with Svenska Dagbladet. (See also this piece in Expressen from the spring of 2006).

It is less surprising to read that it was having children which made Borg contemplate the issue. Most women realise the same when they assess the impact having children has on their working life.

One topic for discussion could be: Is it possible to combine the concept of structural discrimination with a neo-liberal conception of social justice? (I’m not too fond of the term neo-liberal which is far too often used indiscriminately, but I hope you get my point)

First, she was with the Left Socialists. Then just leftist-ish. Then, she joined the Social Democrats. Now, Karen Jespersen has left the Social Democrats quoting irreconcilable differences with regard to immigration policies.

The question is: Will Jespersen – and her husband Ralf Pittelkow – be joining the Danish People’s Party any time soon? Her departure from the Social Democrats was made public the same day Pittelkow dismissed the centre-left’s chances of winning the next election

Update: The Social Democratic party secretary Henrik Dam Kristensen has said that Jespersen actually left the party in October and adds caustically:

She probably didn’t feel that she got enough media exposure back then.

Politicians in love. Kristensen also notes the possibility of Jespersen joining the Danish People’s Party, by the way.

Before Christmas, I received this question from one of the blog’s readers:

Why do you think the Scandinavian economic left have stayed Socialist more than anywhere else? Is there something different in their history or culture?

(I should perhaps note that the anywhere else being referred to is the U.K. and Israel)

Phew! That was a difficult one and, as my reader notes, a question one could easily write a Ph.D.-tesis about.

A first question could be: How Socialist are the Scandinavian Social Democratic parties really? Just to state my point – I remember that back in 1981 when François Mitterand won the presidential elections in France, Danish commentators noted that Mitterand was a Socialist, not a Social Democrat. We should expect him to be more to the left than the Scandinavian Social Democrats and so his policies were, at least for the first one-and-a-half years before reality hit the Socialist dream.

The same applies when you compare the Scandinavian Social Democrats with Labour in the U.K. The Clause Four issue had for all practical purposes been laid to rest shortly after World War 2. Whatever the rhetoric, post-war Social Democracy has worked within the boundaries of contemporary capitalism even if the blue-collar trade unions during the 1970s pressed for public control of national industries. The liberalisation of capital markets in the 1980s put the final nail in that coffin.

Equally, Scandinavian governments, be they Social Democratic or Conservative, have as a rule adopted the policies of the New Public Management school of thought from the 1980s onward. There is some disagreement with regard to the provision of care services, but when I’m in a cynical mood I argue that the Social Democratic stance on the subject has more to do with symbolic politics and catering for public employees as a voter group than any kind of principled standpoint.

This leaves us with two important policy areas: Labour market policies and the size of the public sector.

Labour market policies is a tricky issue because there are important differences between Danish and Swedish policies. In general, Denmark has had more flexible regulations than Sweden while Sweden traditionally had a more active labour market policy than Denmark. Economists and policial scientists will argue that you need a relatively high degree of organisation in the economy (on both sides of the table) for these policies to work – education and especially training are essential factors for a high-wage economy to be competitive.

Why is this so? The question is difficult to answer. Scandinavian economies have always depended on international trade so globalisation is more a phenomenon of the late 19th Century than of the early 21st. At the same time, the Germanic tradition of craftmanship has been important in the labour movement. You’ll note that U.K. trade unions have always been much more confrontational in their relations with employers while U.S. trade unions have tried to create “Socialism in one company” rather than more general agreements. National policies have played a role here, the historians tell us. (I’m not sure if Theda Skocpol will accept being labeled a historian, but never mind).

The question to be considered is: Will this relatively cooperative type of labour market relations survive the transition from an industrial to a service economy in the longer term?

How about the size of the public sector and general welfare policies, then? Here things get a bit complicated because on the one hand it can be argued that the foundations of the general welfare state were in fact laid at the end of the 19th Century while the public sectors and social expenditure in the Scandinavian countries were below the average in Western Europe until the mid-1960s. Very strange indeed.

Whole theses have been written about these subjects so I’ll just note that when the Danes introduced modern social insurance systems in the 1890s, they deliberately chose an organisation that built on income, not labour market status. In this way people with low incomes gained access to old age pensions and health care even if they were not blue-collar workers. At the same time, the link between contributions and benefits was almost non-existing. The Danes even experimented with unemployment insurance for the self-employed during the 1910s. Until 1940s, the Swedes more or less followed the Danish lead, and the idea that income, not status, should be the determining factor has remained an integral part of Scandinavian social policies.

Why did the idea of general eligibility succeed in Scandinavia?

Some say the religion played a role – the idea that you could have benefits without performance has a curious similarity to the Protestant Sola gratia idea of salvation. Others have suggested that the Scandinavian states already had an effective network of local administrative bodies – which in its turn was caused by the existence of a state church.

And maybe the late 19th Century wasn’t the right moment to adopt German policies – after all, Prussia almost wiped Denmark off the map in the 1864 war. Path dependencies took care of the rest.

Going back to the 19th Century (or even the 16th Century) in order to explain the state of affairs in the 21st may seem a bit odd, but the point is that the Social Democratic parties have acted and still act within social and political structures which are pretty unique in the world.

Oh, and one thing more: The Scandinavian states are unitary states (unlike the U.S.), up until the late 20th Century they have been ethnically homogeneous (the U.K. had Ireland and the Celtic fringe to consider) and religion has never played a role as a major, independent cleavage in politics (unlike Germany – or Israel).

Update: I’ve added the missing paragraphs. The post should make sense now.

One thing that I positively hate about living in this part of Sweden is that I can’t get a decent morning paper covering national and international politics. Instead, I’m stuck with Dagens Nyheter.What is wrong with DN, then? I’ll give you two reasons why I don’t exactly hold the paper in any high esteem.First, the paper absolutely refuses to acknowledge that something like 7 million people in Sweden live outside of Stockholm. According to DN, everything outside of Stockholm’s tullar is at best irrelevant, but more often seen as the result of Social Democratic pork barrel politics. If you happen to live in, say, Umeå it is because – and only because – the devious Social Democrats at some point introduced some kind of economic support draining Stockholm’s creative, entrepreneurial elite of its resources. (I should note that the editorial staff occasionally and grudgingly accepts the Jönköping region as a Model for Sweden. If only the people in Jönköping would move to the Centre of the Universe Stockholm). Reading DN is like reading a Copenhagen newspaper from the 1930s.Second, the paper pretends to be liberal and working on the basis of enlightenment and tolerance. In practice this means that the editorial and news sections advances neo-”liberal” standpoints worthy of a not-too-bright high school student while the review section indulges in “new” leftist chatter right out of the 1970s. What you meet at your breakfast table is not enlightened discourse; it’s mostly two sides yelling, screaming and kicking at each other. (To be fair, it’s not all doom and gloom – P.C. Jersild and Lars Weiss are usually worth reading. But the oases are few and far between).But the real point of this rant was to say something about Fredrik Lindström’s tv series Världens modernaste land (The Most Modern Country in the World) or rather DN’s coverage of the series.This Friday, DN published a piece written by the literature scholar and debater Stefan Helgesson criticising Lindström for something called cultural narcissism. I’ll leave aside the point that Helgesson (like most Swedes) apparently doesn’t understand satire – what really sent me through the roof was the fact that DN has finally gone tabloid. On DN’s homepage, Helgesson’s piece is presented as Attacken mot Fredrik Lindström – The attack on Fredrik Lindström.The point? You see, accorting to the Swedish tabloids, people no longer discuss, argue with or criticise each other. They attack each other.Just to prove my point, I did a search on attack on Aftonbladet’s homepage and came up with these examples: Hockey coach attacks his team, Angelina Jolie attacks Madonna, Carl Bildt attacks TV-reporter, Italian Industry Minister attacks lazy Italians, Enn Kokk attacks Mona Sahlin, Antiques dealer attacks tv series, Arsene Wenger attacks Premier League, Former Finance Minister Per Nuder attacks the government.No debate. No room for discussion or deliberation. Just attacks.Maybe Helgesson is right in a twisted way after all. Maybe, the Swedes – or at least those working in the media – have lost one of the defining characteristics of modernity: The ability to lead a rational discourse on any given subject. And maybe, given the nature of DN’s journalism, using the term attack instead of criticism was correct.Why a Brad deLong Moment? Follow this link and see for yourself. You have been warned.

No, STV means “Single Transferable Vote“. Bo Rothstein wants it implemented in Sweden.

You may want to read this (David M. Farrell. Comparing Electoral Systems. London: Macmillan, 1998, ch 6, pdf. 2,2 MB, courtesy of Kenneth Janda) before you join the chorus.

Embarassing, but I managed to miss this piece of news completely:

• Washington Post, 4th January: Political Scientist Seymour Lipset, 84; Studied Democracy and U.S. Culture
• New York Times: Seymour Martin Lipset, Sociologist, Dies at 84
• Larry Diamond and Gary Marks on Seymour Martin Lipset (written 1992)

Note that while the Washington Post calls Lipset a political scientist, the New York Times claims him for sociology.

Who is right?

As a matter of fact, both. Lipset’s main body of work was concerned with political sociology but he was very much one of founders of modern political science. (The Lipset-Rokkan thesis, anyone?)

When I was an undergraduate student in the 1980s, Lipset was one of those scholars that we read about – rather than reading the man himself. For a number of reasons, I became more fascinated with Lipset’s contemporary Giovanni Sartori.

Tommy Möller discusses the role of the minor parties and their leaders in the Swedish government in an article in Sunday’s Dagens Nyheter.

Have anyone seen Lars Leijonborg recently, by the way?

The latest rounds in the Quest for a New Social Democratic Chairman: The Gothenburg branch wanted Margot Wallström. She said no.

Then they wanted Carin Jämtin. Same answer.

Next Ulrica Messing. Nope.

The exasperated Gothenburgers now propose (drum roll) Mona Sahlin for the post.

The trade unions are not happy about the prospect. There is still room for surprises.

It all began with an article by Jonathan Cohn in the New Republic: Great Danes (subscription needed, but see below).

Then Brad deLong trew his hat in the ring (extensive quotes) and opened a debate on his blog.

I wrote a comment which then got hoisted and sparked a new debate and finally, Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard, posted the article over at Punditokraterne where you can follow another debate if you read any of the Scandinavian languages.

As a matter of fact, you can now choose between a leftish American and a rightish Danish take on the matter.

Just one short note: It is important to keep the discussions about Europe vs. the US, Scandinavia vs. Europe and Denmark vs. Sweden apart. What we are really taking about here is the Danish, not the Scandinavian model.

Bonus information: I’ve never lived in Elsinore but my father actually worked there for almost ten years. The town has a Conservative mayor who calls for higher taxes.