Jacob Christensen

I’ve had this saved as a draft for some weeks now. The discussion ends somewhat abruptly but maybe I will get back to the issue at some point.

Just to continue a line of thought from my previous note: The question about populist parties presenting themselves as “the true Social Democrats”.

The issue may be more relevant in Denmark and Sweden where support for the Social Democrats has taken a hit while the Danish People’s Party and to a lesser extent the Sweden Democrats have gained. Commentators have pointed out that SweDem have played the “real Social Democrats” card by trying to gain ownership of the “Folkhem” concept. As it is, “Folkhem” has a complicated history (it is in many ways a word which lends itself to discourse analysis) being first a Conservative and later a Social Democratic slogan. “Folkhem” also points to the development where Social Democracy changed from being an internationalist to an essentially nationally oriented political movement with the creation of the welfare states in the Scandinavian countries from the 1930s onward as the best-know effect.

Welfare state researchers will note that the national welfare state model probably reached its peak around 1980 (the period used by Gösta Esping-Andersen in his seminal book “Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism”) but that internationalisation and Europeanisation since then has put the national models of welfare under pressure. “Multiculturalism” and “Structural change” do not carry the same emotional weight as “Folkhem”: They are, at best, technocratic terms.

However, we should be careful in focussing too much on the word “Folkhem” as it is a uniquely Swedish term. Danish has no equivalent – “welfare state” is the closest – and this points to the risk of generalising Swedish experiences. As it is, the “welfare state” only really emerged as a political term during the 1960s in Denmark and it was fiercely debated in the 1960s and 1970s. To use discourse analysis-speak, the hegemony of the “welfare state” was less obvious than the hegemony of the “folkhem”.

I spent last week in Vaasa (or Vasa, in Swedish; the town is officially bilingual) participating in a workshop on populist parties. The work was quite intensive with five official sessions and no less than two dinners and here are some of my thoughts after the discussions:

1. Dealing with “the populist parties” in the Nordic countries as a group is problematic for a number of reasons, most notably because of the lack of formal links between the Danish People’s Party (DF), the Sweden Democrats (SD), Fremskrittspartiet (FrP) and Perussuomalaiset (PS) – DF and SD have shown an interest in creating some kind of ties, though – but also because FrP in particular occupy a different position in the political space compared to DF, SD and PS. FrP in many ways look more like a conservative party with more liberal positions on economy while DF, SD and PS all combine an economically centrist position with an authoritarian position on social issues (immigration and crime as the most notable issues).

2. Several of us implicitly or explicitly addressed questions related to the institutionalisation of populist parties in the Nordic party systems. Even if SD and – to some degree PS – are newcomers, all parties were established in the 1970s (FrP) or 1990s (DF, SD, PS) and while it is still difficult to predict the future strength of PS and SD, we should expect them to stay in the national party systems for some time. We should also note that the parties have led deliberate strategies to stabilise the party organisations on the membership and parliamentary level (A colleague noted that DF’s organisational practices in many ways resembled those of communist parties with a very strong and centralised leadership).

3. Two concepts often associated with populism were spectacular absent from the discussions: Charisma and distrust. There are many good reasons why charisma has fallen out of favour in academic discussions – the concept is hard to operationalise and the institutionalisation processes I described above make references to the party leaders’ charisma less relevant.

I am less certain about distrust. If we look at electoral research, populist party voters usually stand out with low levels of political and social trust compared with other voters. The phenomenon of distrust is not uncomplicated – a Danish research project from the 1990s argued that conflicts between elite and majority positions on the one hand and minority positions on specific issues on the other may generate distrust. Immigration and European policy were cited as the most likely sources of political distrust back then. That distrust disappeared from view has to do with the perspective changing from (voter) demand to (party) supply but this is probably where you write: “More research is needed”.

4. Marie Demker has argued that populist parties are better understood as nationalist parties. The argument is interesting as it sees nationalism as the ideological basis which sets these parties apart from other parties in the Nordic party systems. The argument would also fit with the parties’ position on the libertarian-authoritarian scale. Here populism could be seen as a means used by nationalist parties (and other parties – think of Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s famous New Year’s Speech from 2002) to mobilise voters.

If I should argue against Demker’s thesis I would first of all acknowledge that the present-day DF and SD (and in all likelihood PS) unquestionably qualify as nationalist. If we look at the Danish political history, nationalist agrarianism has manifested itself at certain points during the 20th century (The Free People’s Party, later the Peasants’ Party 1934-1945 and the Independents 1960-1966) but so has an outspoken anti-state populism (The Justice Party 1926-1960, 1973-1975, 1977-1981) and I would question if the Progress Party of the 1970s could reasonably be seen as a nationalist party. Again, more research would be necessary here. We should also consider if the peasant populism that we know from the 1930s and 1970s can be meaningfully compared with the working-class populism of the 1990s (in the case of Denmark: 1970s) onward.

One way of reconciling the “liberal” populism of the 1970s and the “nationalist” populism of the 1990s could be to focus on the European dimension. We know that the EC and later EU has been a continued source of problems for the Social Democratic parties in the Nordic countries with the parties being split between internationalism and welfare-state nationalism.

5. One final round of discussions, linked with #4, had to do with populist parties presenting themselves as “the true Social Democrats”. Both SD and DF have used this line of argument with the 1950s as some kind of imagined Social Democratic ideal (something which most people who were adults or adolescents during that decade would probably question) with the post 1968-Social Democracy presented as traitors to the national Social Democratic idea. This calls for some further arguments which I will leave for later.

I must admit that, despite having lived in UmeÃ¥ with Va(a)sa just across the Bay of Botnia, Finnish politics is not my specialist area. Still, in political terms Finland is not quite what Finland used to be, which this weekend’s selection of Mari Kiviniemi as chairman of the Finnish Centre Party is another indication of. Just to put the prejudices in place – Finnish political culture is generally seen as rural and – for want of a better English word – gubbig. Imagine old-boys’ network with quite an element of laddism thrown in for good measure and you’re there.

As it is, Kiviniemi is not the first female party leader in Finland, nor even the first female leader of the Centre Party and prime minister: That honour goes to Anneli Jäättenmäki who served as party leader between 2002-2003 and as prime minister for a few months in 2003 before being forced to retire in a scandal relating to Finland’s position in the process leading up to the second Iraq War. Jäättenmäki was later cleared of any legal wrongdoing so the question is if she had been exposing her inexperience at the international level or if (male?) forces within her own party were conspiring against her. In any event Matti Vanhanen took over as party leader and prime minister and continued in those functions until he was brought down over a scandal relating to covert campaign contributions.¹

The 41-year old Kiviniemi faced Mauri Pekkarinen, a candidate which fitted better with the image of a typical Finnish politician from the Centre Party: Male, old, rural. Even Paavo Väyrynen, unsuccessfully, attempted a comeback. Kiviniemi is far from unexperienced, though: She has been an MP for 15 years, minister for trade and development and later minister for local government. The interesting point is that in 2007 Kiviniemi changed constituency so that she now represents Helsinki instead of Vaasa in the Finnish parliament. Considering that the Centre Party very much has been a party of the Finnish periphery, the selection of Kiviniemi may also point to a change in political strategies.

The local government portfolio may hold a nasty problem in store for Kiviniemi as she takes over as prime minister in a week’s time: If I understand Finnish (Swedish-language) media correctly, she is involved in a battle over Karleby/Kokkola’s administrative position – which again has something to do with the role of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. It’s not quite BHV but it is potentially politically troublesome.² She will also be facing a conflict over the teaching of Swedish in Finnish schools.

Finland will be holding elections next year, so who will Kiviniemi’s opponents be? Well, the other main contenders for the prime minister’s office will be the National Coalition Party’s Jyrki Katainen (born in 1971) and Social Democrat leader Jutta Urpilainen (born in 1975). Just as in the Netherlands, government formation is a bit of a three-party affair with the Centre, the National Coalition and Social Democrats in varying constellations with one or more of the smaller parties joining, so there is a 2/3 probability of the next election yielding a female prime minister. The only thing which is 100% certain is that the Swedish People’s Party will be in the government after the 2011 elections.

If we look at the male/female set-up in the run-up to 2011, the Centre Party, the Social Democrats, the Green League and the Christian Democrats have women as leaders while the National Coalition, the Left Alliance, the Swedish People’s Party and the True Finns have male leaders. The face of Finnish politics is indeed slowly changing.

In the other Nordic countries, female party leaders are far from unknown these days. In Norway, all parties represented in Stortinget either have or have had a woman as leader³, in Sweden only the Moderates and Christian Democrats have not had a female leader (even if the Liberals’ Maria Leissner did not stay in office for very long for both political and personal reasons)⁴, and in Denmark five out of eight parties in parliament are at present led by women.⁵ Iceland has a female Prime Minister, Johanna Sigurdardottir, who is also the leader of the Social Democratic Alliance.

Oh and by the way: Kiviniemi has prepared for her new status – the fringe is gone and replaced by a more serious hairstyle.

Just in case you have missed it: (Tarja) Halonen is Finland’s (female) president since 2000.

1. The first female party leader in Finland was Heidi Hautala of the Green League [↩]
2. “Kiviniemi giggles at the Constitutional Council’s recommendation”. Charming, no? [↩]
3. The Christian People’s Party still has not had a female parliamentary leader [↩]
4. I here count the Green Party’s dual male-female leadership as a case with female leaders. At present no-one would question Maria Wetterstrand’s role as the Greens’ most profiled politician [↩]
5. Here I count the Red-Green Alliance’s Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen as the party’s political leader even if the party formally has a collective leadership. [↩]

Back in the days, the former Danish Foreign Minister and leader of the Liberal Party Uffe Ellemann-Jensen made much out of the fact that he was an avid angler while the former Conservative leader Bendt Bendtsen was known – some would say: best known – for his keen interest in hunting, which, by the way, could have sent his driver to jail, had the present arms legislation been in force.

Bendtsen’s hunting interest was not without a political aspect as hunting has a certain upper-class image in Denmark, so hunting is fitting for a Conservative leader, but a Social Democratic or Socialist leader might want to think twice before loading the rifles.

Sweden and Norway are different, which partly has to do with the absence of a traditional nobility in large parts of those countries. Sure, King Carl Gustaf and his entourage regularly enrage Swedish animal activists, but in Norrland hunting isn’t really linked with class. Farmers and workers go hunting and when a boy shoots his first bear it is headline news in local papers (no, really! And I strongly suspect that for Norrland boys shooting the first bear is one or two steps above having sex for the first time). If there is a problem, then it is that hunting is seen as a male (Swedes and gender!) and a rural sport. Recruiting new huntsmen is difficult and we risk that the moose and the bears take over Sweden in one or two generations.

I’m not quite sure what the situation is like in Norway, but will note that Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg could celebrate two great performances this week. Not only was he the first Norwegian PM to get reelected since 1993, he also shot his first reindeer this weekend.

By the way: The story may not be true, but it is funny, at least to Danes. When Jens Otto Krag was married with the Swedish author Birgit Tengroth, King Frederik IX presented the newlyweds with a buck he had shot with the words “it’s not meant as a hint”. (If my dictionary is to be believed, the other meaning of the Danish “buk” translates into English “goat”)

I haven’t followed the campaign in any detail so these are scattered observations:

1. This is the first time since 1993 that a Norwegian government has survived a general election. 86 seats (of 169) should be a comfortable majority.

2. Turn-out was down from 77,4 to 73,5 per cent. Norway and Finland generally have lower levels of turn-out than Denmark and Sweden.

3. Opinion polls seem to have missed a lot of developments: The Conservatives and the Social Democrats did better than expected, the Progress Party and the Socialists performed worse. Support for the Liberals took a dive and the party lost 8 out of 10 MPs.

4. And re: The Progress Party. It is still by far the largest right-wing party in Norway with 22,9 per cent of the vote against the Conservatives’ 17,2, but it may have reached the limits of its electoral capacities.

Official result page.

As already said: I’m a sucker for these things. This is the Norwegian me:

Prompted by recent posts (don’t…mention…the…NATO…!) Ola Nordebo asked me if it was possible to put together a top-ten of the cleverest, most successful and best-timed political resignations in history.

Oh dear: History is a long time and then there is also the question of what constitutes a clever and successful resignation (and to whom?). But let’s try and find some. To make things a bit easier for myself, I’ll concentrate on heads of government. Feel free to add names.

Denmark

A difficult case. As I noted in an earlier post, Danish politicians like annoying relatives tend to overstay their welcome and the only cases of voluntary resignations I could come up with were M.P. Friis in 1920 and Jens Otto Krag in 1972. Friis’ resignation was negotiated in advance as he led an interim government, so we will leave him out of consideration.

Krag’s resignation, on the other hand, merits attention. There were personal motives behind his resignation (basically, after being a top-level politician for 25 years, he was fed up) but his life ended in a personal tragedy. Politically, resigning and handing over to Anker Jørgensen may have been a smart move: Jørgensen had the connection with the party base which Krag lacked and this was useful in the chaotic 1970s, especially after the divisive EC referendum campaign. On the other hand, Jørgensen proved to be weak strategically and had a problem getting a grip on economic policy. Still, the question is: Was the 1973 earthquake avoidable and did Jørgensen perform any worse in that election that Krag would have done, or was 1973 bound to happen while Jørgensen managed to make the most of the situation. If so, the Krag-Jørgensen transition should be on the list.

Sweden

Sweden is different. After holding office for an amazing 23 consecutive years, Swedish prime minister Tage Erlander stepped down in 1969 in favour of Olof Palme. The relay was well-prepared and even if Palme became a controversial figure in Sweden and he failed to win in the 1976 and 1979 elections, his terms in office could still be counted as more than acceptable. The judgement of Palme’s political performance will of course depend on you political point of view, but all things considered the transition must count as a success and well-timed in the run-up to the 1970 election.

The resignation of Ingvar Carlsson in 1995-6 in favour favour of Göran Persson is more difficult to gauge, if only because Persson wasn’t Carlsson’s choice. On the other hand, Carlsson gave his successor enough time to position himself before the 1998 election. Again, the question is: Did the Social Democrats perform worse in the 1998 election and in economic policy because of Persson or was the loss, all things considered, bound to happen. The Carlsson-Persson transition merits attention, but in my opinion isn’t top-of-the-list of successful resignations.

Norway

Norway – and the Norwegian Labour Party in particular – has a long story of relatively smooth transitions. From Gerhardsen to Torp, from Torp to Gerhardsen (yes!), from Gerhardsen to Bratteli, from Bratteli to Nordli, from Nordli to Brundtland and from Brundtland to Jagland.

In terms of success, we can count out the Gerhardsen-Torp and Brundtland-Jagland transitions and indications are that the second resignation of Gerhardsen in favour of Tryggve Bratteli wasn’t completely voluntary. On the other hand, the Bratteli-Nordli and especially the Nordli-Brundtland transitions look well-timed and successful. It is true that Gro Harlem Brundtland lost the 1981 election, but she still managed to stay in the centre of Norwegian politics for fifteen years.

United Kingdom

In the UK, a strong candidate must be Harold Wilson who resigned in 1976 in favour of James Callaghan. Wilson’s resignation may not have been completely voluntary as he could have been in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Callaghan’s term in office was also complicated and after the Winter of Discontent ended in defeat in a vote of no confidence in March 1979, eventually leading to seventeen years of Conservative government. But as the counterfactualists point out: If Callaghan had called an election in the autumn of 1979, Mrs. Thatcher might have been a historical accident. And that leads to the question: Where does the Blair-Brown transition fit into the model? If Brown had called the Conservatives’ bluff by calling an election in the early autumn of 2007, the answer would have been easier.

To Sum Up

So here are, in no particular order, my initial cases:

• Harold Wilson – James Callaghan
• Oddvar Nordli – Gro Harlem Brundtland
• Tryggve Brattely – Oddvar Nordli
• Tage Erlander – Olof Palme
• Jens Otto Krag – Anker Jørgensen

And no: I haven’t forgotten about Germany, but I really can’t see any smooth transititions on the federal level. Perhaps if we widen the field to party leaders and state prime ministers. But feel free to add cases.

Update: That’s Nordebo, not Nordbo. All those Norwegian prime ministers got the better of me.

Filed under “for later use”. The Swedish blog Ekonomistas accidentally touched on a very hotly disputed element in Danish politics right now – the maximum period of unemployment benefits. Long story short: The government and the Confederation of Danish Industries want to cut the period from four to two years.

An analysis of Norwegian unemployment insurance (where coverage was extended from 80 to 156 weeks in 1997) suggest that there are some complicated effects from a longer period of coverage: On the one hand people were unemployed for longer periods, on the other hand they gained better-paid jobs and held them for a longer time. Or if you please: There were better matches between job-seekers and jobs.

So the question is if just cutting the benefit period would bring out more qualified labour. (And then there is the entire thing about controls, etc, etc.)

But it may not smell as sweet. Gudmund Hernes explains:

I vår kom en tilleggsbevilgning til forskning på 200 millioner. Vi er fortalt at endringen av navnet Statoil vil koste i størrelsesorden fire milliarder. I tillegg kommer årene det vil ta å innarbeide et nytt navn. Forskningsrådets hele budsjett i år er på om lag fem og en halv milliard.
…
Rekrutteringen til forskning er problematisk – men regjeringens melding om forskerrekruttering er utsatt. I årets statsbudsjett kom det 350 nye stipendiatstillinger. Bevilgningen er 112 millioner. Ved fusjonen mellom Hydro og Statoil ble det gitt rom for 1600 gullpensjoner som ifølge Aftenposten kunne medføre økte årlige pensjonsutgifter på 560 millioner.

Or in English:

This spring a supplementary appropriation for research of 200 million NOK was announced. We have been informed that changing the name Statoil will cost approximately 4 billion NOK. Plus the costs in coming years for implementing the new name. The entire budget of the Norwegian Research Council this year is 5,5 billion NOK.
…
The recruiting process in research is problematic – but the government has delayed announcing its plans for improvement. This years budget announced 350 scholarships at a price of 112 million NOK. As part of the merger between Hydro and Statoil, 1600 “golden parachutes” were announched which according to Aftenposten could cause a yearly burden of 560 million NOK.

How can you not love the Norwegians. At least when they pull such a stunt.