Jacob Christensen

Last Friday I visited Peter Santesson-Wilson in his very Swedish apartment in a very Swedish suburb of that most Swedish of cities … well, perhaps not: The typical Swedish city (or town) would probably be better represented by Örebro than Stockholm, but never mind.

Anyway, with a little over six months to the next general election in Sweden, the discussion also touched upon the state of the Swedish Social Democracy which in many ways is a less formidable creature than it used to be. The party, for instance, has a problem with attracting more than 35% of the vote if opinion polls are to be believed. This is a historically bad performance.

On the other hand, the SocDems enjoyed an upsurge in support during the first part of the 2006-2010 term, so trying to figure out exactly what is going on is not quite easy.

But, so the discussion went, is Mona Sahlin to blame. And how did she become party leader, anyway? Even if there was along selection process, she still appeared to have been selected because … well, because … okay, the SocDems wanted a woman as leader and following the murder of Anna Lindh the circle of candidates looked rather meagre.

Why the lack of enthusiasm? Perhaps because Sahlin as a politician and leader is guided more by instinct than analysis – and no, I don’t consider these feminine traits because as the headline should tell you, I was able to dig up a Danish parallel: Anker Jørgensen, leader of the Danish Social Democrats from 1972 to 1987 and prime minister 1972-1973 and 1975-1982 and also known for his less than analytical take on the issues of the day.

Jørgensen and Sahlin were selected in different ways: Jørgensen was the choice of his predecessor Jens Otto Krag while Sahlin was selected after a pretty long process involving SocDem activists. However, the motives behind their selection may have been similar – an attempt to attract core groups of SocDem voters which the party feared losing due to recent policy choices. Just like Jørgensen, Sahlin’s task is to guarantee Social Democratic authenticity.

In Jørgensen’s case, the group were (male) industrial workers, in Sahlin’s case we should probably look for (female) public sector workers. Jørgensen followed Viggo Kampmann and Jens Otto Krag, two analytical economists who never really managed to win the hearts of the party, Sahlin follows Göran “Tony Soprano” Persson, the architect of much of the austerity policies of the 1990s. Again, the party never really warmed to Persson.

As seen at the HQ of the Swedish Social Democrats. Will Thomas Östros make it to the finals of xFactor?

Weekendavisen wants to challenge its readers about what happens in 2010. Instead of waiting until December 2010, I’ll forgo the bottles of red wine already now and give you my more or less badly founded predictions:

1. Will the Danish national team reach the semi-finals at the Football World Cup in South Africa?

No. It would be fun, but I think the 1/8 or possibly the 1/4 finals will be what we have to hope for.

2. Will the author Jens Christian Grøndahl change publishers again?

Who cares? Okay: Yes.

3. Will Caroline Wozniacki win a Grand Slam tournament?

If she can keep free of injuries, yes.

4. Will Lars Løkke Rasmussen reshuffle his government.

Yes. But the reshuffle may be less extensive than many imagine or hope for.

5. Will the Iranian regime and president Ahmadinedjad be overthrown?

No. But there will be continued unrest.

6. Will the world’s countries reach a binding agreement at COP16?

No. Not with China and the US Republicans obstructing.

7. Will the Danish government set up a commission to examine the separation of state and church in Denmark?

No. Not even if we imagine the Social Democrats and the Socialists taking over government after an election.

8. Will a Danish rider win a stage in the 2010 Tour de France?

Yes. Well, it’s possible.

9. Will health warnings be introduced on wine bottles in Denmark?

No.

10. Will the Litterature Prize of the Nordic Council be awarded to Ida Jessen or Peter Laugesen?

Hmmm… No.

11. Will the US Government go bankrupt?

No.

12. Will the Sweden Democrats win more than 4% of the vote in the Swedish general election?

Yes. If the Social Democrats do not get their act together.

13. Will MECOM sell parts or all of Berlingske Media?

Sneaky question. MECOM may very well want to sell but the money are tight, so I wonder if there will be buyers. No.

14. Will Sophie Marceau be cast in a leading role in a Lars von Trier film?

No.

15. Will the Maldives disappear under the sea level?

No.

16. Will Helge Sander still be Minister of Research after 1 December 2010?

No. (Well, here’s to hoping, but I really don’t think a new minister will make that much of a difference)

17. Will Bob Dylan attend the opening of the exhibition of his paintings and drawings at the Danish National Art Gallery?

No.

18. Will Keith Richards and Jack White record a cd?

Fascinating thought, but: No.

19. Will Nikolaj Znaider be awarded the Sonning Music Prize?

No. (Tricky one, though)

20. Will Peter Ramsdal still be the vicar at the Brorson Church in Copenhagen on 1 December 2010?

Yes.

And with this: Godt nytår.

Fokus claims that the laundry room is uniquely Swedish. I beg to disagree: I can’t say if the Swedes invented the shared laundry room or were the first to but the idea into general practice, but laundry rooms have been a feature of many Danish condominiums and housing estates for a long time.

Still, the point stands: A shared laundry room is an interesting way of pooling resources – even if buying a washing machine these days is within the reach of most people, machines in individual apartments are often underused. The laundry room is also a cause for conflict – not everyone can do their laundry at the same time, the machines and the room have to be kept clean, clothes cannot lie around forever, etc – so an elaborate system of norms and communication is demanded to make the room work and the machines run. Unfortunately, Danish does not have a word for “arga lappen” (there is a pun here which can only be understood in Swedish) but we do know then down here as well.

That said, I do miss the opportunity to book a time for doing the laundry where I live now. As it is, I have to go down to the laundry room and check if the machine is vacant, go back and fetch the laundry – and hope that nobody else manage to get to the machine before I do. I take it, that you feel the frustration and anxiety. Oh, and the tumble dryer is out of order.

Ola Nordebo has one or two problems with the political dimensions and their names. I may not be able to help him out of his misery, but I do have my own motives for trying to clarify what we mean by “right” and “bourgeois” (borgerlig/borgarlig) in Denmark and Sweden.

First: Do we need one or more dimensions to describe and analyse the political conflicts?

As it is, political scientists have been discussing this almost endlessly, but the received wisdom seems to be that Danish politics needs two dimensions to make any sense (socio-economic and libertarian-authoritarian are the best bets, AFAIK) while Sweden is quite a unique case in Europe as it generally fits nicely on a left-right socio-economic scale.

While the Green Party, and in later days the Sweden Democrats, have made some attempts to break the Swedish unidimensionality, indications are that they have failed. Which is one reason why SD has found it difficult to make it to the national political scene. One interesting question could be what would happen if the Greens and the Left Party force the Social Democrats to abandon what (at least to me) looks like a de facto alliance with the Conservatives on asylum and immigration politics.

Denmark, on the other hand, is a country where the classical left and right have imploded. It’s not that class does not play a role in Danish politics, but blue-collar voters now choose between the Social Democrats, the Liberals and the Danish People’s Party. Immigration policy is one reason behind this.

Second: What does “right” or “bourgeois” mean on the political arena?

One problem is that both “right” and “bourgeois” tend to be pejorative terms and in Denmark, the … uhm … bourgeois parties go to great lengths to present themselves as something else. “Right” carries connotations of bad guys like Hitler, Franco, Pinochet and Reagan (Try mentioning any of the four to a Social Democrat in either country and watch: The reaction is pretty similar). At best, “right” means upper class. Like in the 19th century. The Swedish Social Democrats are more than happy to call the bourgeois parties “The Right”.

As a reaction, both the Danish and the Swedish conservatives shed the “right” brand. The Danes in 1915, the Swedes in the 1950s. Both parties have always suffered from a certain schizophrenia with regard to their true identity: Should the be true Conservative parties, or should they appeal more broadly to the middle classes? Hence their double names: The Conservative People’s Party and the Moderate Rally.

But things get worse as “the right”, i.e. those parties which are to the right of the Social Democrats, come from very different ideological traditions. A historical irony means that Left (Venstre) is on the right side of Danish politics, but are The Left liberals or agrarians at heart? (Both, actually. As true agrarians they do not care one second about the environment, as liberals they need to establish at least some green credentials). Oh, and the Danish Agrarian Liberals have very little in common with their Swedish counterparts, the Centre Party.

To make a long story short, we have social-liberals, liberals, agrarians, conservatives, Christian conservatives and nationalists joined in a motley mess. In Sweden, the social-liberals (Folkpartiet) lean right, in Denmark they (Radikale Venstre) lean left. So, does “bourgeois” mean staid middle class or progressive?

Acutally, in Denmark “bourgeois” has a nasty smell of Gentofte and Søllerød to it and the Conservatives in particular prefer to speak about the “bourgeois-liberal” parties or, even better, the “non-socialist” parties.¹

Bonus: Why do the centrist Danish Social Liberals call themselves “the Radical Left”? Back in 1905, one of the party’s founders was heavily Francophile and wanted to establish a link with the French “Parti Radical“. The “Left” was taken from the fact that the party was a splinter group from Venstrereformpartiet (the “Left Reform Party”).

1. For Gentofte and Søllerød, insert Täby and Danderyd in Sweden. [↩]

Lights. Camera. Action.

I’m not sure if I won or lost all possible street-cred here. Never mind: PSW is the real culprit. Or maybe the buck stops with Roland Poirier. Anyway: Swedes can in fact be funny, though I still think the Germans are in front when it comes to razor-sharp satirical wit.

In case you would like a dose of contemporary Swedish poetry in the grand tradition, PSW is ready to take your challenge.

My colleagues hinsidan has been discussing possible strategies for dealing with the Sweden Democrats, a small xenophobic party with aspirations about entering the Swedish parliament in 2010.

Ulf Bjereld (in Swedish, from a Social Democratic perspective): 1, 2.

Andreas Bergh (also in Swedish, a short calculus from 2006 on why mainstream parties should ignore the SweDems).

Peter Santesson-Wilson (In Swedish. The Bergh reloaded). PSW points us to Sanna Rayman.

Nicholas Aylott (In English)

Henrik Oscarsson does some math.

Jimmie Ã…kesson in Aftonbladet 2009-10-19:

Pia Kjærsgaard in Berlingske Tidende 2009-10-12:

The big difference? That Kjærsgaard’s piece didn’t provoke any reactions in Denmark. Perhaps because of the paedophile poster proposition.

Both pictures created with Wordle.

I was a bit intrigued by this article in DN – the absence or underrepresentation of women in company boards and upper echelons of management is a well-described fact, but that the boards and upper management of the larger Swedish companies should be dominated by Swedes is a bit surprising.

Now, there are some problems in the methodology behind the article, but I don’t think that taxes are that much of a problem (if anything, companies can, and will, just relocate to London). Maybe we are looking at a situation where Swedish companies have more experience with international activities than Danish companies and in that way feel less need to recruit foreign managers or directors.

It is late and I’m more than off to bed, but Nils Lunde usually covers this with regard to “Danish” companies in Politiken. There should be some posts buried in his feed.

The Swedes have Ibrahimovic, we have Rommedahl. What could possibly go wrong?

Actually, Dennis Rommedahl has been the subject on a blog much worthier than mine.