Beyond industrial policy. State intervention in the Swedish electricity supply industry, 1936–1946

Abstract

As in other Western European countries, the emergence of a national network for electricity transmission in Sweden was accompanied by a greater degree of State intervention in the electricity supply sector. The aim of this article is to elucidate the institutional background to the decision in 1946 by the Social Democratic government to transfer control of the national grid to the Swedish National Power Board. It is demonstrated that this decision not only was linked to a general industrial policy to promote energy supply. It was also linked to the agricultural and cohesion policies which emerged during the 1940s.

Keywords::

• Sweden
• State utilities
• electricity supply industry
• national grid
• historical institutionalism

Notes

This article is part of a research project funded by Ragnar Söderbergs stiftelse [The Ragnar Söderberg foundation] under grant E41/11.

1. Millward, Private and Public Enterprise, 111.

2. Millward, Private and Public Enterprise, 97–98.

3. Millward, Private and Public Enterprise, 171–172.

4. O'Hara, “What the Electorate Can Be,” 502–504; Toninelli (ed), The Rise and Fall.

5. For instance Millward and Singleton, The Political Economy; Foreman-Peck and Federico, European Industrial Policy; Toninelli, The Rise and Fall; Millward, Amatori, and Toninelli, Reappraising State Owned Enterprise; Chick, Electricity and Energy; Beltran, Chick, and Lanthier, “Nationalisations”; Hausman, Hertner, and Wilkins, Global Electrification; Clifton, Comín, and Fuentes, Transforming Public Enterprise.

6. Clifton, Lanthier, and Schröter, “Regulating and Deregulating,” 660; Toninelli, The Rise and Fall.

7. Clifton et al., “Regulating and Deregulating,” 660.

8. Cf. Lodge, “Institutional Choice.”

9. Thelen and Steinmo, “Historical Institutionalism,” 2.

10. Cf. Pierson and Skocpol, “Historical Institutionalism,” 706.

11. Andersson, “Mot framtiden på gamla spår?”; Pettersson, “Institutional Rigidity”; Eriksson, “Regional Development”; Andersson-Skog, “From State Railway Housekeeping.”

12. Kaijser, “Controlling the Grid,” 34–35.

13. See, for instance, Lindgren, Bank, investmentbolag, bankirfirma.

14. Cf. Hjalmarsson, From Club-Regulation, 18.

15. Jakobsson, “Industrialisering av älvar,” 66.

16. Granholm, “Rationellt utformande.” This analysis is also shared by Glimstedt, Restructuring, 35.

17. Government Bill 161/1937, 9.

18. Swedish National Archive, Ministry of Communications, Cabinet Meeting Documents, 23 May 1941, item 31, “Kungl. Vattenfallsstyrelsens skrivelse till Handelsdepartementet den 17 maj 1941,” appendix.

19. Government Bill 111/1942.

20. Lewin, “Planhushållningsdebatten,” 190–193.

21. Kungliga Vattenfallsstyrelsen, “Underdånig skrivelse den 27 april 1945 med förslag till stamlinjebolag”.

22. Swedish Parliament, Minutes of the First Chamber 12/1946, 62–63.

23. Government Bill 1/1946: appendix 5, 14–15.

24. Government Bill 1/1946: appendix 5, 17.

25. Kommunikationsdepartementet, “Skrivelse till Vattenfallsstyrelsen”; Kungliga Vattenfallsstyrelsen, “Avtal om samordning av det elektriska stamlinjenätet”.

26. Bohlin, “Sweden,” 163.

27. Schön, Sweden's Road to Modernity, 331–332; Myllyntaus, “Kilowatts at Work,” 118–121.

28. Bergman and von der Fehr, “The Nordic Experience,” 136

29. Myllyntaus, “Kilowatts at Work,” 104–105.

30. Kander, Malanima, and Warde, Power to the People, 271–272.

31. Cf Millward, Private and Public Enterprise, 176–178.

32. SOU 1935:65, 32–36.

33. Swedish Parliament, Minutes of the First Chamber 12/1946, 66.

34. Kaijser, “Controlling the Grid,” 45.

35. SOU 1970:13, 31.

36. Schön, Sweden's Road, 344–345.

37. See for instance, Swedish Parliament, Private members' motions in the First Chamber 224/1936, 86/1941, 5/1942 and Swedish Parliament, Private members' motions in the Second Chamber 401/1936, 76/1941, 13/1942.

38. SOU 1954:12.

39. SOU 1954:12, 16–17. Swedish Parliament, Minutes of the First Chamber 12/1946, 65.

40. SOU 1954:12, 17.

41. SOU 1934:1, 15–16.

42. SOU 1947:85, 39.

43. Flygare and Isacson, “The Tension,” 216–217; SOU 1946:42, 135–138.

44. SOU 1946:42, 16–17; Gulbrandsen, Strukturomvandlingen i jordbruket, 182.

45. SOU 1954:12, 211.

46. SOU 1953:13, 74–76.

47. Flygare and Isacson, Jordbruket i välfärdssamhället, 181–182.

48. Bäcklund, “I industrisamhällets utkant.”

49. SOU 1949:1, 3–12.

50. SOU 1949:1, 56–61.

51. Foreman-Peck and Federico, “European Industrial Policy,” 441–443.

52. Millward, Private and Public Enterprise, 172

53. Wollmann, Baldersheim, Citroni, Marcou, and McEldomey, “From Public Service to Commodity.”

54. Hannah, Electricity Before Nationalisation, chapter 4; Hausman, Hertner and Wilkins, Global Electrification, 234.

55. Pinkney, “Nationalization,” 377; Bliss, “Nationalisation,” 280.

56. Skjold and Thue, Statens nett; Myllyntaus, Electrifying Finland, Kaijser, “Controlling the Grid”; Giannetti, “Industrial Policy.”

57. Cf Chick, Electricity and Energy Policy, 3–4.

58. Kander et al., Power to the People, 266.

59. Cf Millward, Private and Public Enterprise. 98 and “Industrial Organization,” 3.

60. Svensson, “Socialdemokratins dominans,” 62–63.

61. Katzenstein, Small States. See also Bohlin, “Swedish Industrial Policy,” 114–115, for a discussion on this topic.

62. Svensson, “Socialdemokratins dominans,” 86–87; Eriksson, “Embedding Big Business,” 296.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Martin Eriksson

Martin Eriksson, PhD, is an economic historian who has published on different aspects of transport history, historical political economy and government-business relations.