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Abstract
A remarkable reform in modern Swedish political history was the transformation of the local government structure between 1952 and 1974. In a mere 22 years, the number of municipalities was reduced from 2,498 to 277. This study aims to answer how such large-scale reforms could come about politically, particularly since much of the literature on institutions and political reform asserts that carrying out large-scale political change should be a difficult task. Two opposing stories of institutional change are presented: evolutionary accounts, which see the amalgamations as rational adaptations to changing circumstances, are contrasted with a social conflict perspective, which explains amalgamations in terms of their distributional consequences. By investigating the processes leading up to this vast restructuring of Swedish local political geography, we demonstrate that an understanding of these reforms as rational adaptations to changing circumstances, made on the basis of consensus among leading political actors, is not accurate. The reforms were not as uncontroversial and non-conflictual as they often have been portrayed. Our results weaken the evolutionary approach to institutional change, whilst supporting the social conflict perspective.
Acknowledgements
This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association on 12 April 2012 in Chicago, Illinois. We wish to thank the participants for their comments. We are especially thankful to Professor Richard Hula. We also wish to thank Professor James Johnson for his insightful comments on an earlier draft, and to the two anonymous reviewers whose constructive remarks improved the quality of the manuscript. The paper is a translated and significantly developed version of Erlingsson, Wångmar and Ödalen, ‘Kommunsammanläggningarna’.
Notes
1 Kjellberg, ‘Local Government’; Committee on local and regional authorities; Nielsen, Kommunindelning och demokrati.
2 Hall and Taylor, ‘Political Science’; Peters, ‘Institutional Theory’.
3 Streeck and Thelen, ‘Introduction’, 3–39. See also Peters, ‘Institutional Theory’, for similar criticism of contemporary institutional theory.
4 Lewis and Steinmo, ‘How Institutions Evolve’.
5 Knight, Institutions and Social Conflict; see also Johnson, ‘Politics of Enfranchisement’.
6 Knight, Institutions and Social Conflict, 5.
7 Swianiewicz, ‘Territorial Fragmentation’, 183–203.
8 These are also the same negative side effects of amalgamations underscored by Nielsen, Kommunindelning och demokrati.
9 Baldersheim and Rose, ‘Territorial Choice’; Pierson, Politics in Time; Thelen, Historical Institutionalism, 369–404.
10 Dahlkvist and Strandberg, ‘Kommunal självstyrelse som maktspridningsprojekt’.
11 Knight and Epstein, ‘Struggle for Judicial Supremacy’, 87–120; Ware, ‘Anti-partism and Party Control’, 1–29; Johnson, ‘Politics of Enfranchisement’.
12 Anton, ‘Policy-making’, 88–102; Elvander, ‘Interest Groups in Sweden’, 27–43; Castles, ‘Policy Innovation and Institutional Stability’, 203–16.
13 Knight, Institutions and Social Conflict.
14 Lewis and Steinmo, ‘How Institutions Evolve’.
15 Knight, Institutions and Social Conflict.
16 North, ‘Economic Performance through Time’, 360.
17 Acemoglu, Robinson, and Johnson, ‘Institutions’; Moe, ‘Power and Political Institutions’, 215–33.
18 Wångmar, Från sockenkommun till storkommun, 88.
19 SOU 1945: 38; Government Bill 1946: 236.
20 Ibid.
21 SOU 1945: 38, 93–197.
22 Government Bill 1946: 236.
23 Statement, KU, 1946, No 19.
24 The Committee stressed, however, that the principle requiring a minimum of 2,000 citizens ought not to be completely without exceptions. It argued, for instance, that island municipalities and some isolated rural municipalities could be exempted from the requirement.
25 Statement, KU, 1946, No 19.
26 Protocol, First Chamber, 1946, No 23, 36–66.
27 Protocol, Second Chamber, 1946, No 24, 36–81.
28 Wångmar, Från sockenkommun till storkommun, 115.
29 SOU 1961: 9, 8–42.
30 SOU 1961: 9.
31 Statement, KU, 1962, No 1.
32 Government Bill 1969: 103; Statement, KU, 1969, No 24.
33 SOU 1961: 9; Government Bill 1961: 180.
34 Government Bill 1969: 103, Statement, KU, 1969, No 24.
35 Statement, KU, 1962, No 1.
36 Government Bill 1961: 180.
37 Statement, KU, 1962, No 1.
38 Protocol, First Chamber, 1962, No 8, 32–101; Protocol, Second Chamber, 1962, No 8, 16–139.
39 Statement, KU, 1969, No 24.
40 Government Bill 1969: 103.
41 Protocol, First Chamber, 1969, No 25, 6–94; Protocol, Second Chamber, 1969, No 25, 145–207.
42 Andersson, Sveriges kommunindelning 1863–1993, 102.
43 Hadenius, Svensk politik under 1900-talet, 273–6.
44 Strandberg, Debatten om den kommunala självstyrelsen 1962–1994, 366; Nielsen, Kommunindelning och demokrati, 23.
45 Nielsen, Kommunindelning och demokrati, 190.
46 Pierson, Politics in Time; Thelen, ‘Historical Institutionalism’, 369–404.
47 Geddes, ‘Comparative Perspective’, 239.
48 Uddhammar, Partierna och den stora staten.
49 Knight, Institutions and Social Conflict; Acemoglu, Robinson, and Johnson, ‘Institutions’; Moe, ‘Power and Political Institutions’, 215–33.
50 Marcou, ‘New Tendencies’.
51 For further discussion, see Erlingsson and Ödalen, ‘Local Government’.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Gissur Ó. Erlingsson
Gissur Ó. Erlingsson is Associate Professor in Political Science at the Centre for Municipal Studies, Linköping University, Sweden. His expertise lies within the fields of party politics, public corruption, and institutional change. He has published in journals such as Governance, Political Geography, Politics and Local Government Studies.
Jörgen Ödalen
Jörgen Ödalen is Senior Lecturer in Political Theory at the Department of Management and Engineering, Linköping University, Sweden. His main area of research is contemporary political theory, with a particular focus on issues of sovereignty and self-determination, on the international as well as on the local level. He has published papers in journals such as Local Government Studies, Ethics, Policy & Environment, and Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration.
Erik Wångmar
Erik Wångmar is Associate Professor in History and Senior Lecturer in Political Science at Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden. His PhD thesis, published in 2003, dealt with the Great Municipal Amalgamation (Storkommunreformen) in Sweden in 1952. His recent publications include Tillit och korruption. Fall av korruption, maktmissbruk och bristande tillit i svensk lokalpolitik 1963–2011 (Stockholm, 2013), Från storkommun till kommunblock. En djupstudie av reformen som skapade de moderna svenska kommunerna 1959–1974 (Stockholm, 2013), and Länets betydelse. Fallstudier av kommunblocksreformens genomförande i Blekinge och Hallands län 1962–1974 (Stockholm, 2013).