APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200090019-6
In order to handle the growing duties of local governments more efficiently, many communes have joined to form cooperative associations. Since 1957 these associations have been empowered by law to create councils and executive committees from among their members. An association functioning as a council may not levy taxes but may request financial contributions from the participating governments. In addition to these associations, communities may form special associations to further cooperation in regional planning, traffic direction, and civil defense.
C. Political dynamics (C)
Significant social and economic factors have contributed to the stable evolution of Swedish politics in the present century. Non-involvement in external wars for a century and a half, in the exceptional ethnic homogeneity of the population, and a decentralized and diversified industrial base of the economy have helped foster a spirit of cooperation and pragmatism. Political compromise has become normal in the effort to avoid any disruption of orderly socioeconomic growth. Although recent developments have introduced some instability into the political system, the traditional pattern still holds for the most part.
This stable parliamentary government matured only during the past four decades. As elsewhere in Europe, modern political parties developed in Sweden in the latter 19th century along essentially class lines and engaged in somewhat the same class struggles. The fundamental domestic issues of the past - the nature and extent of parliamentary government, extension of the suffrage, the respective rules of government and free enterprise in the economic system, and the institution of state-directed social welfare - were largely resolved by the early 1930s. The cooperative effort in governing Sweden has provided a model for the other Nordic countries.
Since the mid-1950s the non-Communist political parties have broadened their platforms, each one attempting to attract the floating vote, chiefly of farmers, small businessmen, and the growing group of white-collar workers. A system of proportional representation in national and local elections, while tending to disfavor the smaller parties, distributes the seats broadly in accordance with the popular vote. Major and sudden changes in the strength of the significant parties tend to be rare, as are radical shifts in public opinion. On the other hand, in line with the rising tide of revolt among many Swedish youths, they tend not to follow traditional voting patterns but to shift to more extreme positions on the right and particularly the left.
There are five major political parties: the Swedish Social Democratic Workers Party - usually called the Social Democratic Party, drawing most of its support from the workers; the Center Party (CP), supported primarily by white-collar workers and farmers; the Liberal Party (FP) representing for the most part the middle class; the Moderate Coalition Party (MP - often called the Conservatives), supported principally by the upper social and economic sectors of the population but with some middle class backing; and the small Party of the Left-Communist (VPK), made of of workers with a sizable admixture of professional and intellectual groups and gaining support among youth. During the 1920s and early 1930s no combination of parties with a parliamentary majority proved possible, and consequently the government rotated among the Social Democrats, Liberals, and Conservatives, each making compromises in order to gain office and to get legislation enacted. By 1932, however, the Social Democratic Party had gained sufficient popular support to enable it to become dominant, and for the next four decades it governed alone or in coalition with the Center Party, or, as during World War II, in a national coalition with all the other non-Communist parties. The comprehensive social welfare legislation in force today was enacted over the past four decades, frequently with the support of the Liberal and Conservative opposition in return for compromises on other issues. Between 1957 and 1968 the SAP governed alone without majority parliamentary support. As a minority government it frequently had to rely on its majority in the Upper House or occasionally on the support of the Communists in the Lower House. In 1968 the Social Democrats won an absolute majority, but their numerical supremacy disappeared in the 1970 elections. In the new Riksdag the Social Democrats have been able to muster a majority on most issues with the support of one or more of the bourgeois parties (Moderate Coalition, Liberal, Center).
Minor parties have played a limited role in Swedish politics. The only such party of any significance in the last 15 years is the Christian Democratic Union (KDS), a right-wing splinter group whose principal objective is an expanded role for Christianity in Swedish everyday life. It appeared in the 1964 elections and received 1.8% of the vote but no seats. It was still active in the 1970 election, and while improving on its 1968 returns (in the expanded electorate) by 0.3%, was unable to do any better than its initial showing of 1.8%. The maverick Bourgeois Rally Party in southern Sweden
10
APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200090019-6
