Local government in Nordic big cities

Bäck, Henry; Johansson, Folke; Larsen, Helge O.

doi:10.1007/978-3-322-99969-6_2

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 5 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The system that was introduced involved letting a majority party or a majority coalition appoint all committee leaders and full‐time politicians. A similar system is used in the other Nordic countries (Bäck et al 2000: 50). The ‘quasi‐parliamentary’ character of the Swedish local system creates the problem of ‘finding the government coalition’.…”

Section: A Methodological Approach Allowing For a Comparison Of Predimentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining and predicting coalition outcomes: Conclusions from studying data on local coalitions

Bäck

2003

European J Political Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Because the importance of coalition formation has been long established, there is no shortage of ideas explaining and predicting coalition outcomes. However, one of the problems for contemporary coalition research is that most coalition theories have been thoroughly tested on the same data on national governments that have formed in the West European postwar democracies. This stresses the need for finding new data that can increase our ability to test and refine coalition theories. This article uses unique elite survey data from an investigation conducted among councilors in a large sample of local authorities in Sweden to test hypotheses on coalition formation.Another problem in coalition research is that the large number of coalition hypotheses have not been tested extensively using multivariate models that provide sufficient controls. By using a methodological approach that models government formation as a discrete choice between potential governments, we can draw conclusions about the relative importance of different types of variables. The results found in this analysis indicate that we have to pay attention to both traditional variables, such as size and policy, and institutional variables if our aim is to explain and predict coalition formation.In parliamentary democracies, a single party rarely controls a majority of the seats in the parliament, which makes the process of coalition formation vital. Early coalition theorists assumed that parties were pure office-seekers and predicted that only minimal winning coalitions would form. Soon after these theories were first tested, attempts were made to introduce policy as a goal for parties in coalition formation. For example, De Swaan (1973) predicted that only coalitions with a minimal policy range along some dimension would form. One criticism of these early theories is that coalition formation cannot be seen as an isolated event where parties do not take the future into account. Other assumptions underlying these traditional coalition theories that have been questioned are that coalitions form in an institution-free environment, that parties can be seen as unitary actors and that the policy space is onedimensional. Newer coalition theories often try to incorporate a vote-seeking goal, institutions and multiple policy dimensions. A number of coalition theories have been presented over the last fifty years, but so far we do not have a

show abstract

Section: A Methodological Approach Allowing For a Comparison Of Predimentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining and predicting coalition outcomes: Conclusions from studying data on local coalitions

Bäck

2003

European J Political Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As argued in previous work on legislative behaviour, federal systems are more likely to be subject to demands from competing principals, both from the regional and federal party level, suggesting that party unity in legislative voting will be lower in federal than in unitary systems (Carey, ). Swedish local authorities have a relatively high autonomy, which can be seen by the fact that local revenues are to a large extent local taxes, fees and charges (Bäck, Johansson, & Larson, ), and by the fact that local authorities clearly play a central role in the provision of welfare services (Trydegård & Thorslund, ). This suggests that, although we are dealing here with a case of a unitary system, sub‐national government clearly matters, which should make it possible to find support for arguments suggesting that MPs consider sub‐national economic features when participating in national‐level parliamentary debates in Sweden.…”

Section: Methods and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Coordination of legislative speech in times of crisis: Youth unemployment and debates on redistributive policies in the Swedish Riksdag, 1994–2014

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Parliamentary debates and the discussion on different law proposals are a key part of the process of policy making. We argue in this article that a high economic problem pressure in the region an MP represents will affect the MP’s legislative speechmaking. We also hypothesise that parties tend to coordinate their speakers in parliament to display a cohesive profile in the domain of labour, employment and immigration issues, i.e., in issue areas which reflect redistributive policies that are highly salient for almost all parties. We evaluate our expectations based on an analysis of Swedish parliamentary debates on labour, employment and immigration policy during the period between 1994 and 2014. The findings show that parliamentary parties coordinate speechmaking: Those MPs who represent economically troubled districts are less likely to appear in plenary debates, as well as MPs who deviate programmatically from the party line.

show abstract

“…The municipalities play a crucial role for Swedish welfare policy, including disability policy. It has been said, in fact, that ‘local government is the single most important organisation or level for carrying out public policies and services’ (Bäck et al 2000, 33). This autonomy means that the municipalities have great freedom to organize their welfare themselves.…”

Section: A Cross‐municipality Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Kinder, Gentler Democracy? The Consensus Model and Swedish Disability Politics

Lewin

Bäck

et al. 2008

Scand Pol Stud

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Arend Lijphart's seminal consensus model of democracy does not only try to explain how democracy actually works. It also purports to be a 'kinder, gentler' form of democracy with regard to e.g. unemployment, disability, illness and old age. So far, this conjecture has not been brought to a systematic test which is the purpose of this article. We look into the consequences for one of the areas Lijphart singles out: disability. Does consensus democracy promote a more generous policy towards disabled people than majoritarian democracy? We transfer Lijphart's theory to municipality level. In Sweden, disability care is namely the responsibility for the municipalities, which are comparatively large and independent and with the right to tax their citizens; they are like small nation-states. There is, however, a considerable variation in disability support between them. Some give ten times as much support than others. Is it those governed according to the consensus model? Our approach helps controlling for the variation in political and cultural context and expands the number of observations. The statistical comparison of Swedish municipalities does not, however, lend any confirmation of the famous theory. Instead, there are reasons to doubt that consensus democracy promotes more generous policies. overview of the causes of the regional variation, we find that the clients' propensity to demand support, the ideology of the ruling municipality government and -not very surprisingly -a corresponding variation in needs in the different municipalities turn out to be the best explanations. In the more specific analysis in this article, we focus on Lijphart's explanation and ask the question whether, in fact, consensus municipalities are more generous.One reason why there has been little empirical research on the consequences of consensus democracy is the well-known problem in comparative research of 'cultural dependence': a phenomenon might be due to specific historical events or cultural traditions and the country in question consequently 'unique' and not valid for comparison. Our way out of this problem is to transfer the theory, which has been developed for the nation-state, to municipality level. This is a way to make all units of analysis comparable, since they all belong to the same system. The prerequisite for this operation is, of course, that it is reasonable, and a lengthy part of the article is devoted to justifying this transfer between levels.We begin by introducing the theoretical foundation for consensus democracy and its implication for welfare generosity. We then justify our decision to use Swedish municipalities for the analysis and our division of municipalities according to a consensus-majoritarian scale before presenting our dependent variable: disability care. Finally, we account for the results and conclusions of the study. Our results are negative, however. We find no support for the idea that consensus government would promote more generous policies. Lijphart's theory has been criticized for being biase...

show abstract

Local government in Nordic big cities

Cited by 5 publications

References 5 publications

Explaining and predicting coalition outcomes: Conclusions from studying data on local coalitions

Explaining and predicting coalition outcomes: Conclusions from studying data on local coalitions

Coordination of legislative speech in times of crisis: Youth unemployment and debates on redistributive policies in the Swedish Riksdag, 1994–2014

A Kinder, Gentler Democracy? The Consensus Model and Swedish Disability Politics

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About