Saalfeld , p. According to comparative research on Western European post-war cabinets, the median duration for a majority cabinet is about days, but it is only days for a single-party minority cabinet. Figure 6 describes the average cabinet duration in Western Europe for all governments that have formed during the post-war period. Sweden has relatively long-lived cabinets, with governments lasting on average 68 per cent of the constitutional inter-election period.
Countries such as Spain, Malta and Norway have even more long-lived governments; but there are also countries with much more short-lived governments, such as Italy and Greece, where cabinets on average last less than 40 per cent of their potential life-span. The figures show cabinet duration as a percentage of maximum potential duration based on a variable measuring the number of days in the constitutional inter-election period. In spite of the fact that most governments in Sweden have been minority governments, then, Swedish cabinets have been relatively stable.
As Goplerud and Schleiter show, most parliamentary systems do not fix election dates, but instead allow some actor, typically the prime minister, to call early elections.
Government bargaining in Sweden has become more complex. At least before , however, government formation has taken less time in Sweden than in most other countries in Western Europe, and governments have not been significantly more unstable than elsewhere. Even the weak minority coalition government that was in power between and survived an entire parliament. As Figure 7 makes clear, however, there is no evidence that decision-making in the Swedish Riksdag has become gridlocked, in spite of the fact that eight parties have parliamentary representation and the current government is supported by fewer than 40 per cent of all members of parliament.
On average, it has only happened in 1. And previous research also shows that the standing committee reports very rarely deviates from the original government bills.
The only visible small dip was in the final years of the Social Democratic minority government that was in power before Based on legislative roll calls averaged by parliamentary year. Figure 7 in fact overestimates the true level of legislative conflict, since only about 25 per cent of the decisions that are taken by parliament are voted on; the remaining proposals are approved by acclamation. There are two main explanations for these patterns. Since the norm among the Swedish parliamentary parties is that a party should abstain in the final roll call on the committee proposal if its bill has been eliminated in the previous rounds of voting, a proposal does not always need more than 50 per cent of the votes to pass; it only needs more than 50 per cent among those who do not abstain.
The high level of agreement among the centre-right parties during the period — appears to have been a unique event in Swedish politics. When the Alliance parties lost power, they seem to have decided to let each party behave more independently, although their voting cohesion is slightly higher under the current Social Democratic—Green Party coalition government than under the single-party Social Democratic government that was in power until With the two major blocs having been joined by the Sweden Democrats since , we focus on three pairwise comparisons: between the centre-right and centre-left blocs and between the Sweden Democrats and each of the two larger blocs.
Overall, however, the Sweden Democrats have tended to side more often with the Alliance than with the Red-Greens since they entered parliament in Figure 9 shows the level of conflict between the two blocs. A period of relative unity in — was followed by increased conflict in the legislature during the first years of the Alliance government, in —, when the centre-right controlled a majority of the seats in parliament.
With the entry of the Sweden Democrats and the transition from majority to minority government in , however, the relative unity was restored, and since the Social Democratic—Green Party government took over in , it has even increased somewhat. This also becomes evident when one considers patterns of cross-bloc voting over time Lindvall et al.
In the — parliament, the proportion of votes in which at least one of the centre-left parties voted with at least one of the centre-right parties was greater than 70 per cent, approximately the same level as in the early s. By instead looking at the proportion of votes where at least two parties from each bloc voted together, the level of cross-bloc unity in the — was at an all-time high. We draw two conclusions from these analyses of roll-call voting in the Swedish parliament. First, despite recent changes in the party system, Swedish politics does not appear to be marred by legislative deadlock.
The government typically gets its bills through parliament, even when it is weak in terms of the number of legislative seats it controls. Second, the rise of the Sweden Democrats has not only complicated the coalition dynamics and issue dimensionality in parliament, but also brought the centre-right and centre-left blocs closer together.
This actually means that there is less conflict and more cross-bloc cooperation than there used to be. Thus far, our discussion has concentrated on the party system, the formation of governments, and the ability of parties and governments to build support for new legislation in the Riksdag. As we noted in Section 2, however, we are also interested in the substance of politics, specifically the extent to which political decisions reflect the wishes of the voters.
For that reason, we now turn to research on election-pledge fulfilment. International experiences suggest that it is more difficult for political parties to adopt and implement the policies they promised in the preceding election campaign in countries that are governed by minority coalitions Thomson et al.
Since the two most recent governments in Sweden have been minority coalitions, one might reasonably have expected the same thing to happen in Sweden. So far, however, governing political parties in Sweden have typically managed to do most of the things they promised to do in their election manifestos.
For example, the Social Democrats kept more than 80 per cent of the promises they made in the elections of , and , and the centre-right coalition that governed between and achieved similar levels of pledge fulfilment Naurin, So how have the centre-right minority coalition government that was formed in and the minority coalition government that the Social Democrats and the Green Party formed in fared?
We see that the governing party the Social Democrats made pledges in and the Green Party made Our analysis of the pledges that the Alliance government made in is illustrated in Figure 10 , which combines our new data with previous pledge studies done in Sweden.
Note : The number of pledges investigated is shown in Table 1. When it comes to the Alliance governments, the analyses are based on the joint election manifesto for the four-party bloc.
Source : Naurin and Lindvall et al. Here are some examples of fulfilled pledges from the government: the government parties lowered income taxes for those who have a job, cut VAT for restaurants, made permanent a large programme on psychiatric care, said no to oil drilling in the Baltic, kept the government-owned liquor store state-owned, and raised housing benefits. There were also examples of broken pledges during the same parliament 18 per cent, or 50 pledges, were broken : for example public debt did not diminish as a share of GDP, the right to stay in employment until the age of 69 was not implemented, and the promise to increase punishments for repeat offenders was broken.
In Lindvall et al. On the other hand, the Social Democrats have long governing experience, which significantly raises the likelihood of fulfilling ones pledges Thomson et al. However, this remains to be studied more systematically. Our analyses of the ability of governing parties to honor their election pledges indicate that the system has functioned pretty much as it did 10 or 20 years ago.
At least until , cabinets have formed quickly and survived until the next election; the bills governments have sent to parliament have usually passed; and governing parties have managed to implement approximately 80 per cent of the promises they have made in their manifestos.
Nevertheless, there were recurring conflicts over procedures between the government and the parliamentary opposition in the — and — parliaments, which suggests that the relatively stable situation we describe in this article may not be sustainable in the long run Lindvall et al. But the agreement lasted less than a year, and in the summer of , the government was again under threat since the centre-right parties declared that they planned to introduce no-confidence motions against Social Democratic ministers if the government included certain tax increases in its annual budget bill.
Even more importantly, the drawn-out government formation process after the election of constitutes a clear break with tradition. In other words, although the evidence for the period until that we have presented in this article suggests that Swedish parliamentary democracy has continued to work much as it did in the past, recent political events suggests that this situation might not endure.
Ever since the Sweden Democrats entered the Riksdag in , the central political problem in Sweden has been how governments can be formed when neither of the two main party blocs is able to form either a majority government or a strong minority government.
At the time of writing, it is still not clear what the answer is going to be. Since most Swedish governments have been minority governments in the past one hundred years, the minority government scenario seems most likely. Otherwise, the opposition will become ever more reluctant to let minority governments rule. Indeed, the drawn-out government formation process after the election of suggests that this reluctance is becoming an increasingly important factor.
Historically minority governments have been most common in countries where the opposition parties are able to influence legislation and economic policy between elections. In the last three or four decades, the trend in Sweden has been in the opposite direction: political power has shifted from the Riksdag to the cabinet.
This has in all likelihood made it more difficult to maintain the delicate balance between ideological struggle for power and pragmatic, compromise-oriented political decision-making in parliament. It is noteworthy that the political events we mentioned above—the conflicts over taxes in and and the budget crisis in —involved fiscal policy and happened because the opposition looked for unconventional ways to influence policy.
The reason for this behaviour is arguably that they had few conventional methods at their disposal, given the governments strong agenda-setting power. One thing that governments could do to make it easier to form stable minority governments is to launch more commissions of inquiry in which the opposition parties are represented. Since the beginning of the s, government commissions with parliamentary representation have become less common Petersson, , pp.
Meanwhile, the proportion of expert commissions has increased, which has strengthened the government at the expense of the Riksdag and complicated cross-party cooperation.
This means that the government has access to more resources and is able to fill many more positions than previously. This helps to explain why the opposition parties occasionally prioritise the struggle for office over constructive legislative work in parliament. At , Swedish parliamentary democracy remains in reasonably good shape. But its institutions will have to adjust to changing circumstances if it is going to enjoy many happy returns.
Another piece of evidence that suggests this might be the case comes from survey research: Oscarsson , p. These findings are for Norway is an extreme case, since it is a parliamentary system where no agent has the constitutional power to trigger a dissolution of parliament. This of course to a large extent reflects votes where all parties rally against the Sweden Democrats—a voting pattern that has become the most common in the Riksdag since However, an extensive qualitative analysis of cross-bloc agreements since reveals a similar pattern of increased cooperation Lindvall et al.
The interested reader may follow how this definition has evolved and been made comparable in Naurin et al. More specifically, we include both so called narrow and so called broad pledges in our analyses here Thomson et al. Armingeon K. Google Scholar. Google Preview. Aylott N. Oxford Handbook of Swedish Politics.
Oxford , Oxford University Press. Bartolini S. Berglund S. Bergman T. Binder S. Bjereld U. Bolin N. In Pierre J. Cheibub J.
De Lange S. De Winter L. Diermeier D. Duverger M. Ecker A. Finer H. The prime minister is tasked with forming a government. The prime minister personally chooses the ministers to make up the cabinet and also decides which ministers will be in charge of the various ministries.
Together, the prime minister and the cabinet ministers form the government. The government governs the country but is accountable to the parliament. Openness in Sweden. Democracy in Sweden. Gender equality. Gay rights in Sweden. Disability policy. The government rules Sweden by implementing the decisions of the parliament and by formulating new laws or law amendments, on which the parliament decides. The government is assisted in this task by the Government Offices and the Swedish government agencies in total, as of December The cabinet as a whole is responsible for all government decisions.
Although many routine matters are in practice decided by individual ministers and only formally approved by the government, the principle of collective responsibility is reflected in all governmental work. As part of its official functions, the government:. Sweden sometimes holds national referendums.
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All of Sweden's municipalities and regions are members of the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions , an employer organisation that represents and advocates local government.
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Sweden is one of the largest contributors to the United Nations. Altogether, the country allocates 1 per cent of its gross national income GNI to development aid. For updated information on what applies to your country, please visit krisinformation.
Sweden is a parliamentary democracy. This means there are no presidential elections, only parliamentary elections. Based on which party — or coalition of parties — that receives the majority of votes, the parliament appoints a prime minister who then forms the government. The last time one party got absolute majority was in , when the Social Democrats received The parliament has seats.
After an election, the Election Authority distributes the seats proportionally, depending on the number of votes that each party has received. To make sure that the whole country is represented, the distribution of seats also takes into account the election results in each constituency.
The largest constituency is the County of Stockholm, the smallest the County of Gotland. The indigenous Sami people have their own parliament in Sweden, Sametinget. It is both an elected parliament and a public agency, and its main task is to act for a living Sami culture.
This includes being the central administrative agency for reindeer husbandry and leading the Sami language work, among other things. In the parliamentary elections of , the preliminary voter turnout in Sweden was The turnout has not been below 80 per cent since the s. Many factors influence the high turnout: trust in democratic institutions, respect for the electoral system, and the fact that parliamentary elections are combined with elections to local and regional governments.
The authorities of a municipality or region are chosen by local voters, and not appointed from the capital of Stockholm. To vote in parliamentary elections in Sweden, you have to be a Swedish citizen aged 18 or more, who is or have been registered in Sweden. But in local and regional elections, it is not only Swedish citizens who have the right to vote, but also:.
The reasoning is that politicians elected to local and regional authorities should take care of the interests of everyone who lives in the area, regardless of citizenship. If 35 members or more of the Swedish parliament no longer have confidence in an individual minister or in the government as a whole, they can request a vote on a declaration of no confidence.
If a majority of parliament members or more decide that they don't have confidence in the prime minister, the government must resign or call an extraordinary election. If the same applies to an individual minister, the minister must resign. In Sweden voter turnout is equally high among younger people. That way, young people have the opportunity to compare and draw their own conclusions. Students under the age of 18 can sometimes also participate in an initiative called Skolval , school election.
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