This article addresses the expansion of urban public services in major Nordic cities, from 1850 to 1920. We argue that changes in political discourse were the driving force that prompted politicians to act on behalf of the urban public, significantly before the rise of the universal welfare state. The discursive changes are explored through three analytic concepts: publicness, urban citizenship and the welfare city. We start by presenting a short overview of the development of urban public services. Then we demonstrate how these concepts may be used in conjunction to explain the historical changes. Finally, the material effects are discussed in three case-studies, addressing freshwater pipes, public transport and municipal health care, respectively.

This book deals with six critical junctures in early modern Sweden between 1500 and 1810, intense periods of change when the prevailing system of government was challenged and replaced by something different – a new political regime. Drawing on both history and the social sciences, this book presents a new interpretation of Sweden’s early modern political history. First, each critical juncture’s course of events is analysed, and key political actors’ incentives and motives are identified. The impact and effects of each regime shift are explained using three analytical key concepts: state capacity, impartiality, and political participation. Second, the various regime shifts are compared and the long-term effects of the early modern changes on state formation and democratization are discussed. How and in what ways did the turbulent changes in government affect Sweden’s subsequent development into a modern, democratic state? Sweden’s conflict-ridden history is highly relevant for understanding the process of state formation in early modern Europe. In comparative studies, sixteenth-century Sweden is sometimes highlighted as a pioneer; a dynastic state that organized an efficient fiscal bureaucracy to finance military expansion. In other contexts, Sweden’s representative institutions of the eighteenth century have been an example of participatory or even proto-democratic forms of government. However, the two periods have rarely been compared to explain similarities and differences, or why the first period transformed into the second. This book takes a holistic approach to the period 1538–1810, explaining how and why the shifting regimes influenced political and social development. The analysis shows the uneven character of the ongoing struggle between Sweden’s power elites and social groups demanding political inclusion. The ideal balance between a strong state and an organized society proved hard, if not impossible, to realize in the early modern period. Democratization in Sweden continued to be an uneven process well into the twentieth century.

This essay addresses the introduction of royal primogeniture in Sweden by king Gustav I in in 1540 and 1544. Previous research has described the first decision as informed by absolutist ideology, while the second has been considered a compromise in line with the medieval constitution. My contribution will discuss the key elements in this process and identify absolutist and constitutional markers. I argue that the introduction of hereditary monarchy actually strengthened representative government functions. The decision of 1544 gave the Swedish estates and the council of the realm a clear stake in the perpetuation of the monarchy. Hereditary monarchy paved the way for a monarchical regime that was dependent on balancing the influence of the aristocracy and the commoner estates.

The municipal administration expanded greatly in cities and towns in the Nordic countries after 1850.The contributors to this book have argued that this expansion constituted the emergence of the Nordic welfare city: it was during this period that city councils wrestled with issues as diverse as how best to organize water distribution, improve housing conditions and support the local theatre scene and how to run the city's tramway system.These public services were introduced as a means to improve the well-being of a city's inhabitants.The expansion was also a response to deteriorated living conditions and impending social conflict.This book argues that our understanding of the history of welfare systems and public services requires reassessment.The various contributions each demonstrate that social reforms and the expansion of public services were first carried out at the municipal level, pioneering the development of the modern welfare state.Cities and towns experimented with different welfare solutions, and the emergence of the welfare state was an extrapolation from these processes. 1This perspective differs from the majority of previous research on the development of modern public services.Up until this point, the focus has most often been on the period after 1945 and on the national level and the welfare state. 2 The approach argued for here is the opposite: the chronological focus must be shifted to consider the expansion of public services prior to 1945.The expansion was, furthermore, primarily a result of urban politics whereby specifically the period 1850-1940 represents a transition from an austere political agenda to a more expansive public policy.It was during this period that money and resources were invested in cities to improve living conditions and the welfare of the urban community. 3 Using the concept of the welfare city, the aim of the book has been to explore a whole range of political agents and interactions, to show a different type of welfare than that which is more commonly surveyed on the national level.Let us therefore review the definition of the concept, as stated in the first chapter.There, the welfare city was defined as 'the political vision of municipal authorities to expand and improve public services.It highlights a political shift that occurred 11 The Nordic welfare city -types and dimensions

The municipal administration expanded greatly in cities and towns in the Nordic countries after 1850.The contributors to this book have argued that this expansion constituted the emergence of the Nordic welfare city: it was during this period that city councils wrestled with issues as diverse as how best to organize water distribution, improve housing conditions and support the local theatre scene and how to run the city's tramway system.These public services were introduced as a means to improve the well-being of a city's inhabitants.The expansion was also a response to deteriorated living conditions and impending social conflict.This book argues that our understanding of the history of welfare systems and public services requires reassessment.The various contributions each demonstrate that social reforms and the expansion of public services were first carried out at the municipal level, pioneering the development of the modern welfare state.Cities and towns experimented with different welfare solutions, and the emergence of the welfare state was an extrapolation from these processes. 1This perspective differs from the majority of previous research on the development of modern public services.Up until this point, the focus has most often been on the period after 1945 and on the national level and the welfare state. 2 The approach argued for here is the opposite: the chronological focus must be shifted to consider the expansion of public services prior to 1945.The expansion was, furthermore, primarily a result of urban politics whereby specifically the period 1850-1940 represents a transition from an austere political agenda to a more expansive public policy.It was during this period that money and resources were invested in cities to improve living conditions and the welfare of the urban community. 3 Using the concept of the welfare city, the aim of the book has been to explore a whole range of political agents and interactions, to show a different type of welfare than that which is more commonly surveyed on the national level.Let us therefore review the definition of the concept, as stated in the first chapter.There, the welfare city was defined as 'the political vision of municipal authorities to expand and improve public services.It highlights a political shift that occurred 11 The Nordic welfare city -types and dimensions

This chapter argues that the concept of state building from below may be used as an analytical tool for better understanding of political and social relations in the era before industrialisation. In the Nordic countries, the discussion about the state building process in the 1980s and 1990s produced two conflicting narratives. The early modern period produced new repertoires for collective action and political agency. While this long-term perspective is perfectly valid, we argue that the concept of state building is more relevant for our focus on interactions at the micro level. Erling Sandmo has argued that early modern society should be analysed as a permanent public sphere, where ordinary people interacted with each other on a day-to-day basis. State territory was not a uniform entity but rather a fluctuating space full of 'holes' – places and spaces where central control was missing or totally dependent on local agents and institutions.

This article analyses the inherent conflict between public and private interest from a long time-perspective, using the example of Sweden from 1620 to 2000. The main argument is that there have been two equally decisive historical shifts in the political discourse on how to organize public services in the past: First, a shift from an early modern patriarchal discourse to a more expansive articulation of publicness during the nineteenth century. Second, a shift toward privatization and deregulation in the late twentieth century. Both these shifts must be considered to fully explain the changing forms of public organization up to the present day. Theoretically, the concept of "publicness" is used to explain the political discourses on the organization of public services. Drawing on three discursive chains, the argument is that the political development was affected by the politicians' conception of the political community, the form of organization, and by perceptions of values such as equal access and modernity. Our results demonstrate how and why political arguments for or against private service providers have motivated profound changes in the way public services are perceived of and organized.

This essay addresses the relation between social stratification and state formation in early modern Sweden. I argue that the belligerent politics of Swedish rulers promoted the social and political ...

1.0 Purpose and aims This project presents a new approach to the study of welfare cities in the Nordic countries, c. 1870–1920. During this period, local politicians abandoned the traditional ideal of financial austerity in order to tackle the social problems following rapid urbanisation. We want to investigate how discursive changes paved the way for a wave of investments in public services and social welfare. Our purpose is to analyse and compare political debates in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Kristiania/Oslo and Helsinki in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Municipal politics followed a general trend: City boards assumed responsibility for services perceived to be vital for economic development and the citizens’ wellbeing. New social groups were gradually included in the urban community: workers, women, children and even future citizens (e.g. Deland 2001; Björk 2008). The aim of the project is to identify the discursive changes triggering this development by studying the arguments and concepts used in political language. We want to map the considerations that motivated changes in the management of public services, and compare how and why these may have differed between Nordic capital cities.

This essay analyze military masculinity in Sweden during the Early Vasa period, c. 1560 – 1590. Masculine notions of violence and domination were essential both for the ruling Vasa dynasty and for ...

ABSTRACT This article explores political conflicts about the organisation of public services in Sweden c. 1900–1920. The authors argue that political decisions play a vital role in shaping the political economy of public services. The case studies analysed are the political debates about the communalisation of the tramway system in Stockholm, and the nationalisation of Sweden’s last private telephone company. In both cases, the transfer of the service to public organisation was a lengthy process, ending in the late 1910s. This is explained using the concept of publicness. Drawing on three discursive chains, the argument is that the political development was affected by the politicians conception of the political community, the form of organisation and by perceptions of values such as equal access and modernity. In the case of the tramways, public organisation was seen as the best option to defend the public against corruption and self-interest. In the case of the telephones, free market competition was seen as a guarantee for an efficient and cost-effective service. The reason for this difference, is argued, was that the debate on the tramways articulated a clearer notion of publicness, where equal access and public opinion carried larger weight.

The three-fold division of this book—how these peasant elites and the peasantry in general confronted the authorities, how they dealt with them, and how they acted within their own local communities and networks—has aimed to place their aggressive and violent behaviour in the framework of Nordic state formation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The focus has thus been on their relationship with the state and its representatives. This structure contained per se a conflict of interests between states that wanted to intervene and control local communities and the leading peasants in these communities who wanted to guard their favourable positions. At the same time, there were possibilities for cooperation and mutually benefiting from the arrangements.

Samhallet behover diskutera vad det allmanna ska skota och vad som ar den enskildes ansvar. Men denna avgorande debatt forsvinner i ett ideologiskt krig kring vinster i dagens valfard. Det ...

Den svenska statens historia under 1500- och 1600-talen handlar inte bara om kungar och krig utan ocksa om de undersatar som tvingades bara stormaktsdrommen pa sina axlar. Genom mer eller min­dre v ...

Please check if identified head levels are okay.

This article explores four political debates in the Swedish diet and among the ruling elite in Stockholm on the organization of public services. The results demonstrate how in different ways notions of the common good permeated the discourse on all occasions.When the Swedish government tried to initiate public street lightning in Stockholm in 1749, there was a broad consensus among government and city officials that this should be done by the creation of a municipal organization financed by tax income. The burghers of Stockholm, however, opposed the proposal and argued that they were themselves better suited to care for the streetlights. The common good should be provided by individual action of responsible, male householders. Eventually the burghers got the upper hand and public street lightning continued to be organized by private initiative until the mid-nineteenth century.When in the 1720s the Swedish diet discussed the lease of custom duties by a merchant consortium (Sw. generaltullarrendesocieteten), the problem of corruption emerged as the bone of contention. Proponents claimed that this form of private enterprise was an effective means to suppress widespread corruption among state officials. Their opponents argued to the contrary that private leaseholders would skim off the profits for themselves, thereby depriving the state of its income.In the mid-eighteenth century the city authorities in Stockholm debated whether the emptying of latrines should remain an individual concern or if it should be recognized as a public matter. The city officials at first decided that this task was indeed a matter of public concern that should be handled by private entrepreneurs. Within a few years they had changed their minds, however, proposing instead that a new communal organization should be created for the removal of city waste. By now, the ruling elite of Stockholm had begun to identify the common good with municipal direction.The development of railway infrastructure was a hotly debated subject in the Swedish diet of the 1850s. Some representatives argued that private entrepreneurs would provide more cost-effective solutions than publicly managed railways, while others claimed that the state must administer a national system of railways. In the debate, private self-interest was juxtaposed with equal access to the common good. The proponents of state intervention claimed that national concerns must have priority over financial gain, and this argument would eventually influence the final decision.By the middle of the nineteenth century there was a growing consensus among the ruling elites in Sweden that the common good could best be provided for by state or municipal initiative. In the debates, arguments about organizational efficiency and equal access to public services eventually won out over notions of individual responsibility and private enterprise as a better alternative to corrupt government. In the late twentieth century the debate had shifted radically, however. The reasons for this shift will be the subject of our future research.

This article explores four political debates in the Swedish diet and among the ruling elite in Stockholm on the organization of public services. The results demonstrate how in different ways notions of the common good permeated the discourse on all occasions.When the Swedish government tried to initiate public street lightning in Stockholm in 1749, there was a broad consensus among government and city officials that this should be done by the creation of a municipal organization financed by tax income. The burghers of Stockholm, however, opposed the proposal and argued that they were themselves better suited to care for the street lights. The common good should be provided by individual action of responsible, male householders. Eventually the burghers got the upper hand and public street lightning continued to be organized by private initiative until the mid-nineteenth century.When in the 1720s the Swedish diet discussed the lease of custom duties by a merchant consortium (Sw. generaltullarrendesocieteten), the problem of corruption emerged as the bone of contention. Proponents claimed that this form of private enterprise was an effective means to suppress widespread corruption among state officials. Their opponents argued to the contrary that private leaseholders would skim off the profits for themselves, thereby depriving the state of its income.In the mid-eighteenth century the city authorities in Stockholm debated whether the emptying of latrines should remain an individual concern or if it should be recognized as a public matter. The city officials at first decided that this task was indeed a matter of public concern that should be handled by private entrepreneurs. Within a few years they had changed their minds, however, proposing instead that a new communal organization should be created for the removal of city waste. By now, the ruling elite of Stockholm had begun to identify the common good with municipal direction.The development of railway infrastructure was a hotly debated subject in the Swedish diet of the 1850s. Some representatives argued that private entrepreneurs would provide more cost-effective solutions than publicly managed railways, while others claimed that the state must administer a national system of railways. In the debate, private self-interest was juxtaposed with equal access to the common good. The proponents of state intervention claimed that national concerns must have priority over financial gain, and this argument would eventually influence the final decision.By the middle of the nineteenth century there was a growing consensus among the ruling elites in Sweden that the common good could best be provided for by state or municipal initiative. In the debates, arguments about organizational efficiency and equal access to public services eventually won out over notions of individual responsibility and private enterprise as a better alternative to corrupt government. In the late twentieth century the debate had shifted radically, however. The reasons for this shift will be the subject of our future research.