Sweden in terms of Social Science / Svensk samhällskunskap (på engelska)

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Sweden in terms of Social Science / Svensk samhällskunskap (på engelska)

Websites Used:
http://www.si.se - Svenska Institutet
http://www.riksdagen.se - Riksdagen (additional brochures + pamphlets ordered)
http://www.marxist.org - Marxist Glossary
http://www.encarta.com - Encarta Encyclopedia
http://www.bartleby.com/65/ - Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition 2001.

Brochures/Pamphlets:
Millennium – Samhällskunskap (Bonniers)
Sveriges Riksdag Series:
Sveriges Riksdag; The Swedish Parliament; Riksdagen och EU


Part 2.

1.) “Tribal society” is a stable social system with a division of labour organised around extended family relations, in which people lived before the split into social classes. The “tribal society” is a description which covers a vast array of societies, from the earliest humans to the citizens of Greek before 600 B.C. A “tribal society” has no social classes, and for this reason sometimes is referred to as “primitve communism”. It was governed by a definite constitution and system of laws, and the rights of this tribal law did not reach anyone outside the tribe. Slavery, tax and wage-labour are unknown, because tribal society had no means of persuading people to work nor any way of providing for their living other than the traditional tribal division of labour. Production and consumption in tribal society were closely linked, and though there could be no notion of “equality”, not was there any room for exploitation.

2.) The ‘Middle Ages’ was a period in the history of Europe that lasted from about 350 A.D to about 1450. The Western half of the Roman Empire began to fragment into smaller and weaker kingdoms, and this was the start of many modern European states which took their shape from then. In the Middle Ages, people thought they were living in modern times. The term ‘Middle Ages’ was adopted by people during the Renaissance. Although the transitions were slow, and exact dates for the separation of the Middle Ages are misleading, agreement often places the beginning of the period between the 395 to the 410. The Dark Ages now refers usually to the period of 450-750 (also known as the Early Middle Ages) and the term Dark Ages may be a more judgment on the lack of sources for calculating the period than on the importance of events that occurred.
The Medieval Europe was far from united; it was a large geographical region divided into smaller and culturally different political units that were never totally dominated by any one’s power. With the collapse of the Roman Empire, Christianity became the standard-bearer of Western civilization. The papacy (office of the pope) regularly gained secular authority. By the 8th century culture centered on Christianity had been established and it included both Latin traditions and German institutions (i.e Germanic laws). The extreme empire created by Charlemagne (emperor of the West) illustrated this fusion. Nevertheless, the empire’s fragile central authority was shattered by a new wave of invasions, particularly those of the Vikings and Magyars. Feudalism, with the manorial system as its agricultural base, became the typical social and political organization of Europe. The new structure gained stability from the 11th century, as the invaders became Christian and settled and as wealth was created by agricultural novelties, increasing productivity and population expansion. The transition from the medieval to the modern world was predicted by economic expansion, political centralization and secularization. Banking, the bourgeois class, and secular ideals increased in the growing towns and lent support to the expanding monarchies. The church was weakened by internal conflicts as well as by quarrels between church and state. At last, the great medieval unity of Christianity was shattered by the religious theories that concluded in the Protestant Reformation.

3.) Feudalism was the social system that characterized medieval-Europe and other preindustrial societies, based upon mutual obligation between nobility and serfs. A fuedal society is the type of civilisation which is based on traditional patterns of land-ownership and territory, in which the rights and duties of every member of society is defined by traditional inheritance and kinship relations. A feudal society differs from a tribal society in being a class society, in which quite different and unequal rights and duties are enjoyed by different families, according to land rights, wealth and social status inherited from previous generations. Sweden on the other hand, was on the way to become a feudal state when during the 14th and 15th centuries, nobles were developing into a absolute counsellor aristocracy, and gained great political power as a result of the influence they exerted over the election of kings. Yet, before this development had gotten that far as in the rest of Europe, it was broken by the hard work of the kings to strengthen central power with the help of the burghers and the landowning farmers.

4.) Magnus Eriksson’s code of laws were the first laws to replace all the laws of the provinces in the whole of Sweden – turning out to be the first time a law is passed and appropriate for the whole country. These laws are said to be containing requirements on how the King is to be elected and on his and his Council’s tasks and powers.

5.) The four Swedish estates, being nobility, clergy, burghers and the landowning farmers were all representatives of the newly formed Riksdag (Parliament) which had been established by the kings to strengthen central power by the help of the burghers and the landowning farmers after Sweden was getting close to feudalism.

6.) The Great Power Era occurred during the 1611-1718 and was when Sweden became such a great power that it became the leading state in northern Europe, with the ruling of Gustav II Adolf and Axel Oxenstierna. During this time, Sweden obtained all of Estonia from Poland, including the district of Narva, Bremen from Germany, Ingria from Russia, Livonia, Denmark and Finland – including previous Danish provinces of Skåne, Halland, Blekinge and Gotland and of the previously Norwegian provinces of Bohuslän, Jämtland and Härjedalen. This was also especially because of the Swedish intervention in 1630 with great success in the Thirty Years’ War, where Gustav II Adolf had become one of Europe’s leading monarchs. However, apart from small iron works and the copper mine at Falun, Sweden was an entirely agrarian country based on natural economy, and lacked the resources to maintain its position as a great power in the long run. So after Sweden’s defeat in the Great Northern War (1700-21) against the joint forces of Denmark, Poland and Russia, Sweden lost most of its provinces on the other side of the Baltic Sea and was reduced to largely the same boundary as a present-day Sweden and Finland. The reason behind the “Great Power” term is because during this time, Sweden had its greatest power of all time, and was the time where Sweden was the greatest in its whole history and that Sweden possessed so many other provinces, at that time being one of Europe’s largest nations.

7.) The Age of Freedom refers to the four Swedish estates because during the reigns of Karl XI and Karl XII absolute dicatorship developed and the demands for a new form of government was expressed in the 1720 Constitution. This reduced the King’s power to only two votes in the Council, whose leading member, the President of the Chancery, became the real head of government. The Council was in turn responsible to the Riskdag and during this time, the so-called Age of Freedom (1720-1722) the form of government developed along parliamentary lines. During this time, liberalisation took place, where the bureaucracy governed the country (burghers being one of the four Swedish estates).

8.) The Gustavian Autocracy was mainly the period (1772-1809) where the power of the King was further strengthened. Gustav III´s and Gustav IV Adolf’s strong rivalry to the French Revolution and all its fundamental ideas of the division of power, constitutionalism and democracy brought them into conflict with large sections of both the nobility and the civil servants in Sweden. This led to the murder of Gustav III in 1792, the result of scheme of a group of nobles who were obsessively opposed to the King’s autocratic rule. The defeat in the war against Russia (1808-1809) when Finland was lost, led to a coup d’état which resulted in Gustav IV Adolf being desposed and the adoption of a new Constitution. This was a time of Absolutism in Sweden.

9.) The Constitution of 1809 was the power just ahead until 1975 and then was the second oldest Constitution in the world after the United States’. It was put together in agreement with Montesquieu’s theory of the separation of powers, taking into explanation constitutional progresses in Sweden. The King was to be the only ruler of the realm, but had at his side a Council of Ministers, who must guarantee all decisions. Governmental power was divided equally between the King and the Riksdag, while the Riksdag alone could charge taxes.

10.) The Parliamentary Reform in 1866 was the last reform which involved the abolition of the old Parliament of four estates, which had existed since the 15th century, and its replacement by a bicameral Parliament, which survived until the introduction of a unicameral system in 1971. By this, it was the Council and the Riksdag – not the King – who shaped Sweden’s politics and in critical situations made the final decisions. This meant that while the First Chamber was the environment for estate-owners, higher civil servants, and the wealthy merchants and industrialists of the towns, the self-owning farmers were in the majority in the Second Chamber.

11.) The 1919-21 constitutional reforms changed the political system again, this time giving men and women equal rights to vote, at the same time with enfranchisement ocurring. These years were the years of political instability where there arose unemployment and modernism took place.

12.) The 1975 Constitution opens with the words: “All the public power in Sweden emanates froom the people”. According to the new Constitution the king’s duties are as follows;
 The King is the Head of State
 He shall open the Riksdag every year in the month of October.
 He presides at the special cabinet mettings which take place when there is a change of government as well as at the regular so-called informatory cabinet meetings when members of the government inform him of current matters of state.
 He is chairman of the Foreign Affairs Advisory Council, i.e. the council elected by the Riksdag for consultations between the government and the Riksdag on foreign affairs.
 He holds the highest military rank. However, the realm’s armed forces are under sole command of the government.
 As the Head of State he receives the Letters of Credence of foreign envoys, i.e. approves them, as he also signs the Letters of Credence of Swedish envoys. (Svenska Institutet – The Monarchy in Sweden)

13.) The importance of the 1994 referendum was that on November 13th, Sweden was held on EU membership with votes of 52,3% being for the EU, in addition to 46,8% being against it. The referendum resulted in Sweden becoming a member of the European Union on 1st of January, 1995.


Part 3.
1. (i) General elections in the Riksdag are held every four years, on the third Sunday in September.
(ii) There are 349 seats in the Riksdag.

2. (i) Min. of 18 years of age before election day
(ii) Swedish citizenship residence in Sweden / most émigré’s can vote
(iii) “One person, one vote”-principle.

Foreigners can only vote in local votes, by this meaning that people with non-Swedish citizenship can only vote in their own district (kommun) but they cannot vote in national votes, without being a Swedish citizen.

3. (i) A political party can gain parliamentary representation by exposing democracy and linking the party to citizens, where they usually publicize the goals they wish to achieve, goals which are often founded on different ideologies. By acquiring influence in society, the political party can gain a strong position in the Riksdag and ultimately to form a Government.
(ii) A party is qualified for representation after receiving 4% of the votes in the entire country or 12 % in a constituency.

4. Motioner are the suggestions to the riksdag that are from members of the Riksdag, while propositioner are suggestions from the Government to the Riksdag.

5. The main task of the Riksdag is to take decisions on matters of importance to society as a whole, ...