The Untouchables: Stability among the Swedish Local Elite

Abstract

The development of local government from the 1950s to the late 1970s represents one of the most obvious efforts to modernize the political system during the 20th Century. The number of local governments was reduced from about 2,500 before the first reapportionment reform 1952, to 280 after the last amalgamation reform in the mid 1970s. This development paved the way for an increase in each local government’s revenue income base, as well as an expanding public sector, local party politicization and transformation from administration by laymen to administration by professionals (Strömberg & Westerståhl 1984). In Sweden as well as in the other Scandinavian countries, the modernization of the political system more generally has resulted in a development of a nationally regulated, but nevertheless locally governed welfare state (Szücs 1993, 1995, Strömberg & Engen 1996).¹

For an extended description of the development of Swedish local government, see our contribution in Democracy and Local Governance: Ten Empirical Studies (1993) edited by Betty Jacob, Krzysztof Ostrowski and Henry Teune.