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Sweden: Democratic Reforms and Partisan Decline in an Emerging Separation‐of‐Powers System 1
Author(s) -
Bergman Torbjörn
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
scandinavian political studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.65
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-9477
pISSN - 0080-6757
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9477.2004.00104.x
Subject(s) - constitution , scrutiny , democracy , openness to experience , political science , separation of powers , politics , voting , political economy , democratization , de facto , public administration , law , sociology , psychology , social psychology
Early in the twentieth century, parliamentary democracy developed within an 1809 constitution based on separation of powers. By the mid‐1970s, the last remnants of this constitution had disappeared. After that, measures such as more openness in candidate nominations, positive preference voting and more scrutiny by parliamentarians were introduced to strengthen the democratic chain. But a weakening of political parties and an increased importance of external constraints are again moving Sweden towards a de facto separation‐of‐powers system. There is once again a considerable discrepancy between the written constitutional framework and the ‘working constitution’. In particular, local and supranational constraints on national policy making provide reason for a reconsideration of the constitutional framework.