Policy of Sweden

Sweden is a Constitutional monarchy. It is organized according to the principle of Séparation of the capacities and a representative Démocratie with parliamentary Régime Monocaméral.

Institutions

Executive power

Head of the State

Since the adoption of the constitution of 1970, Swedish monarchy is completely constitutional. The king, Head of the State, have primarily honorary functions and of representation: according to the constitution, it represents the unit of the Nation and Sweden on the international plan (thus it receives the foreign Heads of State at the time of official visits). It names the Prime Minister, opens the annual session of the Parliament, directs the special Council of Ministers, is the President of the Advisory counsel of the Foreign affairs, has the rank more raised Army and gives each year the official diploma to the prizes winner of the Nobel Prize at the time of a sumptuous ceremony. January 1st, 1980, the sexual equality in the royal succession was founded. The current sovereign is Charles XVI Gustave and its heiress is her daughter Victoria, duchess of Västergötland.

Cabinet

See also: List of Swedish the Prime Ministers

The cabinet is composed of the Prime Minister ( Statsminister ), is named by the Head of the State, and ministers, named by the Prime Minister. The chief of the government is supposed being representative of the political clouts composing the parliamentary majority in Riksdag. Current the Prime Minister is Fredrik Reinfeldt, leader of the Parti the moderate gathering. He directs a government made up of 22 ministers.

Local government agencies

Sweden is a decentralized Republic . It is cut out in 20 counties, equipped with a Board of directors elected with the Universal direct suffrage. Their missions relate to the lifting of the taxes and the management of the medical departments and medical. The 290 communes are equipped with a Municipal council elected him also by the direct suffrage. They have as a task the lifting of certain taxes, the management and the financing of the schools and the assumption of responsibility of the elderly and the companies of the public service.

Legislative power

Riksdag

See also: Riksdag (Sweden)

The Riksdag is the single room of the Swedish Parliament. He exerts the legislative power, controls the government action and is made up of 349 members elected by the universal direct suffrage for 4 years at the time of the general elections (which relate to also that of the town councilors) to the preferential list system to the representation proportional according to the modified method of Holy Laguë. Three hundred and ten seats are distributed between twenty-nine districts, the thirty-nine remainder are seats of compensation and are allotted to the various parties with an aim of better a representation at the national level. The candidates elected with these compensatory seats are it in the districts where left to them profits from the strongest remainder. A party must have obtained 4% of the votes cast at the national level or 12% within a district given to take part in the distribution of the voices.

1/Denomination of the parties and their représentant
2/ sit following the general elections of 2006.
3/ Percentage of the votes received with the general elections 2006

Electoral results with the Riksdag (1911 - 2006)

Judicial power

The Swedish legal institutions are completely independent of the government. The legal body includes/understands a system of course on three levels:

  • the Supreme court (Hogsta Domstolen), last Court of Appeal for all the businesses.

  • six Courses of call.
  • municipal District courts and Course.

The four obudsmans, named by Riksdag for a four years mandate, are given the responsability to take care of the application of the laws by different the courses and administrations, and observe the evolution of their application. They exert a role of referee at the time of different between the Swedish administration and citizens, and can bring evidence of errors or damages before a court after investigation.

Political parties

See also: Swedish Political parties

The political parties have a determining role in Sweden. Since the beginnings of the Swedish democracy, the social democrat Party arrives practically systematically at the head of all the elections. No other party is of comparable force, although the moderate ones are regularly in second poisition since 1979. The power struggles are very variable on the right: currently the moderate ones are by far the dominant party in its center, but in 2002 it exceeded only of 7 seats the liberals, who were themselves the principal party of the right-hand side of 1944 at the end of the years 1960, before being exceeded by the centrists, themselves preceded by the moderate ones since 1979. The Christian Democrats have could set up a parliamentary group with Riksdag only since 1991, and the greens since 1988 (with an interruption in 91). As for the Party of the left, successor of the Swedish Communist party, it was always an historical figure of the Swedish left at the sides of the social democrats. It should be noted that in 1991, NYD, a party radical line, had come to disturb the political game by carrying a score of seats. They never again sat at Riksdag last this legislature. In addition to the crowd of small parts which never exceed the bar of the 1% (or almost), the Démocrates Swedish (SD), nationalist movement ultraconservator, obtain scores turning around the 2% at the national level and some successes at the local level.

Political parties represented with the Riksdag

  • S - Sveriges Socialdemokratiska Arbetareparti (Left social democrat the workers), social democrats
  • M - Moderata samlingspartiet (Left the moderate gathering), preserving liberal
  • C - Centerpartiet (Left the Center), old agrarian party
  • FpL - Folkpartiet Liberalerna (Left populates to them Libéraux), liberal
  • KD - Kristdemokraterna (Left Christian Democrat), democratic Christians
  • Vp - Vänsterpartiet (Left the left), old communist party
  • MP - Miljöpartiet de Gröna (Left the environment them Green), ecologists

Swedish social democracy and model

The social democrat model left on the Culture country a major print. Indeed, more than a Political , this Idéologie is registered in filigree on several levels of the company since the Thirties.

“Until recently, social democracy enjoyed an uncontested legitimacy. What is new, it is that is not any more the case”. These remarks, made in 2005 by one of the largest Swedish leader-writers, illustrate well the opinion of the press like that of many political circles. The debate relates indeed primarily to the responsibility for the social democrats, who dominated the political life of the country during nearly one half-century. The Welfare state, known as Maciej Zaremba, was untouchable a long time. A decision taken by the social democrats could not be bad nor immoral. One could not touch with the myth. Why want to calumniate a humanistic company concerned weaker?

To introduce this subject requires a return on some pages of Histoire. Briefly let us specify the concept of social democracy. Between the totalitarian and bureaucratic stagnation of the communist country S and the Liberalism economically effective but excessively brutal from a social point of view of North America, the Central Europe knew to find an alternative original, reconciling economic efficiency and social wellbeing. The Scandinavian countries - and in particular the Sweden - appeared with before guard of this experiment. It is in the sense that one could speak about a “Swedish model”. This short definition remains quite vague, because there exist actually several complementary Swedish models and sometimes competitors, incarnated by elements common to all the Scandinavian countries such as the Welfare state, the trade-union power, a quite particular Employment Policy, etc the values of good being for all and solidarity cruelly faded with the fall of Communism. With the wire of time, their handing-over in question had a violent impact on the Swedish cultural landscape, being sometimes the catalyst of major cultural movements. In search of diagrams of action adapted better to the news gives sociocultural, the realizers of then test themselves on new experiments, new subjects, new kinds.

Bibliography and sources

External bonds

  • the site of the Swedish Parliament

  • the result of the elections at the Swedish Parliament since 1944

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