Valstatistik i bruk. Socialdemokratin, väljarna och den osäkra demokratin 1912–1929

[Using election statistics. Social democracy, the electorate and Sweden’s uncertain democracy 1912–1929]Long before opinion polls and electoral research, official election statistics provided politically useful quantitative knowledge of voters. When voting rights and the electorate quickly expanded in Sweden in the early 1900s, this knowledge aroused considerable interest. Petter Tistedt’s article explores how three leading Swedish social democrats – Rickard Sandler, Gustav Möller and Per Albin Hansson – made use of election statistics during the breakthrough period of both Swedish democracy and the Swedish Social Democratic Party. The study shows how this form of knowledge was not regarded as an already finished, politically neutral view of the electorate. Instead, it was treated as an imperfect tool that could be reworked, criticized, and form the basis for new knowledge – or be dismissed. As such, it was drawn into crucial discussions about the representative claims of the party and its long-term strategies for parliamentary takeover.Publication history: Published original.(Published 16 June 2020)Citation: Tistedt, Petter (2020) “Valstatistik i bruk. Socialdemokratin, väljarna och den osäkra demokratin 1912–1929”, in Arkiv. Tidskrift för samhällsanalys, issue 12, pp. 61–93. DOI: https://doi.org/10.13068/2000-6217.12.2Redan långt före opinionsundersökningar och samhällsvetenskaplig valforskning fanns en annan politiskt användbar kvantitativ kunskap om väljare: officiell valstatistik. När rösträtten och därmed elektoratet snabbt utvidgades i början på 1900-talet väckte denna kunskap påtagligt intresse. Petter Tistedts artikel utforskar hur tre ledande svenska socialdemokrater – Rickard Sandler, Gustav Möller samt Per Albin Hansson – gjorde bruk av valstatistik under partiets och den svenska demokratins genombrottstid. Studien visar hur denna kunskapsform inte tänktes tillhandahålla en redan färdig, politiskt neutral blick på valmanskåren. I stället behandlades den som ett ofullkomligt redskap som kunde omarbetas, kritiseras och bilda utgångspunkt för ny kunskap – eller avfärdas. Som sådan drogs den in i centrala diskussioner om socialdemokratins representativa anspråk och dess långsiktiga strategier för parlamentariskt maktövertagande.Publiceringshistorik: Originalpublicering.(Publicerad 16 juni 2020)Förslag på källangivelse: Tistedt, Petter (2020) ”Valstatistik i bruk. Socialdemokratin, väljarna och den osäkra demokratin 1912–1929”, i Arkiv. Tidskrift för samhällsanalys, nr 12, s. 61–93. DOI: https://doi.org/10.13068/2000-6217.12.

Visions of Utopia: Sweden, the BBC and the Welfare State

Drawing on manuscripts and transcripts of BBC programme output, and material from the Radio Times, and the BBC’s The Listener magazine, this article analyses radio talks and programmes that focused on Sweden in the immediate years after the Second World War when the Swedish model was widely popularised abroad. The article argues that BBC output entangled domestic politics and transnational ideas around post-war reconstruction and welfare. Sweden was used as a lens through which a modern welfare state could be visualised and justified. This was however Utopia in two senses since the image of Sweden presented was in itself a highly idealised representation

Visions of citizen audiences : Media and social reform in the 1930s

This dissertation investigates how progressive social reformers in Sweden used mass media in order to encourage the general public to take part in discussions on contemporary social and political problems. Two cases are studied in detail: the population debates of the mid-1930s, and the Modern Leisure exhibition in Ystad 1936. How were audiences – readers, radio listeners and exhibition visitors – invited to participate in these media events? Which tasks were assigned to audiences and according to which criteria were they evaluated? Why, according to social reformers themselves, was audience participation important? The aim is to contribute to our understanding of the early formation of Western democratic culture. The investigation shows how possibilities of civic action were created. The Swedish population was conceived of as a question to discuss, and the role of citizens was to form new opinions based on their political views and current social scientific knowledge. In contrast, modern leisure was conceptualized as a new problem. The task given to exhibition visitors did not include taking a stand in a political debate. Rather, visitors were encouraged to make well-informed individual choices and to form new domestic habits. In both instances citizens were encouraged to contemplate the social and political consequences of their own actions. The dissertation offers new insights into the history of social engineering. In a Swedish context, Alva and Gunnar Myrdal are understood as a paradigmatic case. This investigation shows, however, that their arguments and actions do not fit very well with some aspects of the standard understanding of social engineering. Their insistence on the need for public discussion, opinion formation and universal education for active citizenship are cases in point. This study also highlights previously under-researched aspects of interwar democratic activism. The actors studied in this dissertation were not primarily discussing or educating people about the danger of authoritarian ideologies. Instead, they were preoccupied with creating conditions in which democracy could survive and prosper. Creating citizen audiences was a way of defending democracy

Propagandastudier : Kooperativa förbundet, demokratin och det fria tankelivet på 1930-talet

Propaganda Studies: The Swedish Cooperative Union, Democracy, and Free Thinking in the 1930s This article investigates educational efforts of the Swedish Cooperative Union (Kooperativa förbundet, KF) during the late interwar period. It focuses on how KF dealt with the fact that propaganda could be a very effective tool of persuasion – e.g. as commercial advertising – but that it also could undermine democracy. For KF, a prolific and innovative advertiser as well as a strong proponent of democratic ideals, this was a real conundrum. Using study guides, books and journals published by KF as sources, this article investigates how members of its study groups were instructed to think about propaganda and its role in society. It is argued that members were taught a form of critical acceptance of propaganda, one that not only legitimized its role in the market, but in democratic public life as well

Reklam för demokrati? : Reklamens politik i mellankrigstidens Sverige

Even following the introduction of universal suffrage, the meaning, development and future of representative democracy represented a contested issue in Sweden. As in many other countries, one important concern was the function and importance of effective civic communication. This article explores these debates by focusing on discourses concerning the relationship between democracy and advertising. More specifically, it analyzes how members and supporters of the advertising industry intervened in debates on democracy by constructing and promoting politically significant advertising concepts. Using mainly advertising periodicals and handbooks as sources, this article asks: How did these actors look upon the role of advertising in democratic societies? Which kinds of visions of society did the concept of advertising entail? How were considerations regarding democracy incorporated in discussions on advertising? While there is plenty of scholarship on the uses of advertising and propaganda in politics, we still have limited knowledge concerning the political implications of advertising concepts in the interwar period. Furthermore, in present-day debates and scholarship, the symbiosis between advertising and politics is generally explored as a problem for democracy. This article instead analyzes the conceptual foundations and democratic hopes and expectations of such a symbiosis. It demonstrates how advertising promised to cultivate free, educated and self-reflective citizens, to streamline civic communication and to let the political “battles” be fought out by means of words and images instead of by opposing citizens. Hence, advertising was construed as the answer to three major arguments against democracy: that its demos was not up to the task, that it was too ineffective and that it created or exacerbated internal conflicts. Making democracy safe for the world has been a major preoccupation in mainstream political thought and practice during the twentieth century, and many “admen” were keen on participating in such a project.</p