ABSTRACT

In discussions of Scandinavian democratisation, it is commonplace to argue that long-standing farmer representation in parliament and a lack of feudalism facilitated early democratisation. The present essay questions this interpretation in the Swedish case. It centres on a re-interpretation of farmer politics at the national level from the 1866 two-chamber parliament reform to the alliance between the farmers’ party and Social Democrats in 1933. It is shown that democratisation was late and rapid; the 1866 reform was profoundly undemocratic. Swedish farmers did not organise themselves independently of nobles and landowners until the 1920s, and did not play the role of an independent pro-democratic force. The broad-based organisations of farmers in the 1920s and 1930s, with their democratic, participatory culture, were heavily influenced by the political culture of liberals and the labour movement. The implication for analyses of democratisation is that deep roots are less decisive than often supposed, and that modern political agency and organisation conversely, in contrast to influential research traditions and theories of democracy, can reverse undemocratic traditions.

摘要

在讨论斯堪的纳维亚民主化时，通常认为议会中长期存在的农民代表权和封建主义的缺乏促进了早期的民主化。本文对瑞典案例中的这种解释提出质疑。它集中在国家层面对农民政治的重新解释，从 1866 年的两院议会改革到 1933 年农民党与社会民主党的联盟。1866年的改革非常不民主。直到 1920 年代，瑞典农民才组织起来独立于贵族和地主，也没有扮演独立的民主力量的角色。1920 年代和 1930 年代基础广泛的农民组织，以其民主、参与的文化，深受自由派政治文化和劳工运动的影响。对民主化分析的意义在于，深层根源不如人们通常认为的那样具有决定性，相反，现代政治机构和组织与有影响力的研究传统和民主理论相反，可以扭转不民主的传统。