Consensual Democracy in Scandinavia

"Consensual democracy": what do is meant by the term, and is its application to Denmark, Norway and Sweden still appropriate (if it ever was)?

One of the identifying features often attributed to Scandinavia is the distinctively consensual nature of the political decision making process. This characterisation of Scandinavian politics as being especially consensual and co-operative is frequently seen through british eyes in sharp contrast to the combative, confrontational nature of "winner takes all" competitive politics characterised in the entertaining confrontations that occur across the floor of the British House of Commons. This consensual description of Scandinavian politics will be examined below [using the said three metropolitan countries], the validity, in terms of "how democratic?" this co-opting environment really is will be questioned and consideration will be given to perceived threats to consensual democracy observed in more recent times of changing political culture.
Consensual, as opposed to adversarial [UK style] politics has been described as one of the main features of the Nordic model of government (Arter, 1999: 148). Moreover a culture of consensus is said to form a part of, and evan be deeply rooted in Scandinavian life. This does not have to mean a perfect world in which political conflict does not exist but rather that the way in which decisions are reached is achieved through through a system in which the overriding desire is that for collective deliberations and compromise:
The notion of a culture of consensus does not imply the total absence of conflict and dissension but has to do with the existence through a special procedure for arriving at collective decisions. A crucial element of this method is that all the parties concerned are given a chance to have their say and be heard. Another aspect of the procedure is that decisions grow out of deliberations and consultations between the parties. (Peterson, 1994: 37)
This orientation towards collective action through wide and thorough consultation with all interested parties seems to for a mainstay of Scandinavian [political] culture and may be divisible to individual psychology; In his study of political elites in Sweden for instance, Thomas Anton found that the willingness to compromise was deeply embedded in their attitudes resulting in long, drawn-out procedures involving preparatory research and pre-planning before the long process of deliberation itself got underway (Anton, 1980: 159). The resulting policy decisions " -are themselves structured to avoid lasting opposition" and " -distributes a little bit of some benefit to all involved participants, excluding none from some share of the 'action'. " (Ibid)
Evidence for the "collective" orientation in Scandinavia can be seen in the ubiquity of groups not only in the sense of those we usually tend in Britain to think of as organised, political "interest groups" but also in a myriad of social (such as sports associations), as well as economic group interests included in the policy-making arena. Indeed, sports associations form some of the largest organisations, and it has been noted that these, along with cultural and humanitarian groups have tended to form national bodies (Kvavik, 1976: 4). The exceptionally high membership levels of to one kind of association or another is a notable feature of Scandinavian life, as Peterson notes of Sweden:
Only a small minority, less than ten percent, of the adult population, remain outside associational life. An even smaller minority of eight percent are members of seven or more different kinds of organisation. There is therefore a cosiderable degree of variation around the average of three memberships per adult Swede but the great majority of Swedes are members of between one and four associations. (Peterson, 1994: 157)
The consensual and collective orientation towards decision making is commonly attributed to a high of homogeneity in the Scandinavian countries, which in turn is oft put down to the relatively late arrival of capitalism to Norden. This meant a relative absence of an early capitalist middle class [unlike in the UK] and a comparatively free ["un-oppressed"] peasantry. Plus, the large new populations of workers were brought into a system that was ready- "socialistic" to use Korpi's term (Korpi, 1978: 72) and suffrage was extended during a period when the working class was still forming (ibid) contributing to the early strength of the Left [which we will come back to later].
This can be said to be most true of Sweden, then Norway and less true of Denmark whose capitalism developed in a way more akin to the UK-a situation which is repeated in other cultural/political area where Sweden can be seen as the most ideally or classically Scandinavian of the three countries, Denmark the least [or more "Western" or British-like], with Norway somewhere in-between.
The co-operative aspect to Scandinavian politics must owe itself not least to the fact that the countries are governed through proportional systems of representation and not a first-past-the-post "winner takes all" like the one we are used to here in Britain [at least still in general elections]. Proportional representation means that parties are much more likely to co-operate and form coalitions with one-another, and perhaps even more importantly; parties will often try to make a wider appeal in the sense that they may "tread on other parties' territory" as it were to steal some support across usual party loyalties.
In Sweden, which has an exceptionally proportional system, minority rule [across the Left-Right spectrum] has been the norm, thus cross-party negotiation has been traditional and indeed, unavoidable. Denmark has seen a mixture of minority and majority rule while in this case, it is Norway that stands out as having had an extended period of [labour party] majority rule through the 1940s and 1950s. In all three countries, "Earthquake elections" have land marked times of increasing voter-volatility of late -and is an issue tat will be returned to later.
How policy is actually decided and formulated is a drawn-out and very deliberative affair in the three countries. This can be shown by the frequency, for example, of royal commissions when compared to those of the UK. A royal commission in Britain is a relatively rare and grandiose affair whereas in Sweden, hundreds of royal commissions take place every year and these, along with other commissions and committees of all sorts make up a normal part of Scandinavian political life.
Politicians from different parties, officials from public authorities, local government and interest organisations plus academics from research institutes are likely to sit on commissions of enquiry (Peterson, 1994: 90). This type of commission is especially common in Sweden where there are a large number of relatively small government departments. Commissions of enquiry investigate policy areas and develop proposals (ibid). Olof Peterson notes that the commission system has been of central importance in Sweden:Commissions of enquiry have paved the way for many of the major reforms and have often served as a forum for achieving compromises and arriving at a broad consensus. (Ibid)
The parliaments of all three countries also have systems of standing committees which reflect the balance of power in parliament, where in Norway for example, every MP belongs to one of twelve standing committees on major areas of policy (Arter, 1999: 218).Denmark's standing committees used to be temporary, ad hoc affairs set up to attend to particular bills [like in the UK] until this system was abolished in 1971 (ibid). Politicians in Scandinavia seem to attach great importance to this stage of policy formation:The vast majority of Nordic parliamentarians are orientated towards the detailed work of legislation rather than attracting the attention of the media or advertising themselves generally. They excel in considering the 'small print' of government proposals and feel most at home in the usually informal environment of the standing committees. Indeed, the Nordic parliaments may be considered 'working parliaments' in that there isa strong legislative culture and members are both recruited with, and subsequently consolidate, an area of policy expertise. (Ibid: 215)
This emphasis on policy expertise, through both the specialisation of political representatives in certain policy areas, and the recruitment of academics and policy experts also makes the committee stage a particularly attractive access point for interest groups (Kvavik, 1976: 93-94).
Major policy proposals, once finally made then go to yet another level of deliberative consultation. At the "Remiss" stage, all interested parties, including representations of any section of people likely to be affected by the proposals are invited to make critical comments on them. The thoroughness of this stage, in terms of regulation by formalised powers is again stronger in Sweden and Norway than in Denmark. But whatever, all interested parties are usually seen to have their say before cabinet can finally draft legislation.
One of the paradoxes of Scandinavia has been the relatively peaceful coexistence and co-operation between a very strong left-wing political force within a capitalist economic order (Castles, 1978: 119). Negotiations between LO [the main, enveloping union wing of the left], the foremost political parties of the left [the Social Democrats in Denmark and Sweden and the Labour party in Norway] and the bourgeois block, have formed a primary focus of political life in Scandinavia. Corporatist [that is, the incorporation of organised group interests into government processes] negotiations have, in Scandinavia lead to a situation that has historically, explicitly expressed, and even tended to favour left-wing thinking [at least, that is, within a scenario in which economic growth can still be maintained]. As Francis Castles has stressed:"Only in Scandinavia have the Social Democrats been fighting battles on a ground of their own choosing"
and
"-only in Scandinavia do the capitalists oppose social democracy on grounds of interest rather than principle" (ibid: 142).
This is not least because the high level of corporate pluralism in Scandinavia has historically been used by the working-class organisations to enable social democratic thinking to be integrated into the very fabric of capitalist society:Four decades of progressively increasing representation at every level and in every institutional sphere have made the trade unions not only the most powerful single veto group in society, but also amongst the most influential forces in defining the prevailing image of society. (Ibid: 131)
So all in all, it does indeed seem that Scandinavian politics is markedly deliberative in nature. However, this is not necessarily at all the same as to say it is truly consensual -in an "across the board", all inclusive kind of way. The explicit inclusion of powerful interests such as the LO is all very well, but what about smaller, less powerful or less well organised interests? How democratic is the process really?
Smaller political parties for instance, have sometimes found they do not get a seat at standing committees [which reflect the balance of power in assemblies]. The Left-Communists in Sweden were too small for entitlement to an automatic place on standing committees through much of the 1970s and 1980s and only gained places through agreements with the ruling Social Democrats (Arter, 1999: 214).
Other interests may be quite large but have little voice in Scandinavian deliberative procedures through being simply too disorganised. Young people are underrepresented in Scandinavian power bases and many may now be turning to new forms of political expression outside the established channels (Peterson, 1994: 221). These new outlets might include participation in "direct actions" and demonstrations that by-pass traditional political activity. Also, Sweden set up a Sami Parliament to offer official recognition and representation of the Sami population, but this has mainly a consultative role and the Sami still feel they are politically suppressed, a feeling not helped by Sweden's refusal to ratify the International Labour Organisation's convention on indigenous peoples (ibid: 218).
As well as the problem of representation, an additional question-mark has been identified by Rune Premfors (1989, Policyanalys, studentlitteratur: Lund in Arter, 1999: 153) as hanging over the possibility of disproportionate significance attached to detail-deliberation and policy preparation " -at the expense of their execution, evaluation and feedback" (Arter, 1999: 153). There is the further danger that the co-opting of organised interests in a lengthy and highly systematic fashion may be seen as a method of diffusing [or even to some extent dis-arming] opposition rather than seeing it as a way of truly taking differing interests on board. Indeed protracted procedures of policy deliberation that can take years to work through can be a useful way of deferring policy; knocking difficult political questions "out of bounds" as it were, in terms of the immediate future through entering into a process which can be relied upon to " -postpone issues of a highly divisive and partisan character" (ibid: 158).
In recent decades, changes to Scandinavian political culture have been noted that could be seen as threatening or even undermining the consensual aspect to policy formation. The "Earthquake elections" that have, to a greater or lesser extent, affected the three countries [in 1973 in Denmark and Norway and to a lesser extent - Sweden's mini-earthquake of 1991] may have marked the end of the classic five-part model of Scandinavian government. With the classic party model broken new parties have risen, gaining support from across traditional party loyalties. New radical parties appeared on the far left and right, while other populist movement were affirmed in elections by the rise for instance, of the Swedish Green party [that gained support from both the socialist and bourgeois blocks]. Class-dealignment and thus increased voter-volaility [a Europe wide phenomenon] are trends that have scoured deep into the traditional patterns of government formation, and legislative culture:
The advent of populist protest parties since the early 1970s has made the legislative culture of the Nordic parliaments less consensual and pragmatic. The small parties, especially on the radical right, have been able to exert blackmail influence in relation to the formation of coalitions, as well as in sustaining or dismissing cabinets in office. (Arter, 1999: 218)
During this period, the growth in party conflict seems also to have lead to declining consensus at the standing committee stage of policy scrutiny (ibid: 217). Commissions of enquiry in Sweden are now expected to work more quickly and cannot advance new reforms that increase expenditure (Peterson, 1994: 90-91), a sign also of the pressure of Norden's new economic pressures. Commissions have also seen levels of agreement drop:
The major interest organisations have lost an important channel of influence with direct access to the political decision-making process. The reduced significance of the commission system also reflects the shift of Swedish politics away from a consensus-oriented political culture towards a more conflictual one. (Ibid)
Peterson also implies that in an age of increasing globalisation, and especially considering Scandinavia's' location at the forefront of the information [technological] revolution; new and larger numbers of organisational groupings have appeared and "the number of actors involved in conflicts has also risen as have the points of interaction." (ibid: 204)
The consensual nature of Scandinavian democracy is however, overall, still appropriate in the application of the term to the modern condition of these three countries. Seen for example, in comparative perspective with the UK; while Sweden, Denmark and Norway may may be moving towards increasingly adversarial [ or more UK-like] styles of political conflict, by more polarised and less homogeneous political actors, they are still three countries that as we have seen, still openly invite all organised group interests into the policy-making arena, and exist within the context of a more democratic, proportional system of representation.

2463 Words.



Bibliography


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