Ideology and Strategy: A Century of Swedish Politics

by Leif Lewin

Overview

This book empirically analyzes how a minority can succeed in having its way in a modern democracy. The author applies modern rational choice theory to examine such paradoxical triumphs in Swedish domestic politics over the past 100 years. Identifying Arrow's paradox, Prisoner's Dilemma, and other famous game-theoretic matrices, eight important issues in Swedish parliamentary history are explained: the tariff issue in the 1880s, the introduction of universal suffrage, the introduction of parliamentary government, the new economic politics during the 1930s, the debate on planned economies, the supplementary pensions issue, the nuclear power issue, and the wage earners' fund issue. For each, the author presents the outcome and its history, and the strategic behavior of the actors.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521031448
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/23/2006
Series:	Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	5.94(w) x 8.94(h) x 0.79(d)

Table of Contents

List of tables; Series editors' preface; Author's preface; 1. The problem of rationality; 2. Tariffs; 3. Suffrage; 4. Parliamentarism; 5. The crisis agreement; 6. Economic planning; 7. The supplementary pension system; 8. Nuclear power; 9. Employee investment funds; 10. Strategic action in politics; Appendix; Index.