Parliamentary democracy is the most common regime type in the contemporary political world, but the quality of governance depends on effective parliamentary oversight and strong political parties. Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden have traditionally been strongholds of parliamentary democracy. In recent years, however, critics have suggested that new challenges such as weakened popular attachment, the advent of cartel parties, the judicialization of politics, and European integration have threatened the institutions of parliamentary democracy in the Nordic region. This volume examines these claims and their implications. The authors find that the Nordic states have moved away from their previous resemblance to a Westminster model toward a form of parliamentary democracy with more separation-of-powers features—a Madisonian model. These features are evident both in vertical power relations (e.g., relations with the European Union) and horizontal ones (e.g., increasingly independent courts and central banks). Yet these developments are far from uniform and demonstrate that there may be different responses to the political challenges faced by contemporary Western democracies.

The book is the first major analysis of parliamentary developments in the Nordic countries of Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Sweden. It deals with parliamentary change in the past few decades in a comparative and systematic manner. All four countries have experienced increasing legislative activity. In Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, increased conflict and party conflict competition are also revealed, and the parliaments of the three countries have become more powerful. However, the governments of the three countries have become weaker and more unstable. In Finland, on the other hand, developments have been almost in the opposite direction. The book attempts to explain similarities and differences of parliamentary government in the four Nordic countries.

The Handbook provides a broad introduction to Swedish politics, and how Sweden's political system and policies have evolved over the past few decades.

This companion volume to 'Scandinavian Politics Today' talks about the distinctive features of Scandinavian democracy, the state of Scandinavian democracy, and the classification of the Scandinavian democracies. It could serve as a textbook for courses on Scandinavian politics, legislative studies and comparative politics.

This book uses Sweden as a test case to analyze how parliament and elected representatives function in a representative democracy. Despite the status of Scandinavian countries as perhaps the world’s most egalitarian societies, the book argues that the best summary characterization of Swedish representative democracy is an elitist system run from above. The book also argues that an individualist representational model is relevant to the Swedish setting and most likely, to other settings as well. Representative democracy is not just party-based democracy - not even in a country with strong and disciplined parties. The book takes a broad approach to the study of political representation. It integrates into a single analytical framework concepts and theories from neighbouring traditions such as legislative behaviour, opinion formation and interest organizations. The study is based on a comprehensive set of data, including three surveys of the Members of the Swedish Parliament, corresponding voter surveys and content analysis of mass media and parliamentary records.

This text begins by setting the Scandinavian parliaments in their historical and national settings. It goes on to analyse political representation, parliamentary organization, parliamentary decision-making and considers the relations between the national parliaments and the larger European setting.