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It is pointed out that the current old fashioned method for distributing seats to political parties can he replaced by the Integer Method, which is a simple percentage calculation on the votes resulting in an improved proportionality. In comparison with traditional methods like the adjusted odd number method & the Integer Method, a number of disagreements are found with respect to the number of seats actually distributed due to a basic systematic mistake. In elections in large municipalities, the sub-division into constituencies gives rise to seat number disagreements with the effect that old-fashioned distributions overestimate right-wing numbers in relation to left-wing ones. Examples of actual distributions are listed. It is proposed that the traditional methods are reconsidered in favor of the Rounding Method & that each municipality be a single constituent all to the benefit of democracy. Appendixes, References. Adapted from the source document.

The Swedish Sami Parliament is both a representative body elected by the Indigenous Sami people and a government agency under the Swedish state. Since its inception, this construction has been critiqued by the Sami people and Swedish governmental commissions alike: the Sami Parliaments dual roles are seen to be in fundamental conflict with one another. This article provides the first empirical study of the political and practical consequences of these conflicting roles. Using in-depth interviews with politicians and civil servants at the Sami Parliament, representatives of Sami organisations, and civil servants at the Swedish ministries, we analyse the extent to which the Sami Parliament is able to perform its role as a government agency. We argue that the dual roles of the Sami Parliament create problems not only for the decision making powers of the Parliament as a government agency, but also constitute a structural obstacle to Sami self-determination. Adapted from the source document.

Presents & reviews complexities concerning the definition & role of Sami political representation in the Swedish government. The organ for representation of the indigenous Sami people, Sametinget, now 10 years old, can be still considered in many ways as a political experiment in which an attempt is made to give the interests of the Sami people greater visibility & mobility in the Swedish government & increase Sami autonomy without simultaneously weakening the power of other elected Swedish organs. Much of the difficulty that arises in determining the proper & most effective direction of Sametinget is that in its definition of purpose the organ can be seen in many ways as being a type of hybrid between a popularly elected parliament & a central government administration. In this respect the Sametinget operates on inherently contradictory grounds. As these contradictions are explored in some depth it is suggested that in order for the organ to move ahead into a productive future, a clarification of its authority must be made. Otherwise both Sami support for -- & general Swedish recognition of -- Sametinget might be eroded. 24 References. C. Brunski

The number of farmers in the Riksdag has progressively declined by about 25% between 1918 & 1958, a change esp noticeable in the 2nd chamber. Today this group is under-represented when it is considered that in 1958 farmers made up 29% of the voters in parliamentary elections. There has also been a change in the composition of the farm representation: the number of large property owners has been markedly reduced, while agri'al labors have made their appearance. The dominant groups consist of Mc farmers belonging to the conservative, agri'al & liberal parties, & another group of small farmers. The letter, along with the agri'al workers, are for the most part Soc Democrats. Thus it can be seen that the various pol'al parties pick their parliamentary representatives from diff farmer categories. (Tr by J. A. Broussard from IPSA).

Citizens of a democracy have a two-fold task: Giving their representatives a mandate and holding those representatives accountable. Evidence is strong that voters greet such promises with a mix of hope and skepticism. The project described is aimed at adding to the body of knowledge on the subject of accountability in modern representative democracies. The project, which has drawn the support of the Comparative Party Pledges Group research network, has significance in ongoing normative discussions concerning representative democracy as well as empirical research in the field. Adapted from the source document.

The constitutional development & the parliamentarianism in Sweden since 1970 can schematically be divided into two periods. The first period was 1970-1990. The second was initiated in 1990. 1970-1990 stands out as a 'classical' period to the new constitution with its unicameral system & exact proportional representation above a 4 per cent threshold. The formation of government was mainly based on blocs with sharp opposition, although in combination with negotiating parliamentarianism in the Riksdag. In their years of parliamentary majority, 1976-1982 & 1991-1994, the right-wing patties introduced considerable constitutional changes which the social democrats in opposing position accepted. From 1990 & onwards, it is above all the disrupting EU dimension which generates new constitutional changes concerning the politico-economic institutions. The European influence in legal matters is regulated, as are the EU-processes between government & parliament. Moreover, the electoral period is extended by one year & an element of personalized voting is introduced. Both the vote of censure & the instrument of consultative referendum attain a partially new constitutional character through the development of praxis. One can also identify a series of minority governments (right-wing 1991-1994 & social democratic since 1994) with prolonged partial coalitions grounded on different issues, & with all the parties of the Parliament involved in different areas. The EU dimension is central in this respect too. The constitutional changes, the new form of parliamentarianism & the EU processes strengthen the government. In this period too, questions can be raised regarding the role of the opposition in Swedish parliamentarianism. References. Adapted from the source document.

What are the causes for political party membership? And why do some members take a further step and candidate for political parties in local parliament elections? We evaluate these questions using a Swedish survey of local politicians. The article reports three main findings. First, the results do not support that social status, career ambitions and material rewards are causes behind participation in political parties. Rather, sense of civic duty has a strong impact. Second, many representatives refer to the fact that they were recruited as a main factor influencing their participation. Third, our results show that active local party members describe themselves as 'reluctantly active altruists', driven by civic duty and recruited by others. A minority became active by their own initiative, and a majority got involved in party politics after being recruited. Adapted from the source document.

The reform of the Swedish pension scheme (ATP) illustrates a surprising ability among Swedish politicians to sidestep entrenchced partisan conflicts and establish consensus. Although several studies set out to explain the comparatively successful reform, the significance of new, and exclusive, institutions for decision-making has largely been overlooked. The hypothesis of this article, however, suggests that the creation of these new institutions is what really explains the Swedish success story. In order to test the hypothesis, decisions and negotiations leading up to the reform are process-traced, and opinions among voters and central actors that were excluded from the process are explored. The results indicate that the pension reform was made possible by the highly restricted decision-making process, and also cast doubts on whether the same pension reform would have been possible without it. These new institutions for decision-making, however, might have negative consequences for the future functions of representative democracy. Adapted from the source document.

Recent years have proven formative for the Swedish administration as the disciplinary commission and committee on the Constitution consider proposals whose adaption will have a far-reaching impact on the nation's social organization. As the constitutional changes can impact significantly on government at the local level, research focusing on questions of local government structure is urgently needed. A major strength of local government is political leadership, which is the key to bridging the gap between democracy and management research. The authors note that the influence of political leaders at the local level is often greater than that of their counterparts in the national government. The direction of future constitutional change will determine the extent to which local government and its leaders can preserve their strengths. Adapted from the source document.

The immigration of people from other parts of the world has meant new challenges to the Nordic welfare model and its fundamental idea of social integration and full citizenship. Current policy in Scandinavian countries calls for distributing newly arriving refugees between different regions and housing areas. This article examines the dilemmas created by this policy, and how such dilemmas are perceived and handled in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. With reference to previous related research, similarities and differences between the three countries' policies are analyzed at both national and local levels. The article's authors note that an immigrant policy characterized by the goal of social integration has created tensions between the ideals of integration versus the preservation of ethnic cultures, the individual versus the collective, and egalitarianism versus specialized treatment of immigrants as a group separate from the general population. Sweden, Denmark, and Norway have differed in their handling of these tensions, with Sweden opting for an approach based on a multicultural model, whereas Denmark has adopted a strict integrationist policy, including limits on the immigration of foreign residents' relatives, and Norway adopting a middle position. On the local level, the immigration policies and practices of Malmo, Arhus, and Oslo, as respective representative communities of the three countries under study, are compared. Adapted from the source document.

We live in a moment of hardening of nationalist discourses against immigration and racial minorities. In this conservative climate, Canada prevails as a benchmark for multicultural integration. However, there are voices within the nation that question this image of harmony. The case of the Black Vancouver community has not yet been studied in depth in this regard. This article of reflection aims to contribute to the debate on the relations of the nation-state and subaltern groups, and how they manifest themselves in the multicultural city. Vancouver has been chosen as a paradigmatic space because of its transcultural character built on indigenous lands. The object of study was the literature of Wayde Compton author and black activist of the city. Stemming from theories of the socio-spatial dialectic of Edward Soja and Leonie Sandercock, this article analyses the connection between the city, its representation in literature and its effects on social relationships. The work of Compton and its parallelism with the geo-history of Vancouver and subaltern ethnic communities were analysed. The result reaches a reading of Vancouver as a (post)colonial city and space of subaltern multiculturalism, regarding the official Canadian model, and colonialism that has made invisible to the Black Vancouver and the indigenous communities.

The purpose of this article is to study how Sweden's political parties handled the process of constitutional review from 2004-2008. In particular the analysis examines how parties choose between their office-seeking, policy-seeking and vote-seeking goals and the desire to maintain ultra party agreement. Three expectations are identified: (a) parties' different strategic situations lead them to advocate different long-term goals; (b) different parts' levels will take different stands in order to increase their influence vis-a-vis other levels: (c) party leaderships will try to increase their freedom to negotiate with others by avoiding extensive intra party debates or decisions. The study is based on 30 interviews with representatives closely involved in the constitutional-reform process. The conclusion is that parties have self-interested goals as regards the question of how the political game should be regulated. The conflict between different intra-party levels is also obvious. However, due to party members' disinterest in the constitutional review, party leaders did not need to adopt a variety of strategies to avoid a large scale intra-part debate, It was enough for them to claim that the resulting compromise was actually something of a victory' for each party. Adapted from the source document.

The professional communicators inside the Swedish Government Office are today 140 (compared to a single one 40 years ago & just twenty 15 years ago), giving support to the idea that the media now has a major impact on everyday business inside the Government. This article shows that this partly true, as the media mainly have an effect on the politicians, the partisan ministerial staff & the communicators. But the relationship between the Government Offices & the media could also be turned around. The Government have resources for external communication no lesser than an international news agency's, & does oil a daily basis deliver an impressive amount of press releases & conferences -- and information leaks -- that the media has to handle. This article examines & analyses how the Swedish Government Offices, through new posts, units & strategies, has institutionalized & centralized its' media contacts during the last 40 years, as well as the reasons & the internal consequences of this development. Adapted from the source document.

Project Hybrid regimes has democratization and non-democratic regimes as its focus. In recent years, research has shown how a number of authoritarian regimes have adopted a blend of democracy and authoritarianism rather than converting outright to full democracy. A country might for instance hold free elections but show little regard for the political and human rights of citizens. Project collaborators are operating on the premise that this type of blended or hybrid regime constitutes a distinct regime type alongside democracies, full authoritarian regimes, or totalitarian governments. They seek to explore the question of whether outside aid from full democracies can aid hybrid regimes in converting into full democracies. While the number of democratic governments around the world has increased in recent years, researchers have noted that hybrid regimes often resist efforts on the part of foreign democratic organizations to aid them toward a process of greater democratization. Citing the case of post-Soviet countries, and the Ukraine, the authors question the widely held perception by researchers that countries possessing a blend of democratic and authoritarian elements are at a transition point on the way to full democratization and that non-democratic elements of their governments merely constitute temporary setbacks. The authors, noting that heads of such regimes resist full democracy because they aren't prepared to accept challenges to their political power, argue for a new for the recognition of a new, lasting hybrid type of government characterized by elements of both democracy and authoritarianism. Adapted from the source document.