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This paper describes how Swedish women argue and act in order to improve their quality of life. It is based on a citizen survey and on interviews with leaders of a broadly defined women's movement. The thesis is that women are in the process of developing their own democratic practice. They thereby challenge the assumption that general suffrage and numerical equality of representation are sufficient conditions for transforming the contemporary gender power order into one characterized by equality of power between women and men. The empirical data show that there is a great deal of variation in perceptions of problems and ways of accomplishing change. The existence of somewhat different priorities and plural feminist strategies for change—state feminist, interest group–based, civil, and segregated—are interpreted as speaking in favor of the sustainability of such pressure for "women‐friendliness" in Sweden.

From the middle of the 1960s to the middle of the 1970s there was great interest in the field of political socialization in Scandinavia as well as elsewhere in the international political science community. After this period of rapid advance, the interest in the subject stalled considerably. Instead of directly trying to explain why, this paper presents (1) a brief sketch of approach developments and (2) an illustration of the fruitfulness of political socialization research by analysing some new empirical data on children's and adults' reactions in connection with the assassination of the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. Following the murder of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, Professor Roberta S. Sigel carried out a study of children's reactions to the President's death. Despite that there are more than 20 years between the two assassinations, and that Swedish and US cultures differ greatly, the results from the two cases resemble each other in several respects.

Democratic welfare states are increasingly characterized by uncertainty, complexity, & often changing DofL between actors & agencies. The main functional answer to such diffusion of power is an increase of symbolic & pseudo policy ingredients, meaning that many policies are either not intended to be fully implemented or are characterized by unsatisfactory usage of available knowledge regarding preconditions for implementation. Politicians often have to make decisions even when they are unsure of what to do & pressured by lack of economic resources, time, or relevant knowledge. This is not something they alone should be blamed for, as it is a problematic feature of modern politico-economic systems. Decentralization of the symbolic &/or pseudo type is a strategy often used to muddle through the present difficulties. Because of the extension of the public sphere, real decentralization might be the only alternative to complexity & difficulties in governing. The form in which it occurs is, however, crucial for the future of democratic mechanisms. 2 Tables, 1 Appendix, 39 References. HA.

The article discusses central characteristics of the way in which western democracies formulate their public policy. This is done by presenting a preliminary typology of policy styles. An attempt is made to classify some European countries according to their dominant policy style as well as according to changes in this respect during the post‐industrial period. Overcrowding and unconventional participation are identified as two important factors behind this development. The essay, which is mainly based on British and Swedish data, concludes with a discussion of the question of whether societies are able to exercise any choice in determining their policy style.

ABSTRACTPolitical scientists are seen as having some technical expertise in policy studies which might help policy‐makers in devising policies which "work". Difficulties are likely to arise, however, if we do not first ask some fundamental questions. One seemingly obvious, though extremely difficult, question is "what are policies for ?" Having categorized the main objectives of policy‐making into three broad categories – namely "real" goods and services, agenda management, and. consensus seeking– we go on to ask how these objectives can be reached in a rational way. We attempt to answer this question by considering a number of theoretical problems and go on to suggest an operational meaning of rationality and its implication for the organization of policy‐making structures. We suggest that a distinction is made between sector rationality, coordinated rationality and decentralized rationality. We also discuss the nature of policy communities, the degree to which they are becoming overcrowded due to demands for greater (and often unconventional) participation and the problems of achieving both consensus and rationality.