Suchergebnisse

A hundred years after the peaceful dissolution of the union between the kingdoms of Sweden and Norway, the public debate on this union is still dominated by the idea that the union was little more than another name for Swedish rule. This paper critiques this view by analysing the political systems of Sweden and Norway in the nineteenth century: the constitutional monarchy. The author does not deny that on a symbolic level, Norwegians were less visible than Swedes in the union. However, the paper's main argument is that in Realpolitik terms the two parts of the union were largely on par with each other. The dominant conflict in the union was not between Norwegians and Swedes, but rather an escalating power struggle between the king and 'the people' that led to the forty years of 'harmony liberalism'. In fact, close collaboration rather than conflict characterised the relations between the liberal governments of Norway and Sweden, thus enabling them to establish a 'union free of conflicts' in the 1860s.

The report is an attempt to describe the effects on accidents of compulsory use of running lights - low beam or special lamps - during daylight in Sweden. The study is carried out on police reported traffic accidents with personal injury in Sweden. The before and after periods are two years before and two years after the operative day of the law, October 1st 1977. The use of running lights in the before-period was roughly speaking 50 % and in the after-period over 95 %. The basic assumption is that the use of running lights in daylight influences multiple accidents in daylight and only those. The method used is to study the relation of daylight to darkness numbers of multiple accidents. The corresponding relation for single vehicle accidents is taken as control. The estimated total effect depends both on the subdivision of accident data and the method used for accidents with unprotected road users. The estimates vary from 6 to 13 % reduction - from the before-period to the after period - of multiple accidents during daylight or 450 to 1100 less police reported accidents with personal injury per year. The estimated effects are not significant on a 5 % level.