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This thesis aims at investigating the relationship between citizens' attempts to influence decision-making in a democracy and the representativeness of policy outcome. The question is to what extent the degree of citizen political activity, in terms of expressing policy preferences, affects: 1. The policy agreement between citizens and their elected representatives. 2. The perceptual accuracy of citizen opinions among representatives. It is argued that both policy agreement and perceptual accuracy are potentially important prerequisites to attain responsiveness in a democratic political system. The important normative question of the thesis is based on the fact that citizen's attempts to influence public decision-making often seems to be biased in favour of social groups already rich in resources. If political participation is socially biased the question is if this participation also will cause a bias in the opinions articulated towards decisionmakers and in the end also in a biased political influence. Earlier research on the topic of this thesis has basically been limited to the classical study published by Sidney Verba and Norman H. Nie in 1972: Participation in America. Political democracy and social equality. In order to examine this issue further, a survey was conducted in 40 Swedish municipalities. Included was a random sample of citizen from each municipality as well as a sample including all elected councilors in the municipalities. The effects of four different channels of citizen preference articulation is examined 1) participation in local elections, 2) non-electoral political participation, 3) activities and membership in voluntary associations and 4) everyday contacts between citizens and their elected representatives. The results of the empirical analyses show that electoral participation does not have a positive effect on either policy agreement or perceptual accuracy in Swedish municipalities. The main tendency as regards the non-electoral channels of citizen preference articulation indicates a linear and positive effect on the policy agreement between citizens and representatives but no similar positive effect on the perceptual accuracy.

This dissertation analyzes the concept of democracy as it was used in the official rhetoric of the Swedish SocialDemocratic Party (SAP ) between 1919 and 1939. Theoretically, the dissertation relies on German Begriffsgeschichte, as put forward by Reinhart Koselleck, and Michael Freeden's theory of ideologies. Together, by supplementing each other, these theories offer a perspective in which concepts are thought of as structures that are under contestation and change due to socio-political circumstances. However, the formulation of this change takes place in relation to the linguistic praxis of each time-period, and renegotiates the relative constraints of established relations between concepts in language. The analysis shows that the profound changes in society provided impetus for a continuous renegotiation of meanings, allowing concepts to retain their explanatory power under changing circumstances, at the same time the SAP needed new ways to express what kind of society the party strived to realize. The SAP had been one of the leading forces in the struggle for universal suffrage, and when the bill, giving universal suffrage to men andwomen, was passed in the Parliament 1919 this meant a temporary cessation to a long and intensive political debate. However, the SAP did not consider the introduction of suffrage reform as the end of full societal democratization. Rather than seeing the reform as a terminal point, the SAP saw it as the starting point for the struggle for full democracy. The SAP did not limit itself to only one concept of democracy but instead used a number of composite concepts, such as political democracy and economic democracy. The use of composite concepts can be understood as a changing temporalization of democracy. Since parliamentarism and suffrage were seen as central components in democracy, the realization of these institutions meant that the concept of democracy lost its future dimension. Thus, the usage of composite concepts should be seen as a re-temporalization of democracy. The composite concepts pointed forward in time, toward political goals that the SAP envisaged realizing in the future. Concepts should not be thought of as having cores but rather, as suggested by Freeden, ineliminable features. An ineliminable feature is not of logical nature but has a strong cultural adjacency. By analyzing the ineliminable components of the concepts of democracy that the SAP used, it is possible to discuss whether the composite concepts should be understood as subsets of a whole or as separate concepts. The analysis shows that the composite concepts that the SAP used during the first half of the 1920s shared a number of ineliminable features, but that the commonality of these features started to disintegrate during the latter half of the decade, leading to a rather diversive concept of democracy. During the 1930s the disintegration ceased as the party was faced with new circumstances, for example the growing threat of international war and national clashes between different social groups. There has always been a close relation between language and society. However, the relationship does not follow a simple and clear-cut logic but a complex mixture of various factors at different levels, both within language itself and of society. When society develops, language also has to change if the ongoing process is to be understood. As this study shows, new circumstances require new argumentsand thus revised concepts.

From 1960 and onwards the Swedish tax system has gradually changed from mostly progressive to mostly proportional and heavily dependent on taxation on consumer goods. This dissertation aims to describe and explain the role of Social Democracy in this process by studying the forming and further development of the omsättningsskatt, later transformed to a proper value added tax mervärdesskatt (VAT), from an historical institutional perspective. Previous research has considered these taxes as mainly financing tools, linked to the building of the well-fare state. While taxes are crucial in the financing of public expenditure, I claim a more complex background to the consumer tax, thereby highlighting a neo-corporative income political setting, hitherto not paid attention to, between a Social Democratic Government and the Trade Union Confederation (LO). Empirically the dissertation covers a period from the late 1950:s up to 2006. Drawing on an extensive material, including protocols from the major decision-making bodies within the Social Democratic Party, I demonstrate how Social Democracy, in a constant interplay between the two power centres, Government and LO, has formed a tax structure closely aligned with LO income political goals of closing the gap between blue and white-collar workers. In the formative moment, LO agreed to restrain wages and was rewarded by targeted cuts in income tax, transfer payments and an extensive labour market policy, made possible by the new tax. In the years to come the resulting informal institutional structure was increasingly strained as tactical-strategical considerations tempted the Government to use the tax instruments for vote- and office-seeking purposes. Not without difficulties both parties, however, succeeded in upholding the informal institutional arrangements until 1986 when internal discontent within LO set forces in motion. Social Democratic tax policy, until now considered beneficial for trade union members, was rejected and in conjunction with an ideational paradigmatic shift towards supply-side economics, the institution was pushed towards a critical junction and a new institutional setting. The VAT-ties to LO were eventually cut, permitting the Government to align the VAT-policy with an overriding goal of office-seeking through alliance building. From 1991 and onwards a highly political- strategical VAT-policy has thus resulted not only in a differentiated VAT, but also in numerous tax cuts on minor items of symbolic importance to various political parties. The strategy has hollowed the tax revenues but proved successful in forging and upholding temporary political alliances in Parliament. The main empirical findings – the presence of a neo-corporatist income policy and the pursuing of a class-based tax policy – departs from earlier research and shed new light on what we call "The Swedish model". The institutional conclusions are, however, in line with an historical institutional perspective stressing the importance of a formative moment, path dependency, ideas as agents of change and the theory of gradual institutional development, a theory that might benefit from further theorising in the interplay between formal and informal veto points.

본 논문은 대외정책 분야에서 드러나는 미국 대통령제의 운용원칙인 권력분립을 미국식 민주주의의 사각지대로 접근하는 시각을 제시하여 선행연구와 차별성을 추구한다. 구체적으로 헌법이 천명하는 권력분립 원칙에도 불구하고 오히려 그 권력분립의 기제인 상호간 독자적 선거제에 의해 미국의 유권자 전체가 선출한 대통령은 각 지역구에서 선출된 입법부 구성원이 내세우는 집합적 통치 위임과 확연하게 구별되는 유일한 공공리더십(public leadership)을 정책결정과정에서 독점할 수 있다는 점을 주시하고자 한다. 결국 미국 대통령제의 과제는 미국식 민주주의의 주요 통치원칙인 권력분립을 중시하는 동시에 성공적 통치를 위해 권한공유의 묘(妙)를 찾는 부단한 노력을 경주해야만 가능하다는데 있다. 특히 국내정책 분야보다 대외정책 분야에서 이 난제의 해법을 모색하는데 있어서 법제도적 및 정치적 장애물이 가로막혀 있다. 게다가 선거결과와 무관하게 통치 위임을 생성하는 정치의 사법화가 입헌 대통령제의 근간을 흔들 수 있는 위험성을 목격했다. 이에 본 논문은 대외정책 분야의 미국 대통령제에 대한 평가를 권력분립의 양면성, 즉 권력분립은 권력공유를 전제로 한다는 패러독스에 중점을 두고 대통령의 우위에 대한 주장을 가능하게 하는 헌법적 및 정치적 근거를 대조하면서 미국식 민주주의의 사각지대를 재조명하고자 한다. ; In this paper, I argue that the principle of separation of power in foreign policy under presidentialism invites a blind spot in American democracy. Although the Constitution specifies separation of power both in the conduct of domestic and foreign affairs, independent elections of President and legislators differentiate the kind of collective mandates on Capitol Hill from the unitary mandate bestowed upon President, thus prompting him to proclaim public leadership. The key to a successful governing, then, lies in the art of pursuing "separated institutions sharing powers" persistently. However, the realm of foreign affairs poses a more challenging task, both constitutionally and politically, than its counterpart in domestic policy. Furthermore, we came to witness a modern presidency whose relentless claim on mandate, or what is dubbed as judicialization of politics, was found irrelevant to the electoral outcome itself, thus creating a peril in constitutional presidency. In this paper, I explore this paradox in American democracy by comparing across constitutional and political sources of such claims. ; 이 논문은 2010년도 정부재원(교육과학기술부 학술연구조성사업비)으로 한국연구재단의 지원을 받아 연구되었음(NRF-2010-327-B00027). ; OAIID:oai:osos.snu.ac.kr:snu2010-01/102/0000040203/1 ; SEQ:1 ; PERF_CD:SNU2010-01 ; EVAL_ITEM_CD:102 ; USER_ID:0000040203 ; ADJUST_YN:Y ; EMP_ID:A076716 ; DEPT_CD:216 ; CITE_RATE:0 ; FILENAME:미국학논집4202.pdf ; DEPT_NM:정치외교학부 ; EMAIL:okyeonh@snu.ac.kr ; SCOPUS_YN:N ; CONFIRM:Y