Historisk tidskrift 126:4 • 2006
Innehåll (Contents) 2006:4
Uppsatser (Articles)
Bönder i svensk politik under 1900-talet. Exemplet den svenska
högern
Fredrik Eriksson
Fulltext (pdf)
Summary
From Farmers in twentieth century Swedish politics. The case
of the Swedish Conservative Party to manly citizen. The peasant
in early twentieth-century Finnish history writing
Few economic groups have achieved the political success of
the farmers of Sweden, Europe and North America. Farmers have
often managed to shape agricultural policies to suit their
own interests. This article investigates how and why farmers
have managed to be so politically influential. Whereas the
number of farmers has fallen in the twentieth century, their
political influence has not declined in the same way. By studying
the Swedish Conservative Party – ”Högerpartiet”, later ”Moderata
samlingspartiet” – this article demonstrates how farmers have
achieved political influence. The Conservative Party’s history
as a farmers’ party is relatively unknown because the Conservative
Party has not, since the 1930s, played a central role in the
formulation of agricultural policy. Nor has the party presented
itself as a party of farmers in the post-war period. Yet, in
the early twentieth century structures were created in the
Conservative Party that have lived on to the present day.
There
are clear parallels between this development in the Conservative
Party and the establishment of the national system of agricultural
policy. It was the system of negotiated settlement between
interest groups within the corporative state that formed the
basis of regulated farming. Regulation was often made on the
farmers’ terms, however, which led to a neglect of the consumer
perspective. The influence of the farmers and the farmers’
unions on agricultural policy in the twentieth century can
be divided into three periods. The starting point is the parliamentary
reform of 1866, which greatly strengthened the political position
of the farmers. From then and up to 1930, farmers’ influence
on agricultural policy was contested. From 1930 to 1967, the
farmers had a hegemonic position in the formulation of agricultural
policy. After 1967, the power of the farmers over agricultural
policy has again been contested.
Keywords
agriculture, agricultural policy, political influence of farmers,
agricultural organisations, conservatism, the Conservative
Party (Högerpartiet, Moderata samlingspartiet)
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