Parliamentary debate and the construction of the national characteristics of Swedish parliamentarism

Abstract

This article examines how the characteristics of parliamentary debate were discussed in Sweden between the late nineteenth century and the Second World War, covering the period of parliamentary democratization and the interwar crisis of democracy. Focusing on the comments on the nature of parliamentary rebates in the printed press, as well as the ways in which MPs comment on debate while they speak in parliament, this article shows that there is a remarkable continuity in the ways in which Swedish parliamentary debate was viewed, as a compromising negotiation in parliamentary committees was elevated to a national characteristic of Swedish parliamentary culture both by the conservative critics of parliamentary democracy and the social democratic and liberal defenders of democracy. What was in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth centuries characteristically a conservative argument in favour of safeguarding the quality and independence of the working procedures of parliament against the consequences of democratization was in the 1930s turned into an argument against the threats that political extremism and totalitarian ideas posed to parliamentary democracy. The study shows that the Swedish style of parliamentary debate was continuously contrasted with the pro et contra style of debate in the British Parliament, which was deemed unsuitable to the Swedish constitutional tradition even if it sometimes gained support as an ideal type. The main examples of debates on parliamentary procedures discussed in the study deal with the question of open voting and the rights of the Speaker to regulate debates.