Förhandlingsparlamentarism: en jämförande studie av riksdagen och folketinget

This thesis is about bargaining in the Swedish Riksdag and the Danish Folketing. It departs from the propositions, forwarded by Swedish and Danish scholars. (1) that the level of conflict in the parliaments have increased and (2) that minority governments are weak and unable to pursue a consequent and responsible economic policy. It examines the function of bargaining between political parties (emphasising bargaining between the Government and the Opposition). The analysis starts from a normative perspective and continues with an empirical examination of the politics of the budgetary processes in the two parliaments from 1971 to 1995.

Theoretically, a two-level model of political parties bargaining behaviour is developed which takes both rational behaviour and social norms into account.

The empirical findings do not provide evidence to support the hypothesis about an increased level of conflict. Instead there is a cycle of conflicts and resolutions in both Swedish and Danish parliamentary decision-making. The parties often find themselves in situations where they have both coinciding and conflicting interests - which is the very ground for a bargaining situation. Moreover the study shows that minority governments might compensate for their lack of majority in parliament with bargaining powers.

Finally a new classification system is developed in which the two main types of parliamentary systems are labelled bargaining parliamentarianism and voting parliamentarianism. The Riksdag and the Folketing should both be classified in the category bargaining parliamentarianism. However, the Folketing is a more illustrative case than the Riksdag.