Erik Wångmar

Municipal Preferences for State-imposed Amalgamations: : An Empirical Study Based on the Swedish Municipal Reform of 1952

This paper concerns municipal preferences for state-imposed municipal amalgamations, focusing on factors that may explain municipal acceptance of, or objection to, a state-imposed amalgamation decision. The empirical analysis is based on the extensive municipal reform that occurred in Sweden in 1952, which reduced the number of municipalities from 2498 to 1037. In 66 per cent of the amalgamated cases, at least one municipality complained. The results show that income differences affected the willingness to amalgamate; high-income municipalities opposed amalgamation with less wealthy municipalities. The results also indicate that the size (absolute and relative) of the municipalities affected their willingness to amalgamate. Small and large municipalities were most likely to accept the amalgamation decision and equally sized municipalities were less likely to amalgamate voluntarily.

Home healthcare nurses’ experiences of being on stand by as a first responder in a ‘While Waiting For the Ambulance’ assignment

The aim of the study is to describe experiences of the ‘While Waiting for the Ambulance’ (WWFA) assignment, as described by home healthcare nurses (HHCNs). Since the early 1990s, municipal resources in Sweden, preferably firefighters, have been dispatched on WWFA. In order to further assist the local residents on an island in the southwest of Sweden, HHCNs have recently begun accompanying firefighters on WWFA. A reflective lifeworld approach was used for data analysis including in-depth interviews with eight HHCNs. When WWFA was established, the HHCNs experienced lack of clarity in where their responsibilities start and end. A split role is described, and there is a paradox in that the responders are meant to collaborate toward saving lives, when the assignment itself has a lack of collaborative structure. Ethical dilemmas and inner emotional worries led to the nurses expressing a need for support before, during and after WWFA.

Understanding large-scale institutional change: Social conflicts and the politics of Swedish municipal amalgamations, 1952–1974

A remarkable reform in modern Swedish political history was the transformation of the local government structure between 1952 and 1974. In a mere 22 years, the number of municipalities was reduced from 2,498 to 277. This study aims to answer how such large-scale reforms could come about politically, particularly since much of the literature on institutions and political reform asserts that carrying out large-scale political change should be a difficult task. Two opposing stories of institutional change are presented: evolutionary accounts, which see the amalgamations as rational adaptations to changing circumstances, are contrasted with a social conflict perspective, which explains amalgamations in terms of their distributional consequences. By investigating the processes leading up to this vast restructuring of Swedish local political geography, we demonstrate that an understanding of these reforms as rational adaptations to changing circumstances, made on the basis of consensus among leading political actors, is not accurate. The reforms were not as uncontroversial and non-conflictual as they often have been portrayed. Our results weaken the evolutionary approach to institutional change, whilst supporting the social conflict perspective.

HISTORIANS AND THEIR SOURCES: The use of unpublished source material in Swedish doctoral theses in history, 1959–2015, and in student bachelor’s and master’s theses, 2010–2015

This study analyses the development of the use of unpublished source material in Swedish doctoral theses in history, 1959–2015. The results show that the proportion of theses which rely on such materials has dropped in relation to the level that existed up to and including the year 2007. From having dropped below 90% only twice during the time period 1959–2007, the average for the years 2008–2015 is 77%. There are several explanations as to why this decline in use of unpublished source material has occurred. An initial explanation is that more doctoral theses are now published within the subdiscipline of historical science, in which, for example, history didactics and uses of history are included. History didactics and uses of history have gained more ground within the overall field of historical research during the last 10 years. The next-to-lowest figures are found in the category history of ideas, culture, and opinion history; a category which during the time period 2008–2015 remained at a fairly constant share of the total number of doctoral defences in history in Sweden in relation to the situation at the beginning of the 2000s.