The aims of this article are, first, to describe the Swedish authorities’ strategy for dealing with the sudden onset of novel coronavirus in early 2020 and, second, to explain why that strategy differed markedly from those in nearly all other European countries. From an early stage, the Swedish government delegated decision making to the Public Health Agency, and its goal was to mitigate the effects of the virus rather than to suppress its spread. Society was never closed down in the same way as elsewhere. Using data from media reports and other publications, we argue that the agency was insulated from pressure to change course, even as the number of deaths associated with covid-19 rose far above those in Sweden’s Nordic neighbours, by four conditions: (1) the structure of national public administration; (2) an outburst of nationalism in parts of the media; (3) the uneven impact of the virus; and (4) a political leadership that was willing to delegate responsibility for policy almost entirely. We conclude by briefly comparing the coronavirus strategy to previous episodes of Swedish policy exceptionalism. This emerging pattern, we suggest, raises normative questions about the functioning of Swedish democracy.

Sweden’s management of the coronavirus pandemic, beginning in early 2020, hasbeen much discussed because it deviated from other countries’ equivalents. Set inthe context of scholarly debate about the balance between politicians and experts inpolitical decision-making, we argue that a necessary condition for this case of Swedishexceptionalism was the manner of policy-making adopted by the Swedish authorities. Inthis article, we describe this policy-making procedure, which involved a radical form ofdelegation by elected politicians to appointed experts, and seek to explain how it cameabout. We focus on the 1st year of the pandemic, and use media reports and other publicdocuments, including parts of a public inquiry, as our empirical material.

Beslutet att lämna EU har inte bara förändrat Storbritanniens plats i världen utan också skakat om den brittiska inrikespolitiken och förstärkt polariseringen mellan brexitanhängare och EU-vänner. På sikt kan brexit hota sammanhållningen i landet.

In the Swedish parliamentary election of 7 September 2018, the biggest parties, the Social Democrats and the Moderates, both lost votes compared to their scores in the previous election, but not as many as they had feared. Commensurately, the radical-right challenger party, the Sweden Democrats (SD), which had seemed certain to profit from Sweden's dramatic experience of the European migration crisis, did well, but not as well as it had hoped. The result left the array of parliamentary forces fragmented and finely balanced. Only after months of negotiations could a government be formed. Eventually, the incumbent coalition received a renewed parliamentary mandate. At the same time, the party system was transformed.

Political parties shape politics, and the most important person in a party is usually the leader. Party leaders make the political weather. Take a recent example from Britain. In 2015 the Labour Party, somewhat unexpectedly, lost a national election. Its leader resigned and a new one was needed. “Jeremy Corbyn is not going to win the Labour leadership election”, insisted one of the country’s shrewdest political commentators (Rentoul 2015). But Corbyn did win, and by a comfortable margin. Labour thus took a big stride to the left.

In this book, we examine the varying ways in which political parties manage intra-party conflict, or potential conflict, when they make what might be their most important decisions – on the selection of their leaders. We take special account of actors that, formally and informally, filter the field of aspirants even before the decision reaches the selectorate. Our analytical framework is developed both deductively, with a foundation in delegation models, and inductively, through reference to case studies from nine European countries. We present a typology of selection processes, which illuminates intra-party power structures.

The international trend towards more inclusive leader selection (Cross and Blais in Party Politics 18: 127–150, 2012) seems to have gone largely unnoticed by Swedish parties. At least on the surface, the process works as it has done for decades. Almost exclusively to Sweden, it centres on a valberedning, a selection committee. This committee is typically chosen by the formal selectorate of the party, the party congress. The job of the valberedning is to consider candidates and then to propose one of them as the new leader.

In modern democracy, party leaders are key actors. Not only do they hold the highest offices of their organisations; they are also figureheads externally. Party leaders take centre stage in elections, parliamentary debates and in government formation. They are constantly present in the media; political news is simply incomplete without them.