Parliamentary committees’ initiative powers in Sweden – Tactical exploitation by opposition parties

ABSTRACT

Committees’ use of their right to initiate parliament decisions have notably evolved under Sweden’s unicameral parliament. Since 2011, initiatives have increasingly served as a political instrument tactically employed by opposition parties against the will of government parties. Since the fall of 2020, this trend has risen radically, indicating that this constitutional tool is gradually being used in conflict with its original purpose. Increase in conflict levels and fragmentation within political landscape (from five to eight parliamentary parties) correspond with this escalated utilisation of committees’ initiative powers. These developments raise doubts about political parties’ ability to adhere to the lawmaker’s presuppositions that committee initiatives should be used with caution and in the pursuit of unity. Our data lends some support to earlier research’s view of committee initiatives as potential expressions of inter-party conflict, but it also highlights the need for further qualitative studies into parties’ motives for employing this parliamentary instrument.

KEYWORDS:

• Committee initiatives
• Sweden
• parliamentary power
• inter-party conflict
• opposition

Acknowledgements

Both authors are also employed by the Riksdag Administration. Any conclusions in the article cannot be attributed to the authority. The authors – in addition to the anonymous reviewers – would like to thank Anders Backlund, Niklas Bolin and Michelle Kelly for valuable comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Each committee’s composition of members reflects the parties’ proportion of seats in the Chamber.

2 Committee initiative rights exists in parliaments of the following countries: Belgium, Croatia, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Japan, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, South Africa, Sweden and Switzerland. Limited initiative rights exist in Austria, Finland and Israel, see Mickler (2022) and Arter (2006).

3 In the 1809 constitution, two committees (constitution and taxation) were given such partial rights. With the introduction of the bicameral parliament in 1866, the Committee on Finance was given a similar partial right.

4 According to the CFL, such an initiative would probably be one of several possible symptoms of a crisis of confidence, see SOU, 1969:62, p. 82.

5 See committee report 1970:KU27 p. 7.

6 See committee report 1997/98:KU26 but also 1995/96:KU6 and 1996/97:KU26.

7 The council, which is an independent actor, analyses how well the Government achieves its budget policy targets and whether the fiscal policy is sustainable in the long term.

8 See committee report 2020/21:FiU46. While formally a unanimous initiative, the report contained critical dissenting statements of opinion (särskilda yttranden) and the debate in the chamber was at times accusatory.

9 Formally, a working group within the committee performed the evaluation but the latter subsequently endorsed the group’s conclusions, see committee report 2021/22:KU35. The evaluation’s data was only partial (covering 28 of 50 yearly sessions since 1971 and focusing on 17 sessions between 2004/05 and 2020/21) and used two different methods which is explicitly stated in the report as a methodological weakness.

10 Christiansen and Damgaard (2008), Kaiser (2008) and Garritzmann (2017) are notable exceptions.

11 Meaning the phase of the committees’ actual decision-making in which committee members’ leeway is an important aspect, see e.g. Damgaard and Mattson (2004) and Mickler (2018).

12 Defined as left (Social Democrats, Left Party and Green Party) and right (Moderate Party, Centre Party, Christian Democrats and Liberals). The two other parliamentary parties (Sweden Democrats and New Democracy) during the period 1971–2022 are treated as outside those two blocs. We are aware that these blocs have been transforming for the last 4–5 years.

13 The index value varies from 0 to 100, where 100 is given to unanimous initiatives and 0 is given to initiatives supported by the smallest possible chamber majority, i.e. parties representing 175 MPs.

14 We use Bäck & Bergman’s (2016 p. 214 f.) definition of such parties.

15 See committee report 2013/14:FiU16.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thomas Larue

Thomas Larue holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Umeå University (2006). He is Director of the Evaluation and Research Secretariat at the Riksdag since 2016 and has held previous positions in the Riksdag Administration since 2007. He has previously published on ethics management in Swedish political parties (Public Integrity) and Sweden’s parliamentary administration (Routledge Handbook of Parliamentary Administrations). LinkedIn handle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-larue-327b833/

Asmir Hajdarevic

Asmir Hajdarevic holds an MSc in Political Science from Stockholm University (2018) and works as a researcher at the Evaluation and Research Secretariat at the Riksdag. LinkedIn handle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asmir-hajdarevic-35082045/