Table of Contents

1. Analysing the Nordic region: a block of distinctive consensus model democracies?
2. Preferential list voting systems in Denmark, Finland and Sweden: a challenge to the party democracy model?
3. The Scandinavian party system(s) since 1970: less unidimensional and less distinctive?
4. The strength of social democracy on mainland Scandinavia: continued dominance or incipient decomposition?
5. The diversity of coalition types and the frequency of minority governments: a distinctively Scandinavian form of parliamentarism?
6. Corporatist interest group systems: (still) a distinctive Scandinavian trait?
7. A common denominator between Westminster and the Nordic region? The growing importance of the office of Prime Minister
8. The state of Scandinavian democracy: democracy “in a state”?
9. Analysing parliamentary opposition parties: both policy actors and policy arenas?
10. Policy-making in the Finnish and Swedish opposition parties
11. The 2003 midsummer bomb and the centre party’s ‘decisive action strategy’ A case of office-seeking with a capital ‘O’
12. Minority government, shifting majorities and multilateral opposition: Sweden in the new millennium
Conclusion. Democracy in Scandinavia: consensual, majoritarian or mixed?

About the Author

David Arter holds the First Chair of Politics at the University of Aberdeen