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Under the Landlord's Thumb. Municipalities and Local Elites in Sweden 1862-1900

Uppenberg, Carolina LU orcid and Olsson, Mats LU (2021) In Lund Papers in Economic History
Abstract
The Swedish Municipality Act, issued in 1862, consolidated a plutocratic system in which ownership and income, and the resulting level of taxation, translated into political power. However, as a measure to hinder large landowners from holding a majority of the votes, the Act guaranteed voting rights for tenants. The aim of the article is to analyse how power relations played out after this challenge to landlords’ hegemony. Through an analysis of tenants’ contracts, appeals to the King in Council and minutes from municipal board meetings, we show how landlords did not trust a political culture of deference to secure power, even if they had demanded subservience in contracts. In a deliberate and specific way, they also reserved voting rights... (More)
The Swedish Municipality Act, issued in 1862, consolidated a plutocratic system in which ownership and income, and the resulting level of taxation, translated into political power. However, as a measure to hinder large landowners from holding a majority of the votes, the Act guaranteed voting rights for tenants. The aim of the article is to analyse how power relations played out after this challenge to landlords’ hegemony. Through an analysis of tenants’ contracts, appeals to the King in Council and minutes from municipal board meetings, we show how landlords did not trust a political culture of deference to secure power, even if they had demanded subservience in contracts. In a deliberate and specific way, they also reserved voting rights for themselves, which we find to have been a widespread pattern although it was repeatedly pointed out as illegal by the King in Council. However, through the analysis of the board meetings, it becomes clear that the position of manorial landlords in these municipalities was so obvious that they rarely had to confront their tenants with their illegal contractual restrictions. The results empirically challenge a narrative of slow
but steady democratization and theoretically challenge the alleged reciprocity of landlord-tenant relations. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
subject
keywords
landlord, tenant farmer, municipality, Swedish Municipality Act, 1862, deference, local politics, voting rights, political culture, N43, N53, N93
in
Lund Papers in Economic History
issue
2021:218
pages
25 pages
project
Dynamic peasants? Agency and inequality in Swedish modernization
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
0d6da33a-b311-4dc4-aa4b-a29fde36ee3a
date added to LUP
2021-02-08 13:46:46
date last changed
2021-09-30 12:05:51
@misc{0d6da33a-b311-4dc4-aa4b-a29fde36ee3a,
  abstract     = {{The Swedish Municipality Act, issued in 1862, consolidated a plutocratic system in which ownership and income, and the resulting level of taxation, translated into political power. However, as a measure to hinder large landowners from holding a majority of the votes, the Act guaranteed voting rights for tenants. The aim of the article is to analyse how power relations played out after this challenge to landlords’ hegemony. Through an analysis of tenants’ contracts, appeals to the King in Council and minutes from municipal board meetings, we show how landlords did not trust a political culture of deference to secure power, even if they had demanded subservience in contracts. In a deliberate and specific way, they also reserved voting rights for themselves, which we find to have been a widespread pattern although it was repeatedly pointed out as illegal by the King in Council. However, through the analysis of the board meetings, it becomes clear that the position of manorial landlords in these municipalities was so obvious that they rarely had to confront their tenants with their illegal contractual restrictions. The results empirically challenge a narrative of slow<br/>but steady democratization and theoretically challenge the alleged reciprocity of landlord-tenant relations.}},
  author       = {{Uppenberg, Carolina and Olsson, Mats}},
  keywords     = {{landlord; tenant farmer; municipality; Swedish Municipality Act; 1862; deference; local politics; voting rights; political culture; N43; N53; N93}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Working Paper}},
  number       = {{2021:218}},
  series       = {{Lund Papers in Economic History}},
  title        = {{Under the Landlord's Thumb. Municipalities and Local Elites in Sweden 1862-1900}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/90980605/LUPEH_218.pdf}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}