Mats Olsson
Prefekt Ekonomisk-historiska institutionen, Professor
Under the landlord’s thumb. Municipalities and local elites in Sweden 1862–1900
Författare
Summary, in English
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 unlawful 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 illegitimate contractual restrictions. The results empirically challenge a narrative of slow but steady democratization and theoretically challenge the alleged reciprocity of landlord-tenant relations.
Avdelning/ar
- Ekonomisk-historiska institutionen
- Tillväxt, teknologisk förändring och ojämlikhet
Publiceringsår
2022-07-04
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
265-289
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Social History
Volym
47
Issue
3
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
Taylor & Francis
Ämne
- Economic History
Nyckelord
- landlord
- tenant farmer
- Swedish Municipality Act
- deference
- political culture
Status
Published
Projekt
- Dynamic peasants? Agency and inequality in Swedish modernization
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 0307-1022