12/01/2005 1:12:02 pm
The Royal Court - an Important Part of the Institutional Competition? Two days ago, the King of Sweden criticised the government for their slow and clumsy handling of the crisis following the tsunami. Suddenly, the debate that was shut down by Prime Minister Persson opened up and not least the opposition parties came out with strong criticism. As Henrik Brors writes in Dagens Nyheter, the main advantage of a democratic society when it comes to the quality of the decisions is the free debate with its different views and critical discussion. Thus, the King made a good effort for the democratic debate when he broke the silence of the Swedish one-party mentality. It is becoming ever more apparent that the centralisation of power into one party, one government office, and one person is a main cause behind the poor crisis management. Prime Minister Persson has created this all by himself and actually tried to do the same with the debate afterwards. He has successfully centralised very much during the past years. There are almost no free forces of any strength in the Swedish society left that can oppose and help improve the quality of the debate and decisions. I think it has gone very far when the Royal Court is the only force to counter-balance the government. But if that is the only counterweight, I think that is the best argument for keeping the Court that I have heard so far.


The symbol of a force for an open society?