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The turmoil of conflict and international crisis affects government as well as business interests. This article investigates how government–business relationships developed to tackle the potential problems of so-called peacetime crises that could adversely affect the country's steel and metal industries if the imports of alloy metals were disrupted in Sweden during the 1970s and 1980s. Based on extensive archival material and using an Advocacy Coalition Framework, we examine how this problem was negotiated between key stakeholders in Sweden during the period 1973–1987. We conclude that while the corporatist arrangements for negotiation were designed to build consensus, the state and business interests ultimately came into disagreement with each other. These results reflect recent research which emphasise that the relations between the state defence actors and business interests have been characterised by antagonism and contentions to a much larger degree than has been assumed in previous research.

In the early to mid-1970s, the Swedish government agencies involved in defence planning identified the plummeting domestic production of clothing and shoes as a concern. As part of the state’s total defence planning, the country was to withstand up to three years of severely limited imports in times of crisis or war. The objective was to maintain domestic shoe production in line with the defence planning assessments of annual production requirements. Measures taken included various forms of support, favourable loans, and attempts to restructure the shoe industry. A privately owned conglomerate of six shoe companies was formed on the government’s initiative. However, the programme ultimately failed and was disbanded in 1987. By then, the domestic shoe industry’s production capacity was only a fraction of what was deemed necessary a decade earlier.

In this article we examine the stakeholders who controlled or influenced the measures implemented to secure the supply of leather shoes in times of crisis and war in the 1970s and 1980s. We find that while private companies benefited from the support programmes, it primarily reflected considerations of defence policy and national security interests. The direction of economic defence policy was so decisive in the support for the leather shoe industry that more common factors behind industrial subsidies – such as employment and labour market considerations – were marginalised. This, in turn, meant that the exchange between the parties involved was asymmetric and essentially on the state’s terms. In other words, defence policy in the Cold War had a far-reaching impact on Swedish society, even in peacetime. However, we also demonstrate that while general contingency planning resulted in extensive government support for the leather shoe industry, there were still problems that neither the public nor the private sector could deal with. Available resources were insufficient, regardless of who was attempting to mobilise them. Some companies were struggling even before the support programmes were cancelled following the 1987 Defence Review, which set out to shift expenditure away from economic and civil defence into modernising the country’s military defences.

Syftet med denna rapport är att kartlägga hur rollfördelningen mellan stat och kommun när det gäller trafikflygplatsernas ägande, förvaltning och finansiering i form av investeringar och driftskostnader har diskuterats och utformats under perioden 1921–2025. Rapporten visar att relationen mellan staten och kommunerna inte har varit enhetlig inom de tre områden som uppsatsen undersökt. Medan frågan om ägande har kännetecknats avlånga perioder av stabilitet mellan de tidpunkter då förändringar har inträffat, har frågan om förvaltning och finansiering, framför allt av de kommunala flygplatsernas driftskostnader, kännetecknats av större förändringar över tid. Exempelvis har ersättningssystemet till dessa flygplatser förändrats flera gånger sedan 1980-talet. Under dessa processerhar det förekommit perioder av förhandlingsliknande relationer mellan stat och kommun innan en viss stabilitet har skapats.

In Sweden, interactions between the state and sub-national interests concerning the distribution of rent from natural resources have often focused on what constitutes a ‘fair’ distribution of taxing and spending. This article studies how this became manifested during a dispute between the mining towns of Kiruna and Gällivare and the Swedish state concerning the taxation of the mining company Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara AB (LKAB). In collaboration with other actors, Kiruna and Gällivare tried to persuade the state to assign the local level wider capacities to collect tax revenue from LKAB. Despite experiencing repeated setbacks, Kiruna and Gällivare continued the process based on a strong faith that the state eventually would accept their interpretation of how an equitable taxation of natural resources should be designed. This persistence reflected the contemporary expectations among public actors in northern Sweden that the state would contribute to correct what was perceived as an unfair distribution of resource rent.

This essay deals with how historical knowledge from a research project on economic defense and preparedness planning can inform the contemporary decision-making on the re-establishment of the Swedish civil defense. Among other things, we discuss the arguments regarding a reintroduction of the K-company system in the form it existed during the Cold War in relations to the proposals by the public inquiry Utredningen om näringslivets försörjningsberedskap. To this end, we apply lessons learned and empirical-analytical conclusions drawn from a substantial research survey on business-government relations and the history of the war economy.

This chapter examines the use of cost-benefit analyses during three decision-making processes concerning icebreaker investments in Sweden between 1970 and 1975. It is demonstrated that while the 1963 transport act recommended that all government-funded transport and infrastructure investments should be preceded by cost-benefit analyses, it was difficult to implement this ambition. During the examined investment processes, actors such as economists, agencies, and interest groups presented available and potential calculations of benefits and costs for society from the proposed icebreakers. However, those proposals were only partly taken into consideration and were not decisive for the investment decisions which instead had a strong anchorage in an institutional context dominated by prominent goals within macroeconomic policy, regional cohesion policy, and industrial policy. The examined decisions reflected a general view held by the government and industrial leaders that investments in new icebreakers were necessary to support ongoing and planned investments in the heavy manufacturing industries located in northern Sweden. Such views regarding the role of the icebreaker service as a catalyst for industrial investments had also been established in a corporatist network between the State Maritime Administration and a group of firms in the heavy manufacturing industrial sector concerned by icebreaking.

This article by Pär Malmberg, Jan Ottosson, Martin Eriksson, and Olle Jansson discusses Sweden’s work with industry as part of its total defence concept and whole-of-society approach to national preparedness. The article covers the past and the formative years in the early 1960s, up to the gradual discontinuation of total defence planning at the turn of the 21st century. It also presents the status and possible future developments in the context of changing industrial and geopolitical realities. The focus is on the forms of collaboration and coordination between the State and companies, both private and publicly owned.