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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.

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.