Contested streets. Political marches in Stockholm, 1887–1920.

Title. Contested streets. Political marches in Stockholm, 1887–1920.
Abstract. Repertoires of contention change. It is clear that during the 19th and early 20th century, swedes learned to stage marches to make political claims, something that was virtually unknown in Sweden before the mid-19th century. At first, the oligarchy that held power in Sweden mostly accepted political marching in the streets, but when in the mid-1880s the social democratic worker's movement started to hold demonstrations in Stockholm they took issue with this way of politizing the public spaces of the capital. A bylaw in 1886 decreed that all public marching in the capital henceforth needed the approval of the authorities. The bylaw remained in force up to and beyond the years of the “democratic breakthrough” (1917-1921), giving the authorities control over political marching in the capital. This paper analyses political marching in Stockholm in the years 1887-1920, focussing on which groups that applied to stage political marches, which were allowed to do so by the authorities, and how this changed during the period, thus adding to our knowledge of the development of a democratic repertoire of contention in Sweden.
Short bio. Magnus Olofsson, PhD, is a researcher at the Department of History, Lund university and an affiliated researcher at the Department of Economic History Lund university. His research interests are Contentious Politics Studies, political radicalism, democratization and labour history, focussing on Swedish 19th and early 20th century history.
Contact details. E-mail [email protected] I Visiting address Helgonavägen 3, Lund I Postal address Box 192, 221 00 Lund, Sweden
Keywords. Contentious Performance; Contentious Politics Studies; Democratization; Political march; Repertoire of contention