Om reformers karaktär: On the character of reforms

The ambition in this article is to present a scheme designed to facilitate an elementary analysis of political reforms. The scheme is based on six questions: Public interest or special interests? Stability or flexibility? With or against the market? Confirmation or initiation? Long or short sight? Intended or unintended consequences? There are other questions to keep in mind when evaluating reforms, which however do not fit into a scheme with two endpoints: Who are the winners and losers? Are there deadweight losses? May a reform-cycle emerge? These questions can be partly addressed under some of the scheme headings, particularly public interest vs special interests and intended vs unintended consequences. Finally, one of the major reforms during the latter part of the 20th century, the deregulation of the Swedish credit market, the so-called November revolution, is used to illustrate how the scheme may be used.