INSTITUTIONAL LEGACIES AND THE ROLE OF CITIZENS IN THE SCANDINAVIAN WELFARE-STATE

In this article, I attempt to explain the different roles of Swedish a nd Danish citizens when they encounter the welfare state. The case cho sen is primary education, the area with the greatest variation. My the sis is that the differences are primarily explained by the different i nstitutional legacies in the two countries, rather than the often-sugg ested alternatives, i.e., the different strength of the labor movement s and the importance of Grundtvigian ideas in Denmark. I argue that in the first decades of the 20th century, Sweden and Denmark established two very different systems of school administration. Once established , these have shown a high, though by no means total, stability and the development has been path dependent. Due to the different institution al legacies, the same political ideas have often resulted in different decisions and measures in the two countries.