From one point of view, political parties are an integral part of democracy as we know it today; likewise, for instance, the left–right cleavage is considered as the ‘normal’ scale along which parties are supposed to orientate themselves. From a historical point of view, however, the very idea of organizing interests in the form of ‘parties’, as well as clear-cut conceptions of ‘left’ and ‘right’, are novel phenomena. We only have to turn back to the early twentieth century to find that the concept of the modern mass party was met with great caution. To contemporary society, ‘party’ may well have been a necessary solution to the emerging problem of mass politics and political association. This does not mean that the idea was embraced willingly.
Political movements such as socialism, liberalism, and conservatism managed the idea of political association differently. The main argument of this book is that liberals in particular were divided over the idea of party; this because of the individualistic traits embedded in liberal ideology. In terms of organization the result was often what I have labelled ‘organization by proxy’. Indeed, this pattern seems not to have been restricted to Sweden specifically but was most likely typical for European liberal movements more generally. This book, then, is about modern liberalism: how it failed the transition to hierarchically organized mass parties, and the consequences in a longer perspective. More specifically my focus is on Sweden and Germany.
Generous funding for my research and for the publication of the results has been received from the Swedish Research Council, grants no. 2006-1054 and 2010-6154. Archivists and librarians in Sweden and Germany have most kindly given their help and assistance during the process. I would like to thank the staff at the National Archives in Stockholm, the Regional Archive in Värmland, the Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein, and the Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesbibliothek, Kiel.
It is also with deeply-felt gratitude I thank Tomas Nilsson, Peter Olausson, and Martin Stolare for reading my texts and making valuable suggestions. At an early stage of my research I also had the opportunity to discuss my ideas with Robert Bohn, Universität Flensburg. Also, parts of the analysis–later published in Swedish –were presented at a workshop on liberal party organization in Karlstad in the spring of 2009; I would like to thank in particular Ingrid Åberg for valuable comments. Finally, Gerhard Fellsman has kindly scrutinized my translations from German to English.
Martin Åberg
Henån/Karlstad