Contentious Politics and the Welfare State

Squatting in Sweden

Dominika Polanska, Dominika V. Polanska

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781138091719
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351608435
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book outlines the history of squatting in Sweden and analyzes the conditions under which squatting has intensified and declined in the country between 1968 and 2017. With close attention to the relationship between civil society and the state in the Swedish context, and the manner in which this relationship, together with attendant political, media and movement-based discourses, shapes the possibilities that exist for collective action, the author draws on two key concepts – those of the narrative of consensus and discourse – to present an analysis of squatting as a form of contentious politics and the "successful" story of civil society development as decisive for its emergence and development in the country. A study of the way in which confrontational actors question both the property relations inherent in capitalism and the authority of the welfare state and its institutions, Contentious Politics and the Welfare State will appeal to social scientists with interests in urban studies, political sociology, squatting, social movements and the relationship between the welfare state and contentious social actors.

1 Previous studies on squatting in Sweden and beyond

In this chapter I review the previous literature on squatting in Sweden and focus on how the structural conditions for squatting have been presented in these studies, before I continue to the next section where I review the existing literature on the collective actors behind squatting in Sweden. The review is structured chronologically in order to build as complete a picture as possible given the small number of studies done on the topic.

The first section of the chapter serves as a background for the conditions for squatting outlined in previous studies. Even if few studies focus on squatting directly, and the most recent period of 2000s is almost entirely missing, the structural conditions prevalent during the historical periods studied are generally satisfactorily described. The second part of the review uncovers the collective actors involved in squatting in Sweden since the late 1960s as described in previous research. It will be demonstrated that the small number of studies on squatting and squatters in Sweden results in a fragmented and sometimes even skewed representation of squatters.

Furthermore, the third section of the review examines international studies on squatting and focuses on the opportunity structures highlighted by authors studying different contexts. Here, the argument is that the tendency among international scholars of social movements and squatting to study “successful” cases before small-scale and less spectacular ones is evident in the opportunities brought forward in studies and their insufficiency in explaining the Swedish case. Researchers tend to focus on what makes collective mobilizations and movements popular and effective in achieving their claims, rather than examining what constrains collective action and what hinders the achievement of its goals.

The last section of this chapter concentrates on an analysis of the shortcomings of previous studies sketching out an agenda for future research on squatting, including knowledge of the constraining aspects in collective action as it covers previously under-researched characteristics of mobilization and more sustained collective action, further broadening and nuancing our knowledge of the contentious politics of squatting.

The radicalization of the 1960s

Apart from a bachelor thesis on squatting in the city of Lund in the end of the 1960s (Rylander 2014), there is no scholarly work published concentrating solely on squatting in this period. Most of the existing studies have focused on the “radicalization” of the 1960s encompassing progressive social movements (among others, women’s, environmental, peace, students, workers) fighting for social justice and extended democratic rights (Östberg 2002). The structural conditions of this period are comprehensively described in Kjell Östberg’s book on radicalization waves in social movement activity in Sweden culminating in 1968, but stretching from the 1950s to the 1980s. Even if the book does not directly study squatting, it gives a good overview of the conditions prevailing during this period. Östberg argues that the structural, conjunctural, social, political and cultural changes were fundamental for development during the 1960s. For development in the Swedish case, Östberg argues that the interaction between social movements and the state has been of great significance, along with substantial urbanization processes, a large youth population, fundamental changes in moral values, a widespread and influential civil society and the close cooperation of social movements with political parties during this period, in particular the Social Democratic Party.

The author also emphasizes economic growth during this period and the influential role of the welfare state, at the same time as more Swedish young adults than ever before got a university education (from 11,000 students in 1950 to 125,000 in 1970). He argues that the wealth and relative economic independence of Swedish youth created material conditions for the formation of youth cultures and unification of common struggles with the workers when the future did not seem to look as bright as for the previous generations. What Östberg also stresses as an important factor behind the radicalization of social movements in Sweden in the 1960s is the development in the rest of the world and the ideological divide between East and West that was a result of the Cold War and the North-South divide partly resulting from the creation of new political forces after World War II among the formerly colonized independent states (Östberg 2002: 26f).

The culmination of radicalization is dated by Östberg to the years between 1965 and 1970 followed by a decline in the end of the 1970s. This culmination was called by the author “The red 1960s” and was characterized by close cooperation with the Social Democrats and socialists, the debate on housing shortage rectified by the Million Dwelling Programme, officially starting in 1965 and going on for ten years with the goal of construction of one million dwellings, and increasing differences in living and working conditions, revealing the cracks in the façade of the Swedish People’s Home (Folkhemmet), a metaphorical notion established by the Social Democrats of Sweden as a home for all citizens, referring to the idea of a welfare state where equality and consensus were dominating and class differences were to be eradicated. The peak in 1968 was, moreover, facilitated by Swedish TV and radio reporting on the events held during this period, along with the introduction of paperback book editions feeding the curiosity of social movements or simply inspiring political engagement.

In 1968, a movement for all-activity-houses grew in several cities in Sweden and coincided sometimes with squatting events, when the activists felt that parliamentary means were exhausted (Nelhans 1971). In the case of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Lund, the idea of a building open to everybody regardless of age, independent of authorities and offering a variety of activities, was the driving force behind the squatting of several places in the end of 1960s and throughout the 1970s. In his work on the all-activity house of Gamla Bro (1969–1972) in Stockholm, Mats Eriksson Dunér explained the concept of all-activity:

The very word all-activity is a merger that refers to different types of activities and undertakings, but where the term activity also refers to the more charged word “activist” in the meaning of a political activist who advocates action and / or precedes political decisions by trying to bring about change in a specific issue. This duality built-into the word also shows the charge and ambiguity that surrounded the phenomenon of all-activity houses.

(Eriksson Dunér 2015: 23)

Influences from abroad were important for the events and social movements emerging in Sweden by that time. These were looking at other groups in Denmark, Germany, Holland, France, United Kingdom, United States and other countries and were inspired by their formation and activity. Student protests sweeping over the world in 1968 were of crucial importance and the first squatting event held in Sweden took place in the same year as in the rest of the world and criticized planned educational reform limiting the freedoms of students (in Swedish abbreviated to “UKAS”). Also, squatting events in the end of the 1960s were carried out by groups of students, above all in Lund. Östberg describes the goals behind squatting actions of the late 1960s as protesting against UKAS reform and discussing the role of universities more broadly (Östberg 2002: 104).

People’s Home Anarchists of the 1970s

The 1970s are also covered in some studies more directly focusing on squatting. Among these, the works of Håkan Thörn on an inner-city area in Gothenburg called Haga have been illuminating (Thörn 2012; Thörn 2013). Thörn has described the resistance going on in the area against urban renewal projects threatening to demolish several buildings in Haga between 1970 and 1990, being part of a “total sanitation” plan (read: slum clearance) of the city (Thörn 2013: 14). The resistance took the form of squatting, founding direct action groups, mobilization, dialogue and opinion forming. One significant success of the struggles of the 1970s was the shift in municipal plans to more cautious renovation plans in the end of the 1970s and thus the withdrawal of the demolition plans. Thörn writes that squatters encountered intransigent and unsympathetic attitudes in the beginning of the 1970s from established societal institutions, but that these attitudes shifted to the invitation of squatters to the “conversation table of the Swedish consensus culture” (ibid.: 13). He refers to the specific non-militant approach of squatters in Gothenburg in the 1970s and 1980s, calling them “People’s Home Anarchists” (Folkhemsanarkisterna), consciously forming their image as non-violent unlike their counterparts in other European countries.

One important structural condition that Thörn emphasizes in his studies of squatting in Gothenburg 1970–1990 was the presence of deteriorated working-class residential areas in central parts of the city (Figure 1.1). They facilitated the creation of relatively cheap, or free of charge, meeting spaces where movements could grow and social and cultural communities could form. Also, Thörn highlights the importance of influences from outside the city and describes the connections between Haga and the Freetown of Christiania in Denmark or the squat of Mullvaden in Stockholm at the end of the 1970s. He argues that Haga and Christiania functioned as centers for social movements, alternative culture and music movements in the 1970s and 1980s (Thörn 2013: 31). They constituted relatively permanent spaces in the central parts of the European cities that in this period succeeded in creating debates on issues rarely discussed in the public sphere.

Figure 1.1 “Sweden ends here” on a squat in Haga, Gothenburg, late 1980s.

Photo: Salka Sandén

Furthermore, Thörn has contributed to a deeper understanding of the squatting practices of the time and distinguished between the different goals of squatting in Haga in 1970–1990. Among these he identified three goals:

1. the provision of housing;
2. the provision of free spaces for activities; and
3. the preservation of the area from demolition (Thörn 2012).

Moreover, he argued that the activists from Haga succeeded in redefining the stigmatized identity of the area and thus were able to stop its clearance (although not its gentrification over time). In focusing on the material conditions and collective identities in his study of Haga, Thörn accentuated the need to go beyond the exclusive analysis of political opportunity structures in this kind of study. In a comparison with Christiania in Copenhagen he wrote:

In Haga, by contrast, there was less political unity among squatting projects and activist groups. In the end, conservational activism tended to be more successful than the place politics of open space, a development that eventually contributed to the gentrification of the district.

(Thörn 2012: 165)

This important conclusion demonstrates that conservational claims were more successful in the context of Gothenburg than the claims of autonomy and openness to the public based in a specific place identity, a dimension of squatting called by Thörn “place politics of open space” (2012). Most importantly, the author demonstrates that the conservational claims were more significant to the “success” of the Swedish squatters.

Social Democracy and established organizations clashing with grassroots

Place-making practices in the alternative milieu in Sweden in the 1970s have likewise been analyzed by Kristoffer Ekberg (2016) in his PhD dissertation. Several such practices involved squatting and Ekberg claims that squatting actions held in rural areas had some similarities with urban squatting in their framing of claims as preservational or conservational, but differed in other aspects such as their non-confrontational and often covert nature, in that they were carried out by families or small collectives and did not express the goals of great social and political change, but rather focused on living lives in a particular way (close to nature), and above all not being open to the public like in the case described by Thörn. In a sense, this kind of place-making was more of an individual emancipation than the political engagement that is the focus of this book. However, this turn to a rural life, outside cities is important to highlight as it was by that time called “the green wave” and was a part of the environmental movement that emerged in the 1970s and sometimes used squatting as a technique of disruptive action (Tilly & Wood 2009). The environmental movement has been described in the work of Ulf Stahre, who argues on the basis of Stockholm that environmental issues were merged together with issues concerning spatial planning, anti-commercialism and community-seeking in what was called the Neighborhood movement (Byalagsrörelsen) (Stahre 1999; Stahre 2002). This movement expanded quickly in the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s in Swedish cities but had almost totally declined by 1980 (Stahre 1999: 78). The political opportunity structure of the time was described as relatively closed to the members of the neighborhood movement as “the movement did not follow the political rules” of Social Democracy (ibid.: 268). Stahre wrote:

The neighborhood movement was seen as a threat to the building activity and consequently also to jobs. To some extent pure class antagonism is visible in the publications, as the neighborhood groups were seen as students and upper class. In the tenants’ union, dominated by the Social Democrats, fierce conflicts arose when participants of the neighborhood groups joined the union as active members.

(Stahre 1999: 268)

Based on a study of city council protocols from 1968 to 1976 and the trade union journal “Stockholms byggarbetare” (Stockholm Construction Workers) from 1968 to 1978, Stahre concluded that the relationship of the neighborhood movement and the Social Democrats was antagonistic and that the latter’s negative attitude towards the neighborhood movement was based on the assumption “that these acted outside the set frames of the municipal democracy” and that they “put aside the fixed game rules, which was unacceptable” (Stahre 1999: 198). Moreover, Stahre came to the conclusion that Social Democrats viewed themselves as the guarantors of, and responsible for, the upkeep of the political system and that their view of the movement differed from the Liberals or the Left Party. In the case of the powerful civil society organization – the Tenants’ Union – Stahre draws similar conclusions. Although the Union was initially positive to the neighborhood movement it quickly changed its view due to the use of extra-parliamentary methods that were “alien” to the Union and the conflict revolved according to the author around two issues: (1) that the movement did not follow the rules of the game, and (2) that there was a competition between the Union and the movement for the support of similar groups of citizens (ibid.: 200).

In Torbjörn Tenfält’s (2011) short study of the squatting of Mullvaden in Stockholm in 1977–1978, one of the main conclusions is that the trust cleavage between the local elected politicians and the citizens was deepened and revealed in the conflict about the squatted buildings. When the squatters faced the court the main concern of the prosecutor in the media was “Where will this end if others follow?” (ibid.: 65).

Municipal politics disarming the radical edge in the 1980s

In the 1980s, squatting was influenced by music movements and in particular by punk music. In a study of squatting actions held in the city of Jönköping in 1982, Martin Ericsson (2016) argues that the repertoire of squatters, although still non-violent, shifted in this period to focus more on the creation of cultural spaces or what in Sweden was called “allaktivitetshus” (all-activity-house, referring to the idea about self-managed and non-hierarchical spaces for different groups to use without the control of authorities or organizations). These claims were already being made during the 1960s and 1970s and over time created a greater responsiveness among the local authorities toward the demands for autonomous spaces (Thörn 2013: 50) and a tendency to “end the occupations at the negotiation table” in the 1980s in Gothenburg (Carle 1991: 44). In the case of Jönköping, studied by Ericsson, a conflict sprang up between the squatters and the local politicians that, once again, revolved around the extra-parliamentary method used by the squatters and the demand set by the politicians to the squatters to formalize their activity in the form of a voluntary organization in order to be treated as a legitimate political subject (Ericsson 2016: 179). In this case, only the local Left Party was sympathetic to the demands of the activists and the Social Democrats were accused of betrayal by the squatting activists. The outcome, the decision to open a cultural space in the city in 1983 run by formal organizations and some representatives of the municipality was conflict-ridden and “succeeded in disarming the more radical demands for direct democracy and self-management” (ibid.: 184).

Peter Håkansson and Johan Lundin argued...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Previous studies on squatting in Sweden and beyond
• 2. Squatting in the Swedish media
• 3. Parliamentary discussions and delegitimation techniques
• 4. Squatters’ self-presentations and the creation of adversaries
• 5. “It is right to rebel” or why squatters do what they do
• 6. Conclusion: Contesting consensus
• References
• Index