RB 74

summary As a researcher, Blomberg has been unfairly judged in a negative way by later generations, probably because they have only assessed his production of papers. Den nordiska förvaltningsrätten [Nordic Administrative Law], which was published in 1887 to 1889, was a voluminous work that comprised a fairly sprawling report on the special administrative law’s set of rules with no systematic attempt to conduct any overall evaluation or to classify the material. However, he went much further as a teacher. According to the journals of the Faculty, he actively lectured on the general parts of administrative law, on concepts, organisation, administrative decisions (‘förvaltningsakter’), etc. It could be said that Blomberg compiled the materials for a building without making any drawings. The expansion of Swedish public administration, which started in the mid-19th century, accelerated in the early 20th century. The attitude of members of the Riksdag gradually changed, fromlaissez faire to State intervention, supported by both conservatives and social liberals. This expansion was reinforced during the First World War and in the establishment of the Swedish ’People’s Home’, a metaphor that came from the right but quickly taken over by the Social Democrats. The image of the early 20th century is of a change in working life and of a ’second’ industrial breakthrough paving the way for large corporations, with workers in organised and nationwide associations and collective bargaining agreements. In parallel with production gradually shifting from agriculture to industry, Sweden was democratised through the introduction of a parliamentary form of government in 1917 and universal suffrage in 1920 to 1921. In practice this involved a redistribution of the functions of power fromhis Royal Majesty/the Government to the Riksdag, into which the will of the people was channelled. This happened without a single word of the 1809 Instrument of Government being changed, which still prescribed that the King ‘alone’ should govern the Realm. The period from 1917 up to the 1974 Instrument of Government has therefore been referred to as ‘the constitution-less half century’. 273 1900 to 1925

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