Admirable study, that could serve as a template for political sport histories of other countries

Alan Bairner
Loughborough University

If only an earlier version of Jens Ljunggren’s  A Political History of Sport in Sweden had been available to me when I first took an interest in Swedish sport and received funding from the British Academy in 1994 to visit Stockholm primarily to interview politicians about their respective parties’ sport policies. Another interviewee, during that visit, was Jan Lindroth, a predecessor of Jens Ljunggren as a Professor of History at Stockholm University and a pioneer in the area of Swedish sport history. Ljunggren’s book answers many of the questions that I had at that time and prompts other questions which I have not previously considered.

The structure of the book is chronological but also thematic insofar as many of the eras that are discussed were characterised by specific political developments and their implications. The introduction alerts the reader to what is often referred to as the Swedish model or, at times, the Nordic Model. This is significant because although Ljunggren’s book is principally about Sweden, in many of the chapters close attention is also paid to Denmark and Norway, revealing similarities but also, perhaps more interestingly, highlighting differences in politics, sport and the relationship of the two between the three Scandinavian countries, and identifying ‘distinguishing traits of Swedish sport politics’ (p. 7).

Indeed, Ljunggren argues that the social democrats’ approach to sport politics was ’characterised by a particularly high degree of party-political consensus and a mutual understanding between state authorities and the Swedish Sports Confederation’.

Chapter 2 examines the development of sport in Sweden from the sixteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century in a process described by Ljunggren as ‘sport from above’ (p. 17). Here we see the relationship with sport of the main social classes – the nobility, the people, and the upcoming social strata, as well as the impact on sport of Sweden’s constitutional development. The focus of Chapter 3 is Swedish gymnasts and, in particular, the influence of Pehr Henrik Ling, the pioneer of ‘a Swedish Invention that Conquered the World’ (p. 39). According to Ljunggren, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, gymnastics became ‘a governmental concern’ (p. 35) ‘as a state-supported pedagogy for the schools and the army’ (p.39). Significant in this was Ling’s critique of competitive sport, an attitude that would persist in Sweden from different quarters and for different reasons, as highlighted by Ljunggren with reference to the return of sport criticism in the 1960s. Of equal significance, as Ljunggren relates, was the fact that, although the initial aim of Ling gymnastics had been ‘the harmoniously trained male body’, the one-sex model ‘presumed that there was simply a difference of degree between men and women and assumed that both sexes strove for the same goal’ (p. 53). Ling’s son, Hjalmar, developed gymnastics in line with this one-sex model. However, the two-sex model that emerged subsequently ‘was a response to the fact that women, like men, began to invoke the idea of human rights and demand equality’ (p. 53).  Despite the fact that Ljunggren highlights the feminisation and feministisation of gymnastics, this is a confusing debate which arguably required more clarification in his book. What we do know, however, as confirmed in the recent Olympic Games in Paris is that, although male and female gymnasts have slightly different programmes, strength and grace are exhibited in the performances of both, epitomised nowhere more than by the return of Simone Biles.

At this point in the book, Ljunggren separates the development of Swedish sport to the 1930s (Chapter 4) and the development of Swedish sport politics to the 1930s (Chapter 5). The chapters are highly informative and provide the necessary context for what is to follow. One of the most important events in the period was the foundation of Riksidrottsförbundet (RF, Swedish Sports Confederation) in 1903. It was initially known as the National Confederation of Swedish Gymnastics and Sport Associations, and is to the present day a powerful umbrella organisation for the Swedish sport movement.

However, although the separation of the content of these two chapters is perhaps understandable, it begs the question with which I have long grappled: Can sport ever be totally separated from sport politics or indeed from politics more generally? Indeed, what do we even mean by sport politics? Does the term refer solely, or at least primarily, to the policies of governments and sport governing bodies or is there more to it than that? I suspect the latter, which is why I have tended to opt instead for an alternative, namely the politics of sport, which brings into the picture a much wider spectrum of society, including notably the fans and even those who hate sport.

For many readers, the book will become even more interesting with Chapter 6 in which Ljunggren writes about how the Swedish social democrats embraced sport. I know I am not alone in having wondered if the Scandinavian countries and especially Sweden adopted an ideological perspective on sport from which others could still learn. Ljunggren acknowledges that ‘from having been a right-middle topic at the beginning of the [twentieth] century, sport had moved towards becoming more of a middle left topic [from the1960s]’ (pp. 161–2). However, it will come as a shock to some readers, possibly even a source of disappointment, when they read that ‘in Sweden a reformist Social Democratic leadership succeeded in curbing worker sport’ (p. 127). Indeed, Ljunggren argues that the social democrats’ approach to sport politics was ’characterised by a particularly high degree of party-political consensus and a mutual understanding between state authorities and RF’ (p. 127). Moreover, this is a theme to which Ljunggren returns in his conclusion, writing that ‘distinctive for the Swedish development of sport since the 1970s has been that although sport has been polarised, sport politics has so far not’ (p. 223). With that we are again confronted, of course, with the conundrum: Can sport and sport politics be regarded as separate entities?

Space does not permit a more extensive review of this book which does justice to Ljunggren’s impressive research. Worthy of attention, for example, is the 1969 ban on professional boxing only ten years after Ingemar Johansson had become world heavyweight champion and a national hero not only for his performance in the ring but also for being ‘simple, honourable, honest, sober and friendly’ (p. 139).  RF would also have deserved more attention as would the impact of both professionalism and commercialism, all of which are addressed in the book.

For the sake of clarity, perhaps a separate chapter on the politics of gender would have been a useful addition albeit one that would have meant departing from the chronological approach as would a chapter on the impact of migration on Swedish sport. Overall, however, this is an admirable study and one that could serve as a template for political histories of other countries. Finally, Palgrave Macmillan deserve praise for publishing a series of Studies in Sport and Politics. It is to Ljunggren’s credit, however, that his book is alone in the series in having the word ‘political’ (or any other derivative of ‘politics’) in its title.

Copyright © Alan Bairner 2024