Competition Policy and the Swedish Model

The aim of this paper is to present some findings from a study on the development of competition policy in Sweden since 1945. The comprehensive questions are about the view on knowledge in competition policy, the trust to the Swedish model, the change of the model and what has replaced it, and the attitudes to competition and co-operation in politics, authorities and interest groups. The study is basically built on government bills and directives to committees, committee reports, and comments on the later from authorities and interest groups. Typical signs of the Swedish model were a consensus and co-operative attitude towards interest conflict, with institutional arrangements aimed for negotiations and pragmatism. This was also typical for competition policy. During the 1990s we find a change to an EU-model. It meant a transition to a more legalistic and theoretic view on competition. When it comes to attitudes they changed successively in the direction of favouring competition before co-operation. The change was however radical when it comes to politicians and competition authorities. Not least the later came to argue for an “antitrust” view on competition. However, business interests were sceptical to the new competition law copying the EU-model.