ive boards (Banks 567-569).
The legislative authority is vested in the Riksdag, which was bicameral before 1971. The judicial system includes the Supreme Court, six courts of appeal, and 100 district courts. Amendments to the 19th-century constitution gradually established the supremacy of Parliament. By the early 1900s, the decisions of Swedish government required the support of a majority in Parliament. The speaker of Parliament exercises influence over the government and the role of the crown is almost entirely ceremonial in present times (Taylor 88).
The Swedish party system is rather different from the American two-party system. Parties are numerous, and the larger political parties are pragmatic, rather than ideological, always seeking to widen their appeal to voters from other parties. Party loyalty is very strong among voters and the.proportion of seats held by each party changes only slightly at each election. The number of seats held by the parties of the left and the right is evenly balanced. The Social Democratic Labor Party formed the government from 1933 to 1976 and again after 1982, although it has rarely held an absolute majority of seats (Taylor 91).
The conventional Swedish method of grouping parties is into bourgeois and socialist groups. The Green Ecology Party, organized in 1981, does not fit into either traditional grouping. The bourgeois parties include the Moderate Coalition Party, the People's Party, the Center Party, and the Christian Democratic Party. The Socialist Parties include the Social Democratic Labor Party, the Communist Left Party, and the Communist Workers Party. Other groups which do not at present have representation in the Riksdag are the Communist Party of Sweden, the Communist Party of Marxist-Leninist Revolutionaries, and the Trotskyite Socialist Party (Banks 568-569).
Of the bourgeois parties, the Moderate Coalition Party represents the financial and business commun...