Article "A marginal issue in relation to economic defence policy: Sweden’s state-business relations during the restructuring of the leather shoe industry, 1975–1987"

Abstract

Swedish title: "En bisak i förhållande till beredskapspolitiken: Relationen mellan staten och näringslivet under omstruktureringen av läderskoindustrin 1975–1987"

In the early to mid-1970s, the Swedish government agencies involved in defence planning identified the plummeting domestic production of clothing and shoes as a concern. As part of the state’s total defence planning, the country was to withstand up to three years of severely limited imports in times of crisis or war. The objective was to maintain domestic shoe production in line with the defence planning assessments of annual production requirements. Measures taken included various forms of support, favourable loans, and attempts to restructure the shoe industry. A privately owned conglomerate of six shoe companies was formed on the government’s initiative. However, the programme ultimately failed and was disbanded in 1987. By then, the domestic shoe industry’s production capacity was only a fraction of what was deemed necessary a decade earlier.

In this article we examine the stakeholders who controlled or influenced the measures implemented to secure the supply of leather shoes in times of crisis and war in the 1970s and 1980s. We find that while private companies benefited from the support programmes, it primarily reflected considerations of defence policy and national security interests. The direction of economic defence policy was so decisive in the support for the leather shoe industry that more common factors behind industrial subsidies – such as employment and labour market considerations – were marginalised. This, in turn, meant that the exchange between the parties involved was asymmetric and essentially on the state’s terms. In other words, defence policy in the Cold War had a far-reaching impact on Swedish society, even in peacetime. However, we also demonstrate that while general contingency planning resulted in extensive government support for the leather shoe industry, there were still problems that neither the public nor the private sector could deal with. Available resources were insufficient, regardless of who was attempting to mobilise them. Some companies were struggling even before the support programmes were cancelled following the 1987 Defence Review, which set out to shift expenditure away from economic and civil defence into modernising the country’s military defences.

The article is written in Swedish.