Abstract
Technical progress was for a long time uncontroversial in the Scandinavian left and labor movements. World events like the American war in Vietnam and a new Zeitgeist changed this at the end of the sixties and politically aware computer enthusiasts started seeing computers in a new light. Three themes were central in the Swedish discussion: the IBM hegemony, computers, personal privacy, and the threat to democratic development by a changed balance of power. Swedish debate at the time is from a personal point of view.
Key words
Download to read the full chapter text
Chapter PDF
References
Peter Naur, “Datorer och samhälle”. Med ett tillägg om svenska förhållandenav Sten Henriksson Studentlitteratur, Lund 1969.
En_ny vänster (red.Göran Therborn). Rabén & Sjögren Stockholm, 1966.
Socialdemokraterna: Motioner till partikongressen 28 september-4 oktober 1969, Vol I, Motion D24
Datorer på människans villkor. Program för datapolitiken. Socialdemokraterna, Borås 1978
Datorerna och samhällsutvecklingen. Inlägg vid Tage Erlanders datasymposium 1980, Tiden 1981.
Information från Statistiktjänsten, SCB 1969, s. 5–7
“Missbrukas offentlighetsprincipen?”, Svensk Sparbankstidskrift 1969:7, sid 380–82
Sven-Erik Johansson och Bo Wiedenborg “Människan och datatekniken”, Sveriges Radios förlag, Kristianstad 1969.
Magnus Johansson, Smart Fast and Beautiful, On Rhetoric of Technology and Computing Discourse in Sweden 1955–1995. Diss. Linköping 1997.
Were the pioneering efforts then just wasted? No, they left a residue of experience which resulted in early adaptation of computers in Sweden. Hans De Geer, På väg till datasamhället: datekniken i politiken 1946–63. Tekniska Högskolan/FA-rådet 1992.
Jørgen Bansler “Systemudvikling-teori og historie i skandivisk perspektiv”. Studentlitteratur, Lund 1987. For a philosophic and academic analysis, Pelle Ehn: “Work-oriented design of computer artifacts” Arbetslivsscentrum/Almqvist&Wiksell 1988
Both the Liberal party and the Center party were active in the area, with Kerstin Anér and Olof Johansson as the main actors. For a review of early computer politics, see Kent Lindkvist, Datateknik och politik (1984). For a follow-up to 1994, see S. Henriksson, “Datapolitikens död och återkomst” in B. Atlestam, Infrastruktur för informationssamhället, NUTEK B 1995:1. For an recent study see Lars Ilshammar, Offentlighetens nya rum — Teknik och politik i Sverige 1969–1999. Diss Örebro 2002.
Lessig, Lawrence, Code and other laws of cyberspace, Basic Books 1999. Lessig, Lawrence, The future of ideas: the fate of the commons in a connected world, Vintage Books 2001.
http://www.gnu.org
Manuel Castells, The Information age, vol II, Blackwell 1996.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2005 International Federation for Information Processing
About this paper
Cite this paper
Henriksson, S. (2005). When Computers Became of Interest in Politics. In: Bubenko, J., Impagliazzo, J., Sølvberg, A. (eds) History of Nordic Computing. HiNC 2003. IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, vol 174. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-24168-X_37
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-24168-X_37
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-24167-8
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-24168-5
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)