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Attitudes Towards a Fallen Leader: Evaluations of Olof Palme Before and After the Assassination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Peter Esaiasson  and
Donald Granberg
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Extract

No event in recent times was more unexpected than the assassination of Sweden's prime minister, Olof Palme, shortly before midnight on 28 February 1986. The murder sent a shock wave throughout the Western world, especially, of course, among Swedish citizens. By noon the next day, virtually all Swedes had learned about his death. People in Sweden displayed their emotions publicly in an unprecedented manner. Church attendance, which had dwindled for decades, suddenly, albeit temporarily, soared.

Type
Notes and Comments
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , July 1996 , pp. 429 - 439
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

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13 The three-year lagged correlations (measuring the same thing at two points in time) averaged 0.69 for political parties and 0.62 for party leaders in Sweden. These correlations tend to be somewhat higher for the Social Democratic party, Sweden's largest political party, and its leader. See Granberg, Donald and Holmberg, Sören, The Political System Matters: Social Psychology and Voting Behaviour in Sweden and the United States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

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17 The only comparable drop that has been documented in feeling thermometer ratings was the case of Gary Hart who was rated at 62.2 after a creditable though losing effort at winning the Democratic party's nomination in 1984. Then he got caught up in scandals regarding his personal life ending with a rating of 39.3 prior to the Super Tuesday primary election of 1988.

18 Of course, we recognize that Nixon himself undertook major efforts to change the way history would view him. However, this is not relevant for our testing of the critical event hypothesis. The effects of a truly critical event are not dependent upon the ceteris paribus condition.

19 If these ratings do not seem particularly high, it may be noted that they are higher than the ratings of the nominee of the Democratic party in 1972, George McGovern. Ratings of McGovern averaged 49.1 before the 1972 election and 45.6 after that election.

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