CIRJE-J-76. Ishihara, Shunji, "Public Spheres in Stockholm around 1900", May 2002.

About 100 years ago, in many western countries it was a serious political and social problem whether man should accept workers as equal political actors or not. Workers' participation in the bourgeois public sphere was the central moment for the structural transformation of public sphere (Jörgen Habermas). But all the countries have not experienced such a transformation in the same way. In Hamburg the municipal franchise was restricted 1906. Workers were rejected by the bourgeois public sphere. While workers in Stockholm managed to be accepted as equal political actors by the other classes in the beginning of the 20th century.

In this paper I try to explain what made such a difference in these two cities in focus with the cross-class public spheres. In Stockholm the cross-class public spheres had been developed by the activities of radical intellectuals and voluntary association such as teetotalers' society. These had promoted the co-operation between Left-Liberals and Social Democrats. Workers and social democratic labor movement emphasized sobriety and self-respect. Their respectability appealed to the other classes through the cross-class public spheres. In Hamburg we cannot find such a development of the public spheres. The labor movement was isolated in the society. So workers were rejected as immature or uncultured by the bourgeois public sphere.