A modern discipline with a longer pre-history

Political science is not seldom described as a young discipline in Europe. It developed into one of the major disciplines within the social sciences after the Second World War after a modest beginning in the latter part of the 19th century, sometimes more or less from scratch. With roots in the early 17th century, Swedish political science would seem to be something of a deviant case. Already in 1622, the foundation of the Johan Skytte Chair in Eloquence and Government at the University of Uppsala marked the birth of a new discipline in Sweden. The donor who gave his name to the new chair wanted to promote eloquence among Swedish civil servants and diplomats, and the professor of politics and eloquence initially presided over what may be described as a professional training programme rather different from modern political science. Still, the chair provided an organisational platform for the new discipline, the contours of which were readily visible in the late 1800s and early 1900s, in Uppsala and Lund.

Founded in 1477, Uppsala University is Sweden's oldest university followed by Lund University almost two centuries later (1666). Political science was introduced here in 1877. Pontus Fahlbeck – founder of the Swedish Journal of Political Science (Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift) – served as professor of political science for a few formative decades (1889–1915).