This study, En fråga för väljarna? Kampen om det lokala vetot 1893-1917 ("An Issue for the Voters? The Struggle over Local Veto Powers 1893-1917") provides an empirical test of the so-called Multiple Streams Approach developed by John Kingdon on the basis of the well-known Garbage Can Model. The political process investigated is the sustained effort by the Swedish temperance movement to introduce national legislation providing for 'local veto powers' i.e., the right of local governments to decide in a general referendum to prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages within its jurisdiction. The general conclusion of the study is that the Multiple Streams Approach is largely valid with respect to this Swedish policy process, and that some events are truly anarchic in character but also that other prominent features of the process do not fit the model very well.

The study consists of nine chapters. The first chapter contains an overview of the study. The second chapter provides a theoretical introduction, a discussion of the constitutional setting of the process under investigation, and a presentation of the main actor, the Swedish temperance movement. In the third chapter there is a narrative of events concerning the issue of local veto powers during a first period (1893-1896), followed by a short chapter where the goals and strategies of the temperance movement are discussed. The fifth chapter describes developments during a second period (1907-1911), and the next one details some events of great import for future developments, including the rise of an 'anti-veto movement'. The seventh chapter narrates a third and final period (1914-1917) which puts an end to the struggle of the temperance movement for local veto powers. Chapter eight provides an evaluation of the entire process in terms of the Multiple Streams Approach - discussing how problems and solutions developed, how the so-called political entrepreneurs behaved, why actors fail for so long to reach a decision and why they eventually succeed. In the final chapter one of the key concepts of the model - the so-called policy window - is discussed in considerable detail, both in view of Kingdon's own ideas and in relation to the relevant conclusions reached by another author who has discussed this concept, Nikolaos Zahariadis, as part of his research on privatization policies in Britain and France. The final chapter also contains a discussion of one of the more spectacular elements of the Multiple Streams Approach (and of the Garbage Can Model), namely the statement that solutions may well under certain circumstances precede problems.