The Long Shadow of Abolition : A Synthetic Control Study of Sweden’s Reserve Force

Sammanfattning

Military manpower systems have returned to the center of European security debate as deteriorating security conditions have renewed concerns about mobilization capacity. This thesis examines how the abolition and reintroduction of conscription affected Sweden’s reserve force size. The thesis argues that conscription is best understood as an institutional mechanism for generating a reserve, producing repeated cohorts of trained personnel over time. Using the synthetic control method, Sweden is studied, which suspended conscription in 2010 and reintroduced it in 2017. Sweden’s reserve force development is compared to a synthetic counterfactual constructed from comparable donor-pool countries. The analysis is supplemented with alternative specifications, inference procedures, and exploratory analyses of attitudes toward conscription and volunteering. The thesis finds that the abolition of conscription was followed by a decline in Sweden’s reserve force size relative to synthetic Sweden, while later reintroduction was associated with gradual recovery. This confirms the two hypotheses that were presented. However, the results should be interpreted with caution due to Sweden’s pre-existing decline and mixed inference. The thesis contributes to research on military manpower systems by showing that conscription functions as a long-term reserve-generating institution with important implications for mobilization capacity and national preparedness.