An ombudsman is an official, independent investigator of citizens' grievances against public agencies. Because the Swedish word ombud can be translated into English as representative, agent, or delegate, a lawyer, union leader, or member of parliament may be legitimately called an ombudsman in Sweden. But a particular ombudsman—the Swedish Parliament's Justitieombudsman, established in 1809—was the direct progenitor of the governmental officials of other countries given the name of ombudsman. In a prebureaucratic age, the legislature created the Justitieombudsman as its watchdog over the executive and as a rival to an older institution, the Justiekanzler, or the King's Chancellor of Justice. As the scope of government expanded in the democratic era, Parliament's ombudsman evolved into an institution mainly concerned with resolving citizens' grievances against bureaucratic agencies. Because the institution came to be perceived as effective in performing this function, which seemed to be increasingly important, in the second...