SWEDEN.

Sweden democratized relatively late. Not until after World War I did Sweden, swayed by the political and social turbulence that characterized Europe at that time, introduce universal suffrage for men and women. A two-chamber parliamentary system was established and the role of the monarch substantially curtailed. Nonetheless, the king formally remained head of the cabinet until 1974 and was formally responsible for work connected with changes of government. In 1970 a single-chamber system was introduced.

The Swedish party system is characterized by marked continuity. The same five parties were represented in the Riksdag in the early 1920s and in the late 1980s: on the left, the Social Democratic Workers' Party and the Communist Party (today the Left Party); on the right, the Liberal Party, the Farmers' Party (now the Center Party), and the Conservative Party (today's Moderate Party).

The 1920s were years of shifting and unstable political majorities, which caused frequent changes of government. In the Riksdag elections of 1932, however, the Social Democrats gained a powerful lead due to a Keynesian-inspired anti-unemployment program. Since then the Social Democratic Party has held a unique position in Swedish politics. During only nine of the seventy-three years between 1932 and 2005 did the bourgeois (i.e., nonsocialist) parties hold government power. On the other hand, the Social Democrats have seldom enjoyed absolute parliamentary majorities.

Sweden has not been at war since 1814. The country remained neutral throughout World War I. During the interwar period Sweden supported a policy of neutrality and national security that gave the League of the Nations a central role. Sweden significantly reduced its defense establishment, and not until the late 1930s did a limited rearmament take place against the backdrop of impending war.

When war broke out in 1939 Sweden issued a declaration of neutrality. Immediately thereafter, a coalition government—excluding only the Communists—was formed under the leadership of Per Albin Hansson. It succeeded in keeping Sweden out of the war, but only at the cost of concessions to Germany. These included, among other things, the extensive transport of German soldiers to and from occupied Norway and, in connection with the German attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, the transit conveyance of an entire, fully equipped military division to the eastern front. The extensive Swedish export to Germany of, among other things, iron ore and ball bearings was important both to the Swedish economy and to the German war industry. Sweden's refugee policy was initially very restrictive, not least toward Jewish immigrants. After the war the government's policy was generally defended as a small nation's realistic and successful adaptation to existing circumstances, an interpretation that has subsequently been questioned and criticized.

SWEDEN DURING THE POSTWAR ERA

Sweden entered the postwar era under exceptionally favorable conditions. Its industrial infrastructure was unharmed by war. Sweden topped the international charts of prosperous nations throughout this era. The export industry was the most expansive part of the Swedish economy, and exports quadrupled during the 1950s and 1960s. Production within the technically most advanced and knowledge-intensive part of the engineering industry expanded particularly rapidly. Sweden's classic industries, based on the country's raw materials—the manufacture of wood products, paper, pulp, and iron ore—also expanded significantly.

During the favorable economic conditions of the postwar era, the particular features of what had become known as the Swedish model became more firmly established. The questions of whether such a Swedish model really existed, and if so, the nature of its distinguishing characteristics, are among those that have dominated modern research on twentieth-century history. The following elements have been emphasized. First, institutionalized cooperation between employers and trade unions, codified in the Saltsjöbaden Agreement of 1938. This agreement consisted of a mutual expression of support for efforts to avoid labor disputes through a well-functioning and centralized negotiation process. This proved successful; the number of strikes diminished significantly, and politicians, trade union representatives, and employers from all over the world arranged educational visits in order to study the calm Swedish labor market.

Second, a vigorous state economic policy. Sweden belonged to those nations which as early as the 1930s had employed Keynesian-inspired economic policies against unemployment. During the postwar era, however, economic policy makers were usually faced with the opposite problem: economic overheating, inflation, high profits and wages, and labor shortages. This, in its turn, made it difficult to achieve rationalization and increased efficiency. For two decades the so-called Rehn-Meidner model (named for Gösta Rehn and Rudolf Meidner, the two leading trade union economists who formulated it) was used to guide the government's economic policy.

One of this model's premises was the use of wage policies to rationalize the economy. Implementation of the so-called solidaristic wage policy was to ensure that wage developments in economically less sound companies did not lag behind those of more expansive branches. At the same time, those employed in the export industries were to restrain their demands for increased wages. Those workers who lost their jobs because many of the less profitable companies risked folding were to be reemployed in those parts of the economy where labor shortages tended to be a growing problem. Government subsidies were to encourage mobility among the unemployed, and there was extensive investment in active labor-market policies. This resulted in very low rates of open unemployment by international standards.

Third, extensive social reforms, starting with family policy and health insurance. The pension reform of the 1950s, ATP, became an issue of great symbolic importance; it also caused one the great political battles of the postwar era. The reform established a trend toward a universalist welfare system that benefited all citizens, not just those with special needs. The Swedish welfare system is further distinguished by its primarily tax-based financing and by its administration by the state.

Fourth, a relatively extensive political consensus, including certain corporative decision-making structures. A distinctive trait of the Swedish model is the strong position of interest organizations. Spokespeople for Swedish industry, the trade unions, cooperative organizations, and established social movements were well represented in, for example, government committees and on the boards of civil service departments and in informal deliberations with the government. This phenomenon was often termed Harpsund democracy—Harpsund being the prime minister's country estate, where the nation's political and economic elite sometimes gathered for informal discussions.

The Social Democrats were in uninterrupted control of the government until 1976, usually receiving between 45 and 50 percent of the vote. Tage Erlander was prime minister from 1946 to 1969. The Social Democratic Party's influence extends far beyond the parliamentary sphere. It exercises great influence over, for example, the powerful Swedish Trade Union Confederation and the widespread consumers' cooperative movement. The party has generally ruled without an absolute majority in the Riksdag. It entered into a political coalition with the Farmers' Party between 1951 and 1957; during other periods it has usually depended on support from the small Communist Party (now Left Party). The three bourgeois parties have alternated as leading opposition parties; between 1948 and 1968 the Liberal Party assumed that role, the Center Party from 1968 to 1979, and the Moderate Party from 1979 onward.

Swedish postwar foreign policy has been primarily oriented toward nonalignment, directed toward neutrality in war. Its security policies have presupposed active participation in the United Nations and its agencies. There was an attempt, in 1948, to create a common Scandinavian defensive alliance. As it turned out, Denmark and Norway preferred an alliance with NATO, something ruled out by Sweden's neutrality. However, Sweden did initiate covert cooperation with the West in order to obtain military reinsurance should the nation be drawn into war; this policy of secret cooperation also made it possible to import armaments. There was, in addition, a significant exchange of military information between Sweden and the western defense alliance. Both the United States and the Soviet Union were well aware of the duplicity of Swedish foreign policy, while the Swedish people were informed of the true state of affairs only much later. Sweden's policy of neutrality also affected its collaboration with Europe. Sweden took part in establishing the European Free Trade Association, but the government long felt that Sweden's neutrality made it impossible for it to join the European Economic Community.

SWEDEN SINCE THE 1970S

Swedish society was radicalized during the 1970s. The newly elected prime minister, Olof Palme, was associated with a critical attitude toward the U.S. war in Vietnam and with a growing Swedish commitment to Third World development. Palme's sharp criticism of the war, which received international attention, periodically strained diplomatic relations with the United States. Extensive youth radicalization led to the emergence of new social movements, of which the women's movement and the environmental movement were to gain considerable influence. A series of highly visible strikes marked the end of the long period of industrial peace. The Social Democratic government's decision to pursue union-friendly legislation led to growing tension between the two labor-market parties. Especially important was the decision to introduce wage earners' investment funds, which were designed gradually to transfer part of the industries' profits to funds controlled by the trade unions. A diluted version of the funds was introduced during the 1980s amid vehement protests from the bourgeois parties.

During the 1970s a series of new social reforms were implemented, especially in areas that concerned family policy and equality between the sexes. These included an extensive expansion of the system of day-care centers, which facilitated women's wage employment.

At the same time, however, the long international boom came to an end. The subsequent economic crises, including growing unemployment, helped to defeat the Social Democrats in the elections of 1976. There had also been complaints about Social Democracy's bureaucratization and autocratic style, both associated with the party's long stint in power. Nuclear power was another central election issue, as the Center Party's nuclear-critical attitude gained it votes at the cost of the Social Democrats.

At first the new bourgeois three-party coalition government continued with Keynesian-style policies. In 1980, however, there was a sudden change. For the first time since World War II steps were taken—in accordance with the decade's neoliberal trends—to increase Sweden's market adaptability and to cut back the welfare system.

When, in 1982, the Social Democrats again took power, after being in opposition for two electoral terms, they continued in part—to the surprise of many Swedes—down the same path. The party's economic policies have essentially followed the international trend toward deregulation of the credit and exchange market, increased exposure to competition and privatization of the public sector, an independent National Bank and high prioritization of anti-inflation measures. Swedish unemployment rates have also approached those of Europe as a whole.

Except for an interval of bourgeois government in 1991–1994, the Social Democrats have held power since 1982. Around 1990 several new parliamentary parties emerged, and the Green Party and the Swedish Christian Democrats assumed a permanent place in the Riksdag. The Social Democrats are still the largest party, although their parliamentary power has diminished to around 40 percent of the electorate. Since 1979 the Moderate Party has been the leading bourgeois party with, as a rule, between 20 and 25 percent of the votes.

The flare-up of Cold War tensions in the 1980s also affected Swedish domestic policy. The question of whether and to what extent Soviet submarines systematically trespassed on Swedish territorial waters was extensively debated. Despite government investigatory commissions and Swedish protests to the Soviet Union, the question of what actually took place remains basically unanswered.

Since 1990, Swedish foreign policy has become markedly Europeanized. In 1991, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Sweden applied for membership in the European Union (EU). A referendum was held in 1994 and a small majority—52 percent—voted for membership. The Swedish population is among the most EU-skeptical in the union and in 2003 a clear majority voted against membership in the European Monetary Union.

The international economic crisis of the early 1990s adversely affected the Swedish economy, with large-scale industrial shutdowns and growing unemployment. The resulting budgetary crisis resulted in far-reaching cuts in the social sector. However, in spite of these cuts, Sweden continued to have an extensive, publicly financed system of social insurance and a high taxation rate. Surveys clearly demonstrate that these systems enjoy considerable support, even from right-wing voters. During the early years of the twenty-first century the Swedish economy again became stable.

See alsoNorway; Palme, Olof; Welfare State.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ekman, Stig, and Nils Edling, eds. War Experience, Self-Image and National Identity: The Second World War as Myth and History. Stockholm, 1997.

Florin, Christina, and Bengt Nilsson. "'Something in the Nature of a Bloodless Revolution': How New Gender Relations Became Gender Equality Policy in Sweden in the Nineteen-Sixties and Seventies." In State Policy and Gender System in the Two German States and Sweden, 1945–1989, edited by Rolf Torstendahl, 11–78. Uppsala, Sweden, 1999.

Hadenius, Stig. Swedish Politics during the 20th Century: Conflict and Consensus. Stockholm, 1999.

Misgeld, Klaus, Karl Molin, and Klas Åmark, eds. Creating Social Democracy: A Century of the Social Democratic Labor Party in Sweden. University Park, Pa., 1992.

Thullberg, Per, and Kjell Östberg. Den svenska modellen. Lund, Sweden, 1994.

KjellÖstberg