Swedish Social Democracy Has Always Been Contradictory

Review of The Rise and Fall of Swedish Social Democracy by Kjell Östberg (Verso Books, 2024)

To say that social democracy was the dominant force of Swedish public life during the last century is an understatement. It’s often said here that “everyone is a social democrat — they just vote for different parties.”

There are good material reasons for this. From the cradle to the grave, a person could be submerged in social democracy. They might be helped by the various institutions that the party built, have their daily bread working for and consuming from the organizations it led, and even be buried by the movement’s own funeral home. The Social Democrats have been in power for more than seventy-five of the last hundred years.

The party’s domination was so strong that when it weakened, from the 1970s and onward, from near-total unstoppability to “only” being the strongest party, the Swedish political field had its center of gravity thrown off course. Whether, and when, a new equilibrium will be achieved is still uncertain.

It’s often said here that ‘everyone is a social democrat — they just vote for different parties.’

Kjell Östberg’s new book, The Rise and Fall of Swedish Social Democracy, should be read as part of this debate. It aims to explain how and why all of this happened, and what this means for the party’s future. But as a historian, Östberg does a thorough job, and starts with the equally important question of how the Social Democrats become the dominant force to begin with. It doesn’t just come from the soil. Without this insight into the Social Democrats’ earlier strength, it is impossible to understand why the party has weakened over the last forty…