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 APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200090019-6

Government and Politics

A. Introduction (U/OU)

The Scandinavian countries have evidenced a long political stability almost unique in continental Europe. As the principal nation in the Scandinavian area, Sweden has often set the pace for the social and economic innovation that has made for the regional political steadiness.

A number of determinants associated with modern Swedish society have helped form the popular penchant to support reformist rather than revolutionary solutions to national problems: the population is exceptionally homogenous and universally literate; there are no seriously divisive social issues; popular participation in the government processes at the local level has a tradition going back to the Viking days. Additionally, Sweden is the natural leader in the Nordic area - in size as well as in wealth - having a gross national product almost as large as that of the four other Nordic countries combined. And only the Swedes, through a combination of good luck and a strong military establishment, have been able to adhere to the common Nordic dream of neutrality.

The Swedish political system has very recently evolved into a form of pure parliamentary democracy that has proved consistently workable almost exclusively in the Scandinavian area. The Council of State is directly responsible to the Riksdag, a single-house parliament since January 1971. Should the Riksdag pass a vote of no confidence, however, the government has the right to call for new elections. Because the earlier bicameral system also featured legislative supremacy, at least by custom, and governments nonetheless proved remarkably stable, the nation enters into a new period of enhanced parliamentary democracy with justified optimism.

Political differences over domestic policy are minor and are concerned primarily with the extent to which the government should guide the economy and with the scope of government-supported welfare programs. The narrowing of political differences, however, has not been accompanied by a consolidation of political parties. Five parties, including the Communists, have been represented on the ballot in parliamentary elections during the past 25 years. These parties, in general, represent the interests of particular economic and social groups. The moderate Social Democratic Party (SAP) has been dominant since the early 1930s, governing along since the end of World War II with the exception of a 6-year period in the early and mid-1950s.

At the peak of its popularity in the 1968 elections, when support from erstwhile Communists disenchanted by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia enabled the SAP to win more than 50% of the popular vote, the party chose as its new leader the flamboyant Olof Palme. Although a capable politician, Palme has on occasion offended moderates by his intemperate criticism of US policy in Vietnam and Cambodia - even while reclaiming a few apostate left-wing SAP votes. And his aloof intellectualism has been unfavorably contrasted with the warm, outgoing

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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200090019-6