In order to identify and analyse the central characteristics of Swedish policy and politics it is first necessary to describe briefly some cultural and structural phenomena of vital importance in a comparative perspective. The main task of this chapter is, however, to examine Swedish policy processes and some of the key policy issues in Sweden today. The issues considered in some detail are the ‘hard-core’ components of welfare politics, i.e. tax policy, labour-market policy, and social security policy. Nevertheless, an unconventional demand dimension began to emerge in the 1970s. It is difficult accurately to label this activity, but it might be characterised as a ‘life-style’ movement, emphasising non-material values, protesting against, among other things, excessive use of technology and large-scale societal solutions, and believing that there was insufficient concern with ‘higher-order’ needs like friendship and solidarity. No doubt many Western democracies developed a concern with these post-material values during the 1970s, but it is fair to claim that the debate has been unusually intense in Sweden. In discussing the hard-core issues, it is important to note that these newer issues were an important part of policy debates. Some of them, such as nuclear energy, were very stressful - this one, indeed, was the subject of a national referendum in 1980.
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