In no other western country has social democracy had such a political influence as in Sweden. Having been in government for sixty-three of the last seventy-two years, the party is not only the most successful among social democratic parties but one of the most hegemonic democratic political parties ever. As a consequence of this unique power of the political left, Sweden stands out as extreme on many standard measures used in comparative politics such as public spending, degree of unionization, and voting turnout (Scharpf 2000; Swank 2002). Apart from such purely quantitative measures, it has also been argued that the political and economic system in Sweden has been characterized by a more qualitative difference from comparable countries. From the 1950s until the late 1980s, Swedish society in general and its system of industrial relations in particular was, by many observers, branded with the name of: “the Swedish Model” (Katzenstein 1985; Lindvall 2004; Milner and Wadensjö 2001; Steinmo 2002). One of the more important features of this “model” was an unusually close collaboration between the state and major interest organizations in the preparation as well as in the implementation of public policies (Lewin 1992; Rothstein 1992a, 1992c).

There are thus several reasons why Sweden as well as the other Scandinavian countries should be seen as a critical case for the current discussions about the importance of social capital, civil society, and trust.