introduction

Sweden is commonly looked upon as the middle-way Schlaraffenland, yet its citizens have not found the middle parties to their liking. Rather, the Liberal Party, (Folkpartiet) has often been made an object of ridicule by its opponents and in the media; television cannot resist the temptation to portray the party as an unholy alliance of atheist social science professors from Stockholm and pietist smallholders from the hinterland.

The Liberal Party's overall performance has not generally been applauded by the Swedish electorate. The party's reluctant stance on whether to join bourgeois coalition cabinets engendered much antipathy towards them among the public at large. The Liberal Party was seen as the champion of the ‘alternating-majority formula’ of governing, i.e. minority cabinets depending on either bourgeois or socialist support to pass legislation in parliament. Political tightrope walking is alien to the rationalist political culture of Sweden.

Time and again political commentators have prophesied the demise of the Liberal Party. Predictions of this kind have repeatedly turned out to be premature, most obviously in 1985 when the Liberal vote soared to 14.2 per cent from a previous all-time low of 5.9 per cent in 1982.

This chapter is meant to be an introduction to the nature and trends of Swedish liberal politics. The various topics raised in the course of the empirical analyses will be synthesised in a concluding discussion on whether Sweden is an illiberal society or, on the contrary, too liberal to be in need of a liberal party, or if the Liberal Party (until very recently) has misconceived its mission in Swedish politics.