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Sweden is consistently found at the top in international indices of corruption. In recent years, however, several instances of corruption have been exposed, and surveys show that large shares of Swedish citizens harbor perceptions that public corruption is widespread. Drawing on recent surveys, two questions are asked. First, to what extent do Swedish citizens believe that corruption constitutes a serious problem? Second, how do citizens' evaluations of the extent of public corruption affect support for the democratic system? Approaching the issue from a comparative Nordic perspective, the data indicate that Swedes are considerably more prone to believe that politicians and public officials are corrupt than their Nordic counterparts. The analysis also suggests that such perceptions constitute an important determinant of support for the democratic system. Thus, even in a least likely case of corruption, such as Sweden, growing concerns about corruption has a potential to affect democratic legitimacy negatively. Adapted from the source document.

In the 2009 Swedish European Parliament election, the Pirate Party gained 7.1 per cent of the votes. We evaluate the sudden and unexpected success of the Pirate Party by testing two competing explanations: did voters cast their votes for the party as a protest against the established parties, or can the result be explained by voters' opinions regarding the party's main political issues? Contrary to popular beliefs, empirical evidence indicates that the success of the Pirate Party cannot be explained with reference to protest voting. Rather, the most important reason why individuals voted for the Pirate Party was the importance they ascribed to the party's main political issues.

Five parties held (almost) all seats in the Swedish Riksdag between 1921 & 1988. Although contenders have been around since the mid 60's, it took until the elections of 1988 & 1991 for three newcomers to make a breakthrough: Miljopartiet (1988), Kristdemokraterna & Ny Demokrati (1991). This article examines the serious challengers that emerged in the early 2000s, i.e., Junilistan, Piratpartiet, Sverigedemokraterna & Feministiskt initativ. How did they emerge, what issues & ideas do they represent, & what characterizes the voters that are attracted by them? The articles' main focus is on the last question. We conclude that although there are variations between the supporters of the four different parties, they share some common properties. The typical contender- voter is a young man that is uninterested in politics, has a low education & is poorly integrated into the labor market. Adapted from the source document.

The introduction to the thematic volume of Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift, which focuses on the role of political parties in democracies, outlines the scope of the volume. Adapted from the source document.

In 1980, Sweden was a highly regulated economy with several state monopolies and low levels of economic freedom. Less than twenty years later, liberal reforms turned Sweden into one of the world's most open economies with a remarkable increase in economic freedom. While there is resilience when it comes to high levels of taxes and expenditure shares of GDP, there has been a profound restructuring of Sweden's economy in the 1980s and 1990s that previous studies have under‐estimated. Furthermore, the degree of political consensus is striking, both regarding the welfare state expansions that characterized Sweden up to 1980, as well as the subsequent liberalizations. Since established theories have difficulties explaining institutional change, this article seeks to understand how the Swedish style of policy making produced this surprising political consensus on liberal reforms. It highlights the importance of three complementary factors: policy making in Sweden has always been influenced by, and intimately connected to, social science; government commissions have functioned as 'early warning systems', pointing out future challenges and creating a common way to perceive problems; and, as a consequence, political consensus has evolved as a feature of Swedish style of policy making. The approach to policy making has been rationalistic, technocratic and pragmatic. The article concludes that the Swedish style of policy making not only explains the period of welfare state expansion – it is also applicable to the intense reform period of the 1980s and 1990s.

Two main arguments are presented in this article. First, when alternatives for the future of local government is debated, two questions need to be addressed simultaneously: (a) "how many & how big municipalities ought we have?", & (b) "how strong & well secured ought the principle of local self government be in the constitution?". Second, by using these questions as guides for the analysis, we argue that there are instrumental reasons to guarantee a strong local self-government in the constitution. However, such a reform needs to be complemented by a politically neutral body of regulations that, under given conditions, secures geographically concentrated minorities a right to secede. Adapted from the source document.

When commenting on the European radical right, the term 'single-issue party' is frequently bandied about. We survey the various conceptualizations of the term and then apply them to the Sweden Democrats (SD), a party with roots in extremist subcultures that gained parliamentary representation in the 2010 elections. In the empirical analysis, we draw primarily on a unique survey of all parliamentary candidates to study: (i) the SD candidates' positions on a large number of diverse issues, (ii) what issues they prioritize and (iii) the degree of ideological cohesion among their candidates. Secondarily, certain voter characteristics associated with the single-issue party concept are surveyed. Here, we use a large-scale exit poll to study: (i) SD voters' demographic characteristics and (ii) what issues they prioritize. Throughout, the other main Swedish parties serve as points of comparison. Against what is commonly claimed, we find that the single-issue party label fits the SD poorly. Adapted from the source document.