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Karin Pettersson


Karin Pettersson is culture editor at Aftonbladet, Scandinavia’s biggest daily newspaper. She founded Fokus, Sweden’s leading news magazine, and worked for the Swedish Social Democratic Party. She is a 2017 Nieman-Berkman Klein Fellow at Harvard.

Karin Pettersson

Can we change the climate on climate change?

Karin Pettersson 22nd February 2021

Karin Pettersson is impressed by a fictional account of the existential challenge humanity faces.

The rise of right-wing nationalism: from Poland to Polanyi

Karin Pettersson 16th November 2020

Karin Pettersson argues that far from history ‘ending’ in 1989 it has returned, with a vengeance, due to the very deregulation its trumpeters embraced.

The politics of identity and inclusion

Karin Pettersson 27th July 2020

Karin Pettersson argues that struggles around race and gender are fundamentally about inclusion on an equal footing in the political community.

American traumas

Karin Pettersson 8th June 2020

Karin Pettersson explores the deep faultlines of unexpurgated racism tearing the United States apart.

It’s a virus, and this isn’t a war

Karin Pettersson 28th April 2020

The coronavirus crisis is a social challenge, Karin Pettersson writes, which the formerly secure are now being reminded is hitting the poor hardest.

The corona crisis will define our era

Karin Pettersson 16th March 2020

Karin Pettersson writes that the pandemic has highlighted the frailties of a short-sighted and hyper-individualistic social system.

Five lessons for journalism in the age of rage

Karin Pettersson 25th November 2019

For Karin Pettersson, journalism has never been more challenging—and never more important.

Is it time to ban political advertising on Facebook?

Karin Pettersson 15th October 2019

Karin Pettersson argues that ‘free speech’ is not a licence for politicians relying on rage to lie, and for such lies to be amplified by ‘social media’.

Politics in the age of data

Karin Pettersson 2nd September 2019

Karin Pettersson argues that progressive politics is floundering in the waves generated by Big Data—when it could be shaping the tide.

The trilemma of Big Tech

Karin Pettersson 7th May 2019

Karin Pettersson says we can have Big Tech’s market domination, business models and democracy—just not all at the same time.

Can data-labour unions break the monopoly capture of data?

Karin Pettersson 1st April 2019

Karin Pettersson begins a series of Social Europe columns by arguing it’s time to rethink ‘free’ data as the product of labour. Recently I attended a seminar in Stockholm on the Future of Work, hosted by a major trade union. A representative from Google was present and asked the seemingly sweet and constructive question: what […]

Without Social Democracy, Capitalism Will Eat Itself

Karin Pettersson 10th February 2017

It’s a tragedy but there’s no way around it: At a time when it is most needed, social democracy is at an historic low point. What are progressives to do? Here are four lessons for the future that the Left needs to understand, and four ways to think about the road ahead. How the world has […]

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