Sweden pioneered welfare privatisation, and its controversial model is now being exported across the continent.
Climate capabilities: realising the green transition
People are not unaware of climate change, Lisa Pelling writes. But they find it difficult to imagine the green transition.
Mining for critical materials cannot undermine trust
The climate transition must benefit local communities, Lisa Pelling writes, if it is not to exhaust their patience.
Saving the planet means saving the world
Inequality and the climate crisis go hand in hand, Lisa Pelling writes. So do the alternatives.
Sweden’s climate policy—off the rails
A government beholden to the radical right, Lisa Pelling writes, is a warning to Europe the green transition can go into reverse.
Elevating the Cinderellas of social care
The pandemic put care workers under terrible pressure, Lisa Pelling writes. Yet unions have been able to win greater recognition for them.
The myth of meritocracy and the populist threat
Social democrats, Lisa Pelling writes, should abandon the idea of meritocracy if they are to reconnect with les classes populaires.
Nicaragua: from liberation to a new dictatorship
Lisa Pelling’s parents moved to Nicaragua to support the revolution. Its leader, she writes, has turned it into a tyranny.
Government by finger-pointing
The new Swedish government, Lisa Pelling writes, is obsessed with stigmatising immigrants and refugees.
Paving the way for radicalised violence
Mainstream politicians, Lisa Pelling writes, must recognise that their words have consequences.
Sweden’s schools: Milton Friedman’s wet dream
Lisa Pelling explains how ‘freedom of choice’ has wrought a vicious circle of inequality and underperformance.
How to welcome Ukrainian refugees
Lisa Pelling begins a new Social Europe column with lessons for integration—especially from Sweden.
Andersson’s agenda
Magdalena Andersson has been elected the first female prime minister of Sweden. Again.
Stefan Löfven—welding progressives together and keeping the far right at bay
The Swedish social-democrat leader, shortly to step down, didn’t buckle under pressure despite a slender parliamentary hold.
Sweden, the pandemic and precarious working conditions
Most commentary on the Covid-19 death toll in Sweden has been on the absence of lockdown, yet privatisation and precarity in eldercare should really be in the spotlight.
The Swedish face of inequality
Sweden used to be revered for stemming inequality through progressive taxation and universal welfare. Now tax breaks for the wealthy and ‘free choice’ in public goods such as education cocoon the rich from the rest. What does inequality look like? In Sweden, rising inequality can be easily detected in data on income distribution. According to […]