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The study argues that the Swedish parliamentary election of 2022 is related to major long-term changes in Scandinavian and European politics in general. Therefore, the aim is to analyze long-term changes in Swedish politics over time, in relation to significant short-term changes due to the Swedish parliamentary election of 2022. The study describes the Swedish party system and the election campaign preceding the 2022 Swedish parliamentary election as well as the short-term changes, relative to the previous election, that this election brought with it. The study also describes important long-term changes in the Swedish party system since the 1980s. In relation to these changes, starting in the 1950s, the study describes the increased mobility of Swedish voters and the decline of voting along the social class cleavage as dealignment. Moreover, the study addresses the ideological changes of voters along the subjective left-right scale, the economic left-right dimension, and the libertarian-authoritarian dimension in relation to the concept of realignment. In conclusion, the article shows the need to study the long-term processes of dealignment and realignment to be able to understand the transformed party system that became so clear in the 2022 Swedish parliamentary election.

Election interference poses a threat to nations around the world. Potential negative effects include depressed public participation in the political process and elections, artificially exaggerated polarization among different groups in society and a decrease in trust among voters for the election system and in the long run, democracy itself. While different forms of interference in the election process is not a new phenomenon, the advent of the Internet has facilitated interference via digital means, originating either outside the nation’s borders or from within. Sweden is no exception to being a subject of attempts of election interference, even though its election system is generally regarded as trustworthy and of a high standard. This study focuses on the 2022 Swedish election and the perceived threats of electoral interference via digital means, as well as claims of interference having taken place, as discussed in Swedish media. The results show that while Swedish media reported on both threats ahead of the election, as well as claims of different forms of interference having taken place, the integrity of Sweden’s election system seems to have remained intact. Of primary concern are issues that can be connected with attempts of interference that have a domestic angle, pertaining primarily to the spread of disinformation online about alleged election fraud.

The Swedish elections in 2022 made international headlines first because of the breakthrough of the Swedish Democrat. This far-right populist party is now the second largest party, but also because of the 3 per cent drop in the 2022 elections compared to the previous parliamentary election of 2018. Voter turnout is a strong indicator of functional democracy and essential for the legitimacy of the democratic system. Therefore, from a normative perspective, a small drop should be the cause of concern. The article, therefore, aims to explain this surprising drop. By relying on descriptive and exploratory statistics, our preliminary analysis confirms in times of crises, turnout became lower because of the negative impact of uncertainty and degenerated life conditions.

The purpose of this study is to provide basic data for the vitalization of small-scale childcare, including home childcare center, by introducing Sweden’s pedagogical childcare, which prioritizes children’s rights, in Korea, which is largely dependent on institutional childcare. To this end, literature research, field visit to Sweden, and expert interview were conducted. This study examines the meaning and development of pedagogical childcare, which has been called family daycare for a long time, in the history of general childcare; the concept of educational childcare and the characteristics of users; the administration and finance system including related laws, regulations and delivery systems and childcare fees; and practices focused on educational philosophy of pedagogical childcare and quality management through supervision and self-help groups were introduced. It was found that pedagogical childcare has characteristics such as securing a position as a public childcare, strengthening educational functions reflected in the recent name change, and operating services that prioritize children’s rights. The implications for policy makers and home childcare operators were discussed: reflection on the institutional childcare. policy paradigm, urging childcare policies based on the principle of putting children’ rights first, promotion of consumer-oriented childcare policies, and providing supervision and support for self-help groups differentiated from institutional childcare.

Sweden is an exemplary country having NHS(National Health Service) type health security system along with UK. NHS is a health security system funded mainly by taxes, providing healthcare services through healthcare institutions managed by government. Since 1990s, however, market principles have been rapidly introduced into the Swedish health security system. Especially, regional governments came to be allowed to purchase healthcare services from private healthcare providers instead of providing services by themselves. The increase of the private providers has caused the growth of the health insurance market. Most of the Swedish private health insurance plans are supplementary insurance plans guaranteeing shorter waiting times for health services. The most highlighted issue concerning the spread of private health insurance has been the lengthening of the waiting times for non-policyholders due to the private healthcare providers’ giving medical treatment to policyholders first. Besides, the issues much debated include the diminishing willingness to paytaxes for maintaining or improving the public healthcare, the adverse distributional effects of subsidizing policyholders and private providers, and the strengthening of the opinion regarding healthcare as a commodity rather than an object of universal rights. Taking account of the power balances among political parties and main actors in civil society, the health insurance market is expected to grow fast. Then the Swedish health security system would evolve toward a two-tier healthcare system, where basic healthcare services are funded by taxes, but the additional services are funded by insurance premiums, and the purchasing power determines much of the consumption of healthcare services.

It is a well-known fact that when we in Korea find elaborate polite conjugations, that structure and determine everyday interaction, the Danes, on the other side of the Globe, have a habit of saying ‘you’ (‘du’) in almost every context. We are dealing with an Asian language ruled by a high level of honorific phrases and a Scandinavian language characterized by its more unpolished and straightforward interaction. However, this article will argue that Danish has a very different, but not less important, way of expressing politeness using other features of the language. The overall dissimilarity is: that where Korean has fixed forms, and a formal protocol ready to use, Danish is more dynamic and adjustable, applying (among other things) discourse particles to zoom in on the suitable level of politeness required in the actual situation. The two ways of using the language, as we shall see, simultaneously reflect the differentiations between the two societies and cultures.