Introduction: How Gloomy is Sweden at the Millennium?

Abstract

How gloomy is Sweden today? Whatever happened to the “Swed ish sin”? And what about social equality? English-speaking readers of Stieg Larsson’s blockbuster Millennium trilogy—or those who have seen the movies based on these books— might ask with some astonishment, Is this what is happening in Sweden? With its stories of corruption, sexual violence, bureaucracy in the service of corrupt powers, and revenge, the reader or cinephile who has long associated Sweden with images of an affluent, complacent, and homogeneous society—as communicated by the internationally renowned idea of the “Swedish model”—must wonder what has happened to the state of Sweden.