This book presents the legal and political factors determining international relations, including the processes of integration in all their complexity. The overall structure of the book, together with the composition of its separate chapters, allows for some general assumptions, identifying the main tendencies and placing them in a contemporary social context as well as establishing their relations with the practices of today. The content is a compendium of basic information and data related to the international processes which occur within specific formal, legal and political frames. The book is divided into five parts featuring not only deep historical context but most of all presenting current information and analyses of the last few years. Presented against the background and within the context of the Kingdom of Sweden’s political system and its international environment, the book brings into the foreground issues of particular importance for Sweden’s continuing European integration process and describes its response to the developments in the international situation.

The Handbook provides a broad introduction to Swedish politics, and how Sweden's political system and policies have evolved over the past few decades.

This book is about the Phantom in Sweden, or, more correctly, about Sweden in the Phantom. Robert Aman uncovers how a peripheral American superhero – created in 1936 by Lee Falk – that has been accused of both racism and sexism has become a national concern in a country that several researchers have labelled the most antiracist and gender equal in the world. When a group of Swedish creators began their official production of licensed scripts based on The Phantomcomic in 1972, the character was redefined through the prism of New Left ideology. The plots of these comics, besides aiming to entertain, also sought to affirm for readers the righteousness and validity of an ideological doctrine that, at the time, was dominant among the Swedish public and influential in the country’s foreign policy. Ultimately, Aman demonstrates how the Swedish Phantom embodies values and a political point of view that reflect how Sweden sees itself and its role in the world.

Focusing on a range of regional cases, the book evaluates the respective weight of national interest and internationalist (solidarity) considerations. Ultimately, while classical national interest considerations remain to this day a powerful motivation for power projection, the book shows how an enlightened conception of national interest can encompass solidarity concerns, and how such a balancing of the imperatives of both national interest and solidarity is the major challenge facing decision-makers.--Publisher's description.

This is a new examination of Nordic approaches to peace operations after the Cold War and how they have remained relevant. They continue to have much to offer to both academics and practitioners in this particular field.

The end of the Cold War and the ‘War on Terror’ has signalled a shift in the security policies of all states. It has also led to the reconsideration of the policy of neutrality, and what being neutral means in the present age. This book examines the conceptualisation of neutrality from the Peloponnesian War to today, uncovering how neutrality has been a neglected and misunderstood subject in International Relations (IR) theory and politics. By rethinking neutrality through constructivism, this book argues that neutrality is intrinsically linked to identity. Using Sweden as a case study, it links identity, sovereignty, internationalism and solidarity to the debates about Swedish neutrality today and how neutrality has been central to Swedish identity and its worldview. It also examines the challenges to Swedish neutrality and neutrality broadly, in terms of European integration, globalisation, the decline of the state and sovereignty, and new threats to security, such as international terrorism, arguing that the norms and values of neutrality can be reworked to contribute to a more cosmopolitan international order.

The successful maintenance of peace since 1814 made neutrality a widely popular doctrine in Sweden. Rather than a security policy in the strict sense, it has become a cornerstone of Swedish national identity. Yet, in the past decade the neutrality tradition has been called into question. What is meant by neutrality? Has Sweden ever been neutral? This book analyses the emergence, institutionalisation and reassessment of neutrality, of the notion of peace as a national good, from the sixteenth century to the present debate on NATO membership.