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

Dams As Aid brings together key issues in the aid/environment/development debate. Through her examination of dams, Usher sheds light on wider issues of the political economy of aid. Detailed analysis of dams and aid case studies are included, particularly on Nordic dams which provide most graphic illustrations, and these detailed case studies are located within a broad comparative and theoretical perspective.

Contemporary international aid consists of a wide range of various support programs, where the end-result in many cases not only reflects the needs of the recipient country, but also the interests of the donor country. In Science and Politics of Foreign Aid - Swedish Environmental Support to the Baltic States it is shown that this particular support has been directed primarily towards areas of joint concern, such as air pollution and effluents to the Baltic Sea. Environmental problems with primarily local effects have, to a large extent, been neglected in the Swedish support program. The requirement on the Baltic recipient countries to finance a specific fraction of each joint program with local resources has furthermore drained the local national environmental budgets from resources, making it very difficult for these countries to mitigate various local environmental hazards by themselves. In contrast to many previous foreign aid studies where various donor country biases often are suggested but not empirically validated, this book gives an in-depth view of how a particular support program is influenced by specific and self-interested considerations.

This book argues that policymakers capitalize on Scandinavia's humanitarian reputation in world affairs to legitimize their policy and diplomatic interests.

In 1997 the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs elaborated a ‘New Policy for Africa’. Its purpose was to co-ordinate the country’s cultural assistance, trade and development aid to African countries by giving these activities a frame of common goals and an ideological rationale, emphasising ‘partnership’ rather than ‘solidarity’ or ‘aid’. This paper analyses the metaphors and paradoxes of the rhetorical draping of the policy as presented in the main report and the speeches of various officials. Of particular concern is what image of moral and reciprocal relations the policy mediates.