Sweden has been known for its broad public provision, high social trust, strong public institutions, progressive social policy, an openness to immigration and a commitment to military neutrality. “The Swedish model” became recognizable well beyond Sweden itself, coherent enough to function almost as a political identity.
The OECD uses social protection system as a broad term covering social assistance, social insurance and labor-market programs. Sweden itself uses social insurance for the financial security built around illness, pensions, parental leave, disability and other life events. When we refer more broadly to the Swedish model, we mean the larger arrangement these systems belong to: universal public provision, shared financing, labor-market institutions and a high degree of trust in public administration.
Several parts of that description are changing.
Sweden joined NATO in 2024, ending more than two centuries of military non-alignment. Immigration policy has become substantially more restrictive. Gang violence has moved criminal justice and public safety policy to the center of political and social attention. And the Sweden Democrats, once treated as political outsiders, became the second-largest party in parliament in 2022 and spent the past four years supporting Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s government from outside the cabinet.
Sweden’s Social Democrats, the country’s traditional center-left party, historically led the building of Sweden's system of public provision and social protection. The Sweden Democrats are a nationalist, anti-immigration party on the far right whose origins included figures from Sweden’s neo-Nazi fringe. Over several decades, the party has tried to distance itself from that history and move into the political mainstream. By this election, the question was no longer whether the party belonged in mainstream Swedish politics, but how much governing power voters were prepared to give it.
Swedes gave a remarkably narrow answer on Sunday.
With most ballots counted, the center-left opposition led by Social Democrat Magdalena Andersson holds a preliminary 176-to-173 seat advantage over Kristersson’s governing right bloc in the 349-seat Riksdag. Final counting could still alter that margin, but the Sweden Democrats are projected to lose roughly 11 seats, their first electoral decline under Jimmie Åkesson.
Three seats separate the two political blocs.
The first question is who ultimately governs Sweden. The second is what the result, and the political changes that produced it, tell us about who Swedes believe they are now.
One clue comes from the unusual combination of positions that has become increasingly common among Swedish voters. Research from the University of Gothenburg ahead of the election identified a rapidly growing group who pair traditionally left economic preferences—including a strong public sector, social protection and broad public provision—with more restrictive views on immigration, crime and social order. Over roughly two decades, the share of voters fitting that combination grew from 8 to 46 percent.
Nearly half the electorate may no longer see expansive public provision and stricter enforcement as belonging to opposing political identities.
Immigration provides the clearest example.
During the European refugee crisis in 2015, Sweden accepted roughly 163,000 asylum seekers, an unusually large number relative to its population. A decade later, asylum applications had fallen dramatically. Kristersson’s government tightened immigration law, abolished permanent residency for many asylum seekers, introduced stricter citizenship requirements and began offering some non-EU residents up to 350,000 kronor to voluntarily leave the country.
This was central to the Sweden Democrats’ political agenda, but the shift now extends well beyond the party. Even with the center-left now narrowly ahead, analysts do not expect Sweden to return to the far more open immigration regime of a decade ago.
A more restrictive immigration system may now sit comfortably inside mainstream Swedish politics even as voters appear less willing to expand the institutional power of the Sweden Democrats.
Crime shows a similar pattern.
Sweden recorded 391 shootings and 62 shooting deaths in 2022. By 2025, the number of shootings had fallen to 158, with 46 deaths; through August of this year, police had recorded 48 shootings and 12 deaths. Bombings and organized criminal networks remain significant problems, but the change in shootings is substantial.
The response has included stronger police powers, tougher sentencing and a more enforcement-oriented criminal justice system. Support for that approach extends well beyond the political right. University of Gothenburg research found 86 percent support for harsher punishment of gang criminals and 85 percent support for deporting people convicted of violent crimes.
At the same time, the same electorate continues to express strong support for public provision. Gothenburg researchers found that the group combining traditionally left economic preferences with more restrictive positions on immigration and crime now represents nearly half of Swedish voters.
That combination may be the clearest signal in this election.
Sweden appears to be constructing a new identity: a country comfortable with a stronger state at the border and in the criminal justice system while continuing to expect that same state to provide broad economic security, public services and institutional competence.
Three seats show us how closely divided Swedes remain over the political expression of that emerging identity.
Cover photograph: The Chamber, Swedish Parliament, sati8335, August 14, 2019. Archival photograph; cropped with typography and a legibility overlay by Valedictorian. This cover adaptation is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
