Sweden

Last update: February, 2024

The most significant trends in cultural policy in the 21^st century have been the results of increasing regionalisation, globalisation, and digitalization; in particular, the increased movements of people, cultural goods, and cultural influences across national borders have been significant influences on developments in arts and culture, as well as increasingly in cultural policy. The main cultural policy responses to these changes can be summed up as a new perspective on Sweden as a multicultural society, a more positive perspective on the cultural and creative industries, and new efforts to transfer policy-making powers from the national to the regional level.

The notion of Sweden as a multicultural society, and the implications of this, has increasingly been the subject of political debate in the last several years. So far, cultural policy remains relatively stable, but there are indications that the consensus that once characterized Swedish cultural policy is beginning to give way to increased politicization. One reason for this is the emergence of the nationalist Sweden Democrats as a major political party, and now a close ally of the governing coalition. Many researchers also see a more general tendency towards an increased polarization of the political climate of Sweden. Increasing polarization and politicization of cultural policy can be noticed, for example, in recent debates on threats against artists and other professionals in the culture sector, political activism in libraries, politicization of museums, free entry at national museums, and politicization of the influence of grant giving bodies on artists and artistic projects (Harding 2022, Swedish Agency for Cultural Policy Analysis 2021).

Since October 2022, Sweden is governed by a centre-right coalition government with the support of the Sweden Democrats. While the published agreement between the coalition parties and the Sweden Democrats only mentions a few aspects of cultural policy, these include the establishment of a Swedish culture canon, as well as the appointment of government commissions for reevaluating the government support model for popular adult education (folkbildning) and public service media. The importance of the arm’s length principle in cultural policy is explicitly stated in the agreement, but without giving a clear definition. Most of these issues have now been addressed by the government, including in the national budget for 2024.

Partially as a result of increasing debate, the Swedish Agency for Cultural Policy Analysis was tasked by the government in 2019 to review the effects of political control on artistic freedom. In 2021, they delivered their report from this project, identifying four main threats to artistic freedom, recommending that the government should increase its efforts to counteract these: 

1. Hatred, threats, campaigns, and harassment of artists, motivated by hostility against cultural expressions and/or the artists themselves.
2. Government restrictions of artistic freedom in the implementation of cultural policies.
3. Excessively detailed policies and policy objectives forcing arts and culture funded by government bodies to adapt to policy agendas.
4. Excessively strict financial frameworks circumventing the freedom of artists and cultural creators, and undermining free and inclusive cultural life, in practice restricting the opportunity to express oneself artistically to only a few (Swedish Agency for Cultural Policy Analysis 2021).

The government report presented in September 2023 proposing changes in the relationship between the national, regional, and local levels of government could be seen as a step towards further increasing regional autonomy in cultural policy, while at the same time increasing the protection of artistic freedom in government funded arts and culture on the regional and local level. A law on collaboration between state, region, and municipality in the cultural field is suggested, to simplify the processes within the model, and guaranteeing artistic freedom in the regional and municipal activities funded through the model. The existing regional culture plans should be replaced with plans focusing on the state-funded parts of regional cultural policy. The Swedish Arts Council should be given full authority to represent the state in this area, and new artistic and cultural areas should be possible to include in the plans (SOU 2023:58).

Another major issue in Swedish cultural policy in the last few of years has been the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. As elsewhere in Europe, government recommendations and restrictions against public events have had serious consequences for the cultural sector of the economy. By July 2021, revenue from artistic activities had decreased by 18.6 percent, according to preliminary statistics from the Arts Grants Committee. Cultural activities have yet to recover fully from this downturn (for a discussion of the consequences of the pandemic on the arts and culture sector in the Nordic countries, see Kulturanalys Norden 2023). During the pandemic, the internet played a larger role than ever in people’s cultural habits, from listening to music to ordering books, and watching theatre performances. Many cultural institutions have increased their efforts to make their work electronically available. The long-term consequences of the pandemic remain difficult to predict, but it is clear that they will continue to affect the culture sector, as well as society as a whole, for the foreseeable future. In 2021, financial measures amounting to SEK 3,916 million in the years 2022–2024, and 760 million a year after 2024 to “restart” the culture sector were proposed in a government report, in addition to the support programmes already initiated by the government. (SOU 2021:77). Not all of this funding has materialized in national budgets (prop. 2023/2024:1). Introduced as a crisis budget, the national budget for 2024 included several cuts in public spending on arts and culture, the largest of which concerned support for popular adult education (Sw. folkbildning) (see also 6.4 and 7.2).

Last update: February, 2024

Basic cultural rights are included in the Swedish constitution. The Instrument of Government (1974:152), one of the Fundamental Laws that make up the constitution of Sweden, states that “The personal, economic and cultural welfare of the private person shall be a fundamental aim of public activity”, and that “Opportunities should be promoted for ethnic, linguistic, and religious minorities to preserve and develop a cultural and social life of their own” (Article 2, Chapter 1). In addition to articles on fundamental democratic rights and freedom of expression, information, religion, and assembly, the Instrument of Government includes the provision that ”Authors, artists and photographers shall own the rights to their works in accordance with rules laid down in law“ (Article 19 in Chapter 1) (for further information on culture and Swedish constitutional law, see chapter 4.1.1).

The cultural rights mentioned in the Fundamental Laws are the framework for Swedish cultural policy. Below this level, much of cultural policy is not regulated by law (see chapter 4) but guided by cultural policy objectives decided by the Parliament (see chapter 1.1). The objectives of cultural policy establish that “Culture should be a dynamic, challenging, and independent force based on the freedom of expression. Everyone should be able to participate in cultural life. Creativity, diversity, and artistic quality should mark society's development”, thus emphasizing that cultural policy should work for the autonomy of art and culture, freedom of expression, cultural diversity, artistic quality, and that everyone in the country should be able to participate in arts and culture. This interpretation of the objectives formed the starting point when the Swedish Agency for Cultural Analysis evaluated the impact governance of the art and culture sector on the freedom of the arts in 2021 (see chapter 2.1). 

Last update: February, 2024

Income and employment conditions among artists and cultural professionals have been a central issue in Swedish cultural policy for decades, but results have remained unsatisfactory.  According to studies made by the Swedish Agency for Cultural Policy Analysis, artists and other cultural professionals work under poorer financial conditions than professionals with comparable education and experience in other sectors of society do. In its annual report of 2020, the Swedish Agency for Cultural Policy Analysis stated that “The cultural institutions upon which many career opportunities rely in the cultural field are also facing financial challenges, especially with regards to their ability to act, due to trends in wage expenditures.”  In that year's situational assessment, the Agency identified the economic circumstances of the cultural sector as a threat to artistic freedom, along with “hate, threats and harassment”, and various forms of political control with and without direct financial connections (Swedish Agency for Cultural Policy Analysis 2020).

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the situation became significantly more problematic, and large numbers of people have ceased working in arts and culture due to increased difficulties (SOU 2021:77). Employment in arts and culture reached a low point during the winter 2020/2021 and the spring of 2021, but during 2022, the labour market appears to have recovered. From April 2022, and throughout that year, employment numbers were higher than the corresponding months 2019 (Swedish Agency for Cultural Policy Analysis 2023b).

Historically, Swedish support systems for the unemployed have often been relatively favorable to artistic professions, enabling independent professionals to mix short periods of employment and unemployment. The system has been criticized as enabling theatres to force independent performers to rehearse on unemployment aid. Programmes to help people into employment have also been used to finance, for example, trainee positions in the culture sector to a relatively high extent. Several initiatives to ”move resources from the unemployment budgets to the cultural sector have been taken. An example of this combined budgeting is the "theatre pool", (Teateralliansen) financed by the government, to provide salaried training and rehearsal facilities for actors. Since 2008, similar pools are in operation for dancers as well as for musicians. 

Since 2005, the Arts Grants Committee is responsible for monitoring economic and social conditions of artists and publishes annual statistical reports. In 2011, the Arts Grants Committee published a report concerning the employment situation and sources of income of Swedish artists. According to this study, artists spend 73 percent of their time on direct artistic work or administration of such, while 61 percent of their income derived from this. Of the artists who said they have been employed in their artistic profession during the previous year, 35 percent were permanent full-time employees and 15 percent of permanent part-time employees. 20 percent were temporary employees, and about 35 percent of those employed had so called project employment. In the Swedish labour market in general, 85 percent of all employees had permanent employment. The survey also indicates that artists' labour is more mobile. One third of the artists said they had at least six employers or principals for their artistic work during a year. 

In 2018, a Government commission submitted a report on artist policy, Konstnär – oavsett vilkor? (“Artist – regardless terms?”, SOU 2018: 23). The report describes the current conditions for professionally active artists in Sweden. According to this study, artists are increasingly working as freelancers, combining different types of projects, employment, and other sources of income, within and outside of the arts and culture sector. It concludes that current social security is not adapted to these new conditions in the arts and culture labour market. It also highlights the problem that persons with different backgrounds do not have the same opportunities to become artists, and that bias in recruitment to artistic education starts at a young age. Another issue discussed in the report is the concentration of artists to urban areas – especially the Stockholm area – making it near impossible to have an artistic career in large parts of the country.

These issues were revisited by the Swedish Agency for Cultural Policy Analysis in a report published in 2023. The report shows that, in general, persons with a degree in the fields of arts and cultural heritage, who are active in these areas, have lower incomes than persons with degrees in other areas and active in those areas. For those with a degree in the arts, the mean income is lower than for those without a degree. These conditions are likely part of the reason why students in the arts tends to have higher-income parents, and parents with higher education than average, i.e., this is a path that one is more likely to set out on with a secure background (Swedish Agency for Cultural Policy Analysis 2023c).

Last update: February, 2024

Internet use in Sweden is among the highest in the world. In 2020, 96 percent of Swedes had access to the internet, and 94 percent used it daily. 65 percent used the internet to watch movies, or TV series, and 69 percent to listen to music. During the Covid-19 pandemic, internet became both more central and more vital in people´s lives. At the same time, 49 percent were worried about their personal information on the internet being collected for advertisement purposes (SCB 2020). These figures illustrate the drastic changes, opportunities and challenges posed by new modes of communication to cultural policy. Digital media have become tools in the daily work of all institutions, e.g., in the form of websites, digitalization of catalogues, online library loans, documentation and registration of museum collections, use of digital equipment for stage and other music and drama performances, box-office sales, etc. Similarly, digital media have become the natural mode of communication and networking, and a growing medium for creative expressions. As pointed out, for example, by the Government Commission on the Restart of Culture in their recent report (SOU 2021:77), the increasingly digital distribution of literature, music, and other art forms, creates new challenges for professionals in these areas when it comes to being paid for their work. In a report on digitalization in arts and culture, the Swedish Arts Grants Committee describes the implementation of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market as a chance to improve the financial situation of artists in various fields (Swedish Arts Grants Committee 2021).

A major government priority for Sweden in this area has been education, on all levels. Special funding for equipment and projects has been made available for schools in general and for educational programmes in museums and other cultural institutions. In 2017, the government approved a comprehensive strategy for digitalization, emphasizing competence, security, innovation, leadership, and infrastructure. 

Specific projects deal with the digitalization of the cultural heritage. The National Heritage Board is the main responsible government agency in this area, although a large number of public bodies are engaged in such work. Projects are also conducted by The Royal Library concerning the preservation of works published on the Internet, as well as with making physical books and documents available through scanning and electronic publishing. Museums and other institutions in arts and culture work with improving electronic access, an effort which acquired increased urgency during the Covid-19 pandemic (e.g. Swedish Agency for Cultural Policy Analysis 2021b). In the national budget for 2024, the government allocated SEK 17 million per year 2024–2026 to central museums for the digitalization of archives and collections.

Last update: February, 2024

Government supported culture in Sweden should, according to the national cultural policy objectives, promote “international and intercultural exchange and cooperation”, as well as guarantee that “Everyone should be able to participate in cultural life”. It is today the established norm to recognize Sweden as a multicultural society. There are also funding schemes dealing with the national minorities and minority languages, mainly providing grants for projects in the fields of language and literature, and periodicals with cultural content. 

In January 2000, Sweden ratified the Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The officially recognized national minorities are the indigenous Sami people, the Swedish Finns, the Tornedalians, the Roma and the Jews. All of the national minorities have national cultural institutions. Examples are the Sami Theatre, the Sami Museum Ajtte, the Tornedalen Theatre, the Roma Cultural Centre in Malmö and the Jewish Museum. The indigenous Sami people is a national minority population with approximately 20 000 members in Sweden. There are also populations of Sami in Finland, Norway and northwestern Russia. The Swedish Sami Parliament (Sametinget) has been allocated an earmarked government budget for cultural activities, research and social development projects. Nordic cooperation exists both between the Sami parliaments and between the respective nation-state governments on Sami related issues. In the national budget for 2024, increased funding has been allocated to spreading information to prevent antisemitism, as well as to the Giron Sami theatre.

Aside from these legally recognized national minorities, Sweden has a number of other cultural and linguistic communities, as the result of immigration in the last sixty years. 19.6 percent of the population is born in another country. Many of these originate in other Nordic countries, the largest group being those born in Finland. Other major groups are people with a background in the former Yugoslavia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Chile and Somalia. Many immigrant groups are organized in associations that receive government grants. In 2008, the Muslim Study Association Ibn Rushd gained the status of a study association recognized by the government, giving it access to funding for adult education and cultural activities. Today, it is one of ten such recognized national study associations.

According to a report published by the Swedish Agency for Cultural Policy Analysis in 2015, the percentage of arts-and-culture sector employees with foreign backgrounds had remained at a constant level for a decade, i.e., 13.4 percent in 2012, which was lower than the corresponding percentage of the population (20.1 percent in 2012). Under-representation had thus increased with the increasing percentage of the population with a foreign background. The greater diversity in the population was thus not reflected in staff composition in the culture sector. In leading positions, the percentage of persons born outside of Sweden was even lower than among employees in general. The agency’s assessment was that the cultural sector in 2015 was further from the target of reflecting the population than it had been ten years earlier. In a report published in 2023, the agency revisited these issues, showing that while foreign-born persons were underrepresented, both in the arts (10 %) and in the heritage sector (9 %), those with one foreign-born parent were under-represented (3 % in both fields). In the cultural labour market, those born abroad are not underrepresented in relation to their share of the group with a degree in the arts, or in cultural heritage (Swedish Agency of Cultural Policy Analysis 2023c).

The National Museums of World Culture is a government agency composed of four museums specifically charged with making a broader cultural heritage available to the people. The museums of world culture exhibit ethnographical and archaeological collections, from, among other places, Egypt, Cyprus, Italy, Greece, China, North America and Peru. The alleged tendency for these museums to focus more on current issues in Sweden, than on the historical contexts of their collections, has been criticized by the political opposition and media as constituting a polarization of the role of museums (Harding 2021).

Last update: February, 2024

It is a longstanding goal of modern Swedish cultural policy that it should increase access to culture for everyone living in Sweden; both through access to culture of high quality and by enabling more people to practice cultural and artistic activities. Hence, participation and social cohesion can be considered to be at the very core of Swedish cultural policy. In the present objectives of Swedish cultural policy this goal is formulated in the statement that “Everyone should be able to participate in cultural life”, and that cultural policy should “promote everyone's opportunity to cultural experiences, cultural education, and to develop their creative capabilities” and “especially notice the right to culture of children and the young.” (Government bill 2009/10:3). 

Integration policy aims to support equal rights, responsibilities, and opportunities for everyone, irrespective of ethnic and cultural background; social cohesion built on diversity; social development characterized by mutual respect, irrespective of background, (should participate and share a sense of community). These objectives cover all of public policy, including cultural policy. Ethnic and cultural diversity is the point of departure for shaping general policies in all sectors and at all levels of society. High priority is, in many policy documents, given to addressing segregation in Swedish society, as well as to efforts to combat racism, xenophobia, and ethnic discrimination. Integration efforts focus on creating opportunities that enable individuals to economically support themselves and participate in society, safeguarding basic democratic values and working to secure equal rights and opportunities for women and men. In the last few years, Swedish language and culture have been increasingly emphasized in policies on the integration of immigrants.

Last update: February, 2024

Cultural sustainability, and sustainability in general, are widely recognized as important in Sweden. Working towards the goals of Agenda 2030 is, for example, to be integrated in all areas of government policy. In spite of this, there are no comprehensive overviews available over the state of cultural sustainability in Swedish cultural policy.

Last update: February, 2024

Increasing cultural participation has been a central aim for Swedish cultural policy at least since the 1970’s. Historically, this ambition has focused on making arts and culture activities available throughout the country – which is the second least densely populated country in the EU – and on widening audiences in terms of class and educational background. In recent decades, increased emphasis has been placed on other factors, such as gender, functional differences, and immigrant background, as well, but class, education, and especially geography remain central issues in cultural policy, even though issues relating to cultural diversity and multiculturalism have become dominant.

The current centre-right government has emphasized the protection of artists and other professionals in the culture sector against threats and violence, as a part of upholding public safety, as well as safe work environments and freedom of expression. Issues relating to law enforcement have increasingly come into focus in policy discussions in general. Municipalities have, for example, been given increased responsibilities in preventing crimes, something which has also impacted discussions on cultural policy related topics such as city planning and leisure activities for the young.