Sweden and the UN. Sweden’s UN policy 1946-2025

Sweden has historically been one of the most important contributors to the UN. However, earlier research also shows that Swedish governments have emphasized support to the UN with a varying degree. The purpose of the proposed sabbatical is to map and explain Sweden’s varying UN policy 1946-2025. The mapping includes an overview of how important the UN has been for Sweden’s grand strategy in foreign policy, in what ways the UN has been affected by Sweden’s EU membership and what forms of UN policies have been emphasized by Sweden at different time periods. The explanatory part includes a focus on domestic factors for understanding variation in Swedish UN policy. The research is deemed relevant since the UN is still the only global institution with law enforcing capacity, even though great power conflicts have made the UN Security Council less relevant. Given Sweden’s important contributions to the UN I find it highly important to write a coherent and comprehensive study on Sweden’s UN policy and to relate this story to Sweden’s overall foreign policy profile. I argue that research on Swedish UN policy would fill a gap in earlier research since earlier research on Swedish foreign policy has focused on specific dimensions in Sweden’s UN policy and a more comprehensive story of Swedish UN policy has not yet been written.