Policy Hub
On 1 November 2006, the Australian Review of Public Affairs (ARPA) published an article (Social democracy in northern Europe: its relevance for Australia) which says that social democrats in English-speaking countries have traditionally looked to Sweden and its neighbours as offering a policy model that combines economic prosperity with social equality. In recent decades, this admiration has dissipated due to a sense that comprehensive welfare provision in the Nordic nations is in retreat and that policy options for small states have been reduced by ‘globalisation’. Yet there remains strong evidence of economic and social achievement in various northern European nations, maintained by policies which continue to be more recognisably social democratic than elsewhere.