Citation

Rostami A, Askanius T. Surveill. Soc. 2021; 19(3): 369-373.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, University of Newcastle upon Tyne; Surveillance Studies Network)

DOI

10.24908/ss.v19i3.15025

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Sweden is a robust democratic state with a well-functioning legal system, stable political institutions, vibrant associational life, and high electoral turnout (Rothstein, Charron, and Lapuente 2013; Rothstein 2018). However, since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, domestic national security challenges have gained more political importance. Law and order have become one of the main concerns for Swedish voters (Novus 2021; Andersson et al. 2021). An increasing number of social issues have become linked and subordinated to crime and security policy (Tham 2018; Andersson and Nilsson 2017). These policy areas have witnessed a paradigm shift toward a broader spectrum of threats and risks than had previously been the case, resulting in an expansion of internal controls and levels of surveillance of all citizens for both criminal and non‐criminal behaviors (Flyghed 2005). Further, Sweden has a relatively strong far-right movement, factions of which have an explicitly anti-democratic and violent agenda. Most recently, in the years following the European border crisis of 2015-2016 during which the country took in more refugees per capita than any other European country, we have seen a new surge in anti-immigration mobilizations and far-right violence. In fact, in international comparisons of far-right violence and militancy, Sweden represents an outlier position with a markedly stronger and more resilient extreme-right movement compared to its Nordic neighbors. Explicitly, Sweden can be described as the Nordic hub for the extreme far-right movements in the region (Ravndal 2018; Ekuriren 2019). In recent years, several monitoring groups and state actors, including the Swedish Security Service, have identified far-right terrorism as a growing and deepening threat against Swedish democracy (Ranstorp and Ahlin 2020; Expo 2019, 2020). Further, recent research indicates that Sweden also stands out when it comes to a specific form of violent extremism on the rise, that of violent misogyny (Fernquist et al. 2020; Askanius et al. forthcoming), which, at its core, is intricately linked to white supremacist ideology...

Language: en