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This report examines the historical image of Sweden in the United States against the backdrop of recent debates on how Sweden is portrayed abroad. The Swedish-American relationship is important for Sweden - culturally, economically, and politically. This is highly relevant given current security concerns and Sweden's recent NATO application. The USA is also a key arena for the global dissemination of perceptions about Sweden, which is critical in today's increasingly polarized media landscape. The report does not aim to present a comprehensive overview of the entirety of American image of Sweden but focuses on events and occasions where attention to Sweden and Swedish affairs has both quantitatively intensified and qualitatively changed.
About the author
Carl Marklund is an associate professor in Nordic Studies at the University of Helsinki and a researcher at the Institute for Contemporary History at Södertörn University, as well as a guest researcher at the Hans Blix Centre for the History of International Relations at Stockholm University. His research has focused on the intellectual history of social planning, the image of the Nordic model in international debate, the Nordic countries' relations with the Global South during the Cold War, geopolitics and security policy in the Baltic Sea region.
