Stable Peace: the Case of Sweden

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Introduction

The issues of war and peace have troubled humanity throughout history. Various strategies to avoid war have been employed, but most attempts at continuous peace have failed. Armed conflict has proven hard to eradicate, and only a few states have a history of longer periods of uninterrupted peace. Traditionally, security-policy research, which is concerned with precisely these problems, has analyzed war rather than peace. Although one aim of this research has been to understand the conditions favoring the establishment of peace and the avoidance of war, as well as war itself, its focus has been mainly on issues related to the latter - the causes of war, the progression of crises, strategies of deterrence, etc. It is the ambition of this research program to study this problematique, but to do so from a different angle. The processes of transformation giving rise to inter-state relations characterized by peace and cooperation, a focus that has been largely overlooked by traditional research, will be at the core of our analysis. To some extent, our focus will be empirical, and will aim at identifying central factors helping us to understand the development of continuously peaceful relations. In this context, 180 years of Swedish peace - almost two centuries during which Sweden has avoided direct involvement in armed conflicts - constitutes an interesting research case. Sweden has gradually entered into a condition of almost permanent or stable peace with much of the surrounding world. Characteristic for such a situation is that war or the threat of war and military violence is, in principle, perceived as unthinkable means for solving conflicts. The striking transformation from a conflict-prone Great Power in the 17th century to a state whose foreign relations are characterized by perceptions of peace has been noted by many international scholars - among them Kenneth Boulding, John Lewis Gaddis, and Paul Kennedy - as a unique development worthy of study. The research program's overarching aim is to, based on the Swedish security and foreign policy experience, analyze possibilities for development of lasting peaceful relations. Included in this aim are theoretical as well as empirical ambitions. The need for theory development within this field of research has been acknowledged by many of its students. The goal of the program, in this respect, is to continue developing some already central concepts, and to generate some new ones, so as to make possible a more general discussion on the various aspects and preconditions for stable peace. Empirically, the goal is to investigate central features of Swedish security and foreign policy behavior since the Congress of Vienna, from the perspective discussed above. Historic research within this field has traditionally focused on diplomacy and has usually only covered shorter periods of time. Endeavors to place the Swedish experience during the period in question in a broader context and to analyze it from a wider perspective, have been lacking. The point of departure of the program, however, allows it to bring developments over longer periods of time to the forefront of the analysis, which in turn may facilitate a more general discussion of the Swedish role in the international system and its relation to other states.