Why Did It Not Happen Here? The Gradual Radicalization of the Anarchist Movement in Sweden 1980–90

Abstract

This chapter examines the development and role of the anarchist movement in Sweden during the 1980s. In relation to many other parts of Northern Europe — which had seen an upsurge in radical left-libertarian activism, squatting and urban unrest at the turn of the 1980s — such social movements and confrontations remained a marginal phenomenon in Sweden, at least until the end of the decade. However, by the late 1980s a new generation of younger activists, often with roots in the anarchist milieu, formed the basis for a radical squatter and autonomist movement, which proved very similar to the movements that had developed throughout Europe almost a decade earlier.