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Sweden-bashing is a genre used in the discourse about Sweden, in which, according to Swedish academics at a 2016 forum on transnationalizing Swedish–American relations, Sweden has occupied a position in the United States, as both a model and a dangerous example of a welfare state" or a failed state.   In an article published in the Journal of Transnational American Studies, Carl Marklund argued that Sweden's third-world solidarity since the 1970s during the Vietnam War, its alleged "totalitarian" tendencies, its supposed "anti-Western bias", its neutrality during the Cold War and its domestic social policies have made it the subject of Sweden-bashing by both conservatives and liberals. Marklund concluded that, while the negative criticism is marginal, it is vocal.  According to Sveriges Radio, Sweden-bashing recently peaked again in 2016 as foreign media criticized Sweden's open immigration policies as swelling numbers of displaced peoples, refugee, and asylum seekers—many of whom had Sweden as their destination of choice—fled war-torn Syria via other European countries. Sweden's global reputation is generally positive. In the Nation Brand Index (NBI), which measures how countries are perceived globally based on "stereotypes of its people or region," its "natural and social environment", "positive or negative news coverage" or "dramatic events", in 2005 (Q1), Sweden was listed in first place out of ten countries, fifth in 2005 (Q2) and seventh out of thirty five of the "world's leading nation brands" in 2006,  and tenth out of the fifty countries in 2016.

Context
According to the Swedish Institute (SI)—Svenska Institutet's Henrik Selin, the image of Sweden in most countries is generally positive. Selin is the head of the Institute's department for intercultural communication—the Swedish Institute is a Swedish government association operational worldwide that promotes Swedish culture, monitors and analyses how Sweden is perceived abroad, publishing regular studies about it, and manages Brand Sweden as part of its public diplomacy. The Institute and the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Utrikesdepartementet, collect reports on Sweden's image abroad and monitor its Nation Brand Index (NBI) results to collect data. Since 1968, the press office at the MFA has kept track of global opinion and compiles annual Sverige i utländsk press - Sweden in the Foreign Press (SIUP) reports that monitor "foreign press coverage" or "published opinion" on Sweden abroad. This material was analyzed by Carl Marklund, who wrote in 2016 that "the often cited exemplarity of Sweden among progressive countries worldwide" became the subject of "Sweden-bashing."

"due to its Third World solidarity abroad as well as its social policies at home—also made it the subject of an admittedly marginal, but vocal genre of diagnosis and criticism, first from conservatives, later from liberals, that can be termed 'Sweden-bashing'. Key themes in this genre include allegedly totalitarian tendencies in the Swedish welfare state as well as a supposedly anti-Western bias in Swedish Cold War neutrality."

- Carl Marklund Research Fellow in Political Science, Södertörn University, Stockholm 2016:2

According to Marklund, Sweden-bashing was used in the 1960s election between Eisenhower and John F Kennedy. In 1960 while addressing the Republican National Committee, President Eisenhower described Sweden as a cautionary tale for the government to beware of socialism and to stay out of the affairs of individuals. He described Sweden as this "friendly European country" that was engaging in an "experiment of almost complete paternalism", a "socialistic operation" now has an unbelievably rate of suicide and drunkenness and a "lack of ambition".

In 1971, British author Roland Huntford, published his book entitled The New Totalitarians which was inspired by Aldous Huxley's Brave New World in which he argues that the "totalitarian paradise of Huxley’s imagination" was realized in Sweden while Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme then leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party was in office and "US-Swedish diplomatic relations were strained.

Södertörn University Research Fellow, Carl Marklund, whose paper focused on the phenomenon of "Sweden-bashing" while Olof Palme was in office, argued that a period of "normalization in US reporting on Sweden" from 1976 to the early 1980s, came to an end when Olof Palme and his Social Democratic Party returned to power in October, 1982.

In the 1980s, MFA press officer Gösta Grassman observed that a new genre of "Sweden publicity" in the foreign press had emerged, which he labelled the "1984 reports" in reference to Orwell's dystopian 1949 science fiction novel Nineteen Eighty-Four about life in a totalitarian or authoritarian state. Marklund noted that the reports, framed Sweden's "welfare state" as a "cover for what truly amounted to socialism". These stories, which were popular in the United States, were usually based on anecdotes. According to Marklund, Sweden's attempts to downplay the negative foreign press coverage which was having an impact on the domestic press, backfired. Marklund noted that the international press also began to focus on racism and rising xenophobia in Sweden. By 1988, the phrase Sweden-bashing was already being cited in a Swedish book on peace and security, co-authored by Swedish historian and expert in foreign policy, Bo Huldt, which analyzed the years 1986 and 1987.

In his 2000 book entitled A Swedish Dilemma: A Liberal European Nation’s Struggle with Racism and Xenophobia, 1990–2000, Mississippi State University's, Dennis S. Nordin, described the challenges facing Europe, in general and Sweden in particular, in regards to racism and zenophobia from 1990 onward. Nordin's work as outsider attempted to echo the outsider role and work of Nobel-laureate economist Gunnar Myrdal, author of the highly influential An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944). who was invited in 1937 by the Carnegie Corporation to direct a major study on African Americans. The Carnegie trustees chose him as an 'import' candidate from a nation without an imperial history" expecting he would have "a fresh mind, uninfluenced by traditional attitudes or by earlier conclusions."

In 2002, Paul Krugman explained why Sweden is a bête noire for conservatives who "engage in Sweden-bashing" because "they want to convince us that there is no tradeoff between economic efficiency and equity -- that if you try to take from the rich and give to the poor, you actually make everyone worse off." He challenged the "conservative cyberpundit" Glenn Reynolds remarks dismissing Sweden's G.D.P. per capita as "roughly comparable with that of Mississippi" arguing that Sweden's lower average income compared to the United States, is mainly because of the extremes of wealth and poverty in the United States.

During the 2010 Swedish election, Denmark challenged Sweden's concept of democracy. Both countries are widely accepted as democracies, however, there are marked differences between them. Denmark defines itself as a "monocultural nation" while Sweden embraces a "multicultural perspective."

In 2013, Pertti Joenniemi, senior research fellow at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) in Copenhagen, provided examples of Swedish-bashing, particularly by the right-wing populist or far-right Danish People's Party (DPP), at its worst,

"Sweden has been categorized as a 'Nordic banana republic' (an expression used by the leader of the DPP) and seen as a 'Prozac nation' (doped into tranquility). It has been positioned in the 'Balkans' and labelled 'East European' (an expression employed by a DPP member of the European Parliament). It has further been talked about as being 'Asian' as well as 'totalitarian'. At large the discourse turned, at least for a while, quite aggravated and Orientalist.""

- Pertti Joenniemi "Disputed Democratic Identities: the Case of Danish-Swedish Discord" 2013:200

Sweden was the destination for many Syrian refugees who were fleeing war-torn Syria. As a result, Sweden suffered a backlash and negative reports from foreign media increased in 2015.

In a February 2016 report to the Swedish Foreign Ministry, the Swedish Embassy in London said that the widely-distributed "right-wing UK tabloid newspaper", the Daily Mail, known for its "vigorous anti-immigration stance", was running a campaign against Sweden's refugee policy. In 2015, "160,000 people sought asylum in Sweden" with another 100,000 were expected in 2016. The report said that Sweden was "being used as a deterrent and an argument against allowing more refugees into the UK" and was being characterised by the Daily Mail as "naive and an example of the negative consequences of a liberal migration policy."

In August 2016, the pro-government Turkish newspaper, Günes, displayed a huge banner ad at the Atatürk Airport in Istanbul, which cautioned travelers, "Travel warning! Do you know that Sweden has the highest rape rate worldwide?" in what appeared to be a diplomatic spat. In response the Swedish embassy, explained how criminal statistics are influenced by the number of crimes reported. In Sweden, "the authorities make great efforts to encourage victims of sexual offences to report these crimes... So for example if someone says they were raped by a partner every day for a fortnight, officers will record 14 potential crimes. Elsewhere, many countries would log the claim as a single incident." In September 2016, Sweden's embassy in Budapest "sharply rebuked Hungary" after millions of official leaflets were distributed in Hungary just before its October referendum on "EU refugee quotas" which conservative Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban opposes, warning that European cities like Stockholm, Malmö, London, Brussels, Marseille, and Berlin had no-go areas overrun by migrants in which "the authorities cannot keep under control" and where "the norms of the host society (…) barely prevail". The flyer included a map of Europe with hundreds of red dots allegedly showing these no-go zones.

In mid-January, 2017, Czechoslovakia-born Swedish author Katerina Janouch, made numerous false assertions on a Czech television station which were denounced as Sweden-bashing. Janouch said that "that Swedes were learning to use guns to defend themselves as a result of increased immigration," Swedish seniors do not have enough money for food, cancer patients were dying because of the long waiting lines caused by tens of thousands newly arrived refugees—77% of whom are men pretending to be minors, women are being raped, and 150,000 left Sweden for the United States and the UK. Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven spoke of "increasing negative media coverage abroad" at Davos and in interviews with the local Swedish media with reassurances that there was still "great respect for the Swedish model'.

In his February 21, 2017 article published in Sydsvenskan, Olle Lönnaeus, in response to the Last Night in Sweden incident, in which President Trump, repeated false allegations from a Fox cable news report, argued that Sweden—"Europe’s most refugee friendly country"—is targeted by those who promote the closure of the US border to Muslim immigration. On February 22, Sweden's justice and migration minister Morgan Johansson accused anti-immigration Jimmie Åkesson and Mattias Karlsson of the right-wing Sweden Democrats party, falsely suggesting that "immigration had sparked a rising crime wave" in Sweden in their February 22 Wall Street Journal opinion piece. By 2017, according to journalist, Aleksandra Eriksson, Sweden became the symbol of everything that some believe is wrong with Europe: feminism, environmentalism, and openness to refugees.