User:Lordmetroid/Swedish Social Democratic Party

The Swedish Social Democratic Party (Swedish: Arbetarepartiet-Socialdemokraterna, commonly referred to as Socialdemokraterna; literally, "Workers' Party the Social Democrats" and "Social Democrats") is a political party in Sweden. The party was founded in 1888. (In 1917, a schism occurred when the communists and revolutionaries left to form what is now the Left Party). The symbol of the party is traditionally a red rose, which is believed to have been Fredrik Ström's idea.

The Social Democratic Party's position is in theory a revision of Marxism. Its party program calls their ideology democratic socialism, or social democracy. Their intention is to fund a general welfare policy based on taxes. In recent times they have become strong supporters of feminism, equality of all kinds, and in strong opposition to all forms of discrimination and racism.

Current Status
Currently, the Social Democratic Party has about 125,000 members, with about 2540 local party associations and 500 workplace associations. The member base consists mostly of blue-collar workers, public sector employees and unemployed. The party has close relationships with the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (Landsorganisationen i Sverige commonly refered to as LO). The party is a member of Socialist International, the Party of European Socialists and SAMAK. Since 1996, the working-class profile of the Party has weakened.

Organisations within the Swedish social democratic movement:
 * The National Federation of Social Democratic Women in Sweden (S-kvinnor) organizes women.
 * The Swedish Social Democratic Youth League (Sveriges Socialdemokratiska Ungdomsförbund or SSU) organizes youth.
 * The Social Democratic Students of Sweden (Socialdemokratiska Studentförbundet) organizes university students.
 * The Christian Brotherhood (Broderskap) organizes Christians.

Voter base
The Swedish Social Democratic Party got between 40%-50% of the votes in all elections of between 1940 and 1988 making it one of the most successful political parties in the world. The voter base consist of a diverse selection of people through-out society.

2006 Election Results
In the election 2006, the party's support being the worst result for the Social Democrats ever in a general election with universal suffrage. In the 2006 elections the party received 34.99% of the votes. Resulting in the loss of power of office to the opposition.

Political Impact
Because the party has held power of office for a majority of terms in rescent history after it's founding. The party's ideology and policies have had strong influence on swedish politics.

The party is the main architect behind the Swedish welfare state that formed after World War II. Swedish society as it is generally depicted abroad was a result of this policy. Under the Social Democrats' administration, Sweden has retained neutrality as a foreign policy guideline, during the Cold War. Despite the successful social policies, the change in per capita GDP over a period of years portrays the policies in a somewhat less favourable light: in 1970, Sweden had the second biggest GDP per capita (current US dollars), only behind that of the US, but by 1993, a time when the economy was in deep crisis, Sweden had lost its position. This recession was attributed to irresponsible monetary policies by the successive Social Democrat governments during the previous decades.

After economic recessions in the 1970s, the party continued to cover up deficits in the economy by supporting purchases of the Swedish currency and borrowing money abroad. When this stopped working in the early 1990s, the party was blamed for irresponsibility and between 1991-1994 lost its place as the governing party of Sweden. However, the moderate coalition government was not able to improve the financial situation and served only one term in office.

Since 1994 privatization of many state companies has occured, such as the phone, postal service and hospitals has taken place to allow for greater competition. However the swedish state remains as majority onwer in all of these cases. The rescently privatized companies still claim to be working on behalf of a welfare state.