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                   The Swedish Model becomes less
                  The Swedish Model Becomes Less
                   Swedish
                  Swedish





                   Lars W. Nord






                   The Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson, has officially stated that he is no friend of
                   advanced opinion polls. Most marketing firms during the national election campaign in
                   2002 failed to predict the success of the ruling Social Democratic Party. After the
                   surprising outcome of the election, the Prime Minister said he obtained a better and
                   more reliable picture of public opinion by walking down the main streets in the City of
                   Stockholm. If people smiled and nodded at him, his party was on its way up. If people
                   looked away from him or ignored him, the opinion climate was the other way around.
                   These observations during a brief walk a few blocks from the Prime Minister’s
                   Residence to the Government Office gave Persson, according to him, much more useful
                   information than analysing complex opinion data from numerous polls conducted by
                   statistical experts and marketing companies.


                   This story is, however, much more of an anecdote than a true description of political
                   communication practices in Sweden today. It would be ridiculous to imagine the party
                   in government not using sophisticated methods when analysing opinion trends and
                   evaluating public preferences. In times of globalisation and modernisation there are  The Swedish Model Becomes Less Swedish
                   definitely good reasons to believe that advanced communication practices are adopted
                   in most countries usually referred to as the most well-established democracies in the
                   world (Swanson & Nimmo,1990; Bennett & Entman,2001).

                   Nevertheless,international trends probably do not explain everything when it comes to
                   political communication practices in a nation. Distinct features in individual countries
                   such as the nature of political systems, media structures or public opinion still matter,  81
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