Abstract
Long the reluctant European, Sweden recently has reversed its traditional opposition to membership in the European Community and now favors early entry. This policy shift is the result of a rapidly changing nexus of international and domestic factors. The prospect of wider and deeper European political cooperation in the post-Cold War era challenges the viability of national policies sustained by independence and neutrality; while developments within Sweden have eroded or nullified most of the old arguments against membership. In this process, the traditional rationale for Sweden's European policy, based on political considerations centered on neutrality, has been superseded by economic considerations based on the gradual deterioration in Sweden's economic performance, wherein EC membership is now regarded as less a threat to sovereignty than as a means of counteracting an increasingly uncertain economic outlook.
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