In the middle of the Algerian-French war, in December 1959, Sweden suddenly voted `yes' in the UN General Assembly to Algerian self-determination. This was a clear change in Swedish foreign policy. The empirical question in this article is thus: Could this change be sufficiently understood as the result of a learning process? Through a specified set of conditions and an empirical test of these conditions using the Algerian case, the theoretical aim is to improve on existing operationalizations of the concept of learning. My conclusion is, empirically, that this new orientation in Swedish foreign policy was as a result of the effect of learning. By studying the Algerian decision in a wider perspective we can begin to understand the emergence of the Swedish so-called `active policy of neutrality' during the 1960s. Theoretically, I argue that the concept of learning, specified in necessary and sufficient conditions, can be useful in explaining and evaluating why changes in foreign policy take place when they do.
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