ABSTRACT
The reorientation of Sweden’s foreign policy in 1990 took place in the aftermath of two major historical events. One was the fall of the Berlin wall. In the new situation Sweden and Finland became less interested in keeping up a buffer zone of non-aligned states in Northern Europe. Thereby the policy of ‘non-alignment aiming at neutrality in wartime’ became obsolete. The other was the impossibility of fighting unemployment alone. In an international context of established neo-liberalism, the policy of full employment turned into a political impasse (J. Gustavsson 1998).
