ABSTRACT
Environmental problems were salient in most western countries during the late 1980s (Hofrichter and Reif 1990), and Sweden was no exception. Downs (1972), however, suggests that the ‘heated’ environmental debate is unlikely to continue because a process of satiation influences the attention-cycle of all political issues. But while the intensity of environmental concern may wax and wane, there are good reasons to suppose that ecology will continue as a politicized issue in most countries. The environment, like taxes and defence costs, will become an ingrained fixture of politics, Viewed this way, the green breakthrough of the 1980s will be permanent in the 1990s.
