ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on some issues that were part of a larger battery of issues in the 1994 Parliament study regarding risk perceptions held by members of Parliament. Utilising a perspective grounded in Cultural Theory and its assumptions about how different perceptions of risk are tied to different types of cultures or lifestyles, the chapter explores risk perceptions among the general public and political elites in Sweden. The individualistic group will view an increase in the number of refugees entering the country as threatening depending on whether this increase is perceived as positive or negative for economic growth. The consequences of a Cold War were so devastating and the risk of a war so concrete—with missiles face-to-face across Europe—that other risk perceptions had difficulty gaining a foothold in public debate. The traditional risk perception no longer enjoys a monopoly and has become, instead, one of many risk perceptions that might conceivably gain a foothold in Swedish politics and social debate.
