COVID-19 and Swedish exceptionalism

Sweden's controversial COVID-19 response has been followed with fascination internationally. While the country's high death rates may have gradually invoked an increase in criticism, international reporting has tended to swing between two extreme positions, centred around the questions "has Sweden got it all wrong?" and "was Sweden right all along?" This chapter argues that these seemingly polarised perspectives are united in their viewing of Sweden through a lens of it being a uniquely progressive, liberal home of human rights and freedoms. Furthermore, perceptions of Sweden's Covid-19 strategy, both inside and outside the country, reflect national myths of Swedish exceptionalism. This exceptionalism sees Sweden as standing outside European histories of racism, colonialism and Nazism, and enables an image of Sweden as the globally good nation. Examining international reporting on Sweden's Covid-19 strategy, this chapter critically addresses notions of Swedish exceptionalism, and argues that Sweden's Covid-19 response should instead be considered as being in line with a long history of race science and eugenics. This history is concealed by nationally and internationally shared myths of Swedish goodness. Arguably it is the discourse of exceptionalism that has made criticism of the Swedish strategy difficult within Sweden, and made it possible for external critique to be seen as an ill-informed attack on Swedish values. The chapter argues that the international fascination with Sweden's Covid-19 response reflects a shared fear that a uniquely Swedish way of being and doing has been lost. More specifically it demonstrates a collective white melancholia, a shared longing and mourning for a unique form of good whiteness that was somehow above racism and colonial histories.