On one hand the Scandinavian societies witnessed extensive and expanding public sectors during the welfare state era in most areas of health care, eduction, and social work during the 20th century. This space has historically been allowed-or carved out-in-between the emergence of two major social phenomena. The position of foundations-and charitable foundations in particular-in the Swedish Social-Democratic political regime of the 20th century can be described as a carefully negotiated space of existence. In comparison to neighboring Scandinavian or Nordic countries, both similarities and differences are identified where, for example, the Norwegian case display a much larger segment of operating foundations, closely affiliated with government, while in Denmark, on the other hand, the corporate-owning foundation seems to be a much more important form than in Sweden. We find in the article some limited support for a “philanthropic turn” in Sweden, but overall the foundation world is still deeply embedded in the social contract and strong Social-Democratic regime of the 20th century. The same is true for the category of independent foundations, which points toward the U.S. Instead, we can identify in our new data set a growing segment of the Swedish foundation world that is affiliated with other parts of civil society. or German counterparts is their weak bonds to religious communities or causes. A striking difference between the Swedish foundations and their U.S. Despite marginal positions for philanthropy, Sweden displays a wealthy as well as growing foundation population, which seems like a paradox, at least in comparison to the situation in Germany and the United States where foundations traditionally play a more visible and pronounced role in society. Only in the case of funding of research do Swedish foundations exhibit a role possible to define in terms of substitution rather than weak complementarity in relation to government. The same is true in fields like Culture and Recreation or International Activities. Foundations and philanthropy currently play a very limited role in the Swedish welfare.
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