APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200090017-8
representing disparate political persuasions in an adaptation from French parliamentary experience. Not among the best devised forms of government, it has nonetheless proved workable in all the Nordic countries. In Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland the average life a cabinet since World War II has been 3 years. By contrast, in similarly governed France of the Fourth Republic the average life of a cabinet was 6 months, and is postwar Italy it has been 9 months. While the more passionate Latin politicians, representing a more sharply divided electorate, tend to pursue a cause to the end, to book no "compromise of principle," the pragmatic Scandinavians, and perhaps most notably the Swedes, thrash out contentious issues in committees representing all factions and usually reach accommodation before the government ever submits the legislation to a vote. Pragmatic compromise has become a way of political life.
Relatively egalitarian attitudes, peculiar to the harsh north long before the French Revolution, fostered a similarity in outlook among all elements of the population. And universal literacy, attained by the early 20th century, helped cultivate in the avid northern readers a relatively sophisticated consensus about advanced social and hygienic ways. The striking ethnic homogeneity assured this continuing receptivity since minority cultural enclaves of whatever description were virtually nonexistent. Only the 10,000 Lapps who move freely through the far north of continental Scandinavia and western Russia had to be provided special care, and the Gypsies, numbering several thousand among Sweden's population of approximately 8 million, are occasionally the subject of special ordinances. Because of a near zero population growth rate, there has been a need in Sweden to import foreign labor, including Europeans from the Mediterranean area. In the 1970's the importation of these workers to man the burgeoning industries is beginning to have a slight measurable social impact.
In Sweden a certain race consciousness is becoming apparent, as native residents regard the south and east Europeans—now constituting about 3% of the population—with a jaundiced eye. They comment not only on the newcomers' alien habits and ways, but occasionally on their "strange," "dark," "stunted" physical appearance. As Sweden particularly has been criticized of late for its deadening sameness and monotony, the recent exotic influx is regarded by some thoughtful Swedes as a useful experiment.
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200090017-8
