Miljöpartiet De Gröna. Från miljömissnöjesparti till grön regeringspartner

Abstract

Environmental Party the Greens: From Ecological Protest Party to Green Governmental Party.

The formation of a green party in Sweden, "Miljöpartiet De Gröna", in 1981, can be explained as a result of the established party system’s failure to handle a change of zeitgeist in an ecological direction, and most of all the political trauma arising from the focal point of Swedish environmental protest, the popular referendum on Nuclear Power 1980. Initially, Miljöpartiet De Gröna originally was organized as an alternative, non-hierarchical party, without a distinct party leadership and an with an ultrademocratic ideal. The party failed to achieve the 4 percent necessary to enter parliament in the elections of 1982 and 1985, but in 1988 it finally established itself in the Swedish Riksdag. Since then, Miljöpartiet has step by step changed in the direction of a more "normal" political party. In 2002 they were allowed as a semi-coalition partner of the Social Democrats and the formerly communist Left Party. Still eager to be an alternative party, Miljöpartiet will, perhaps, enter a red-green government after the election in autumn 2010. If so, they have in 30 years managed to move from "alternative exclusion" to what may be labelled "included alternativism".