Föreningsliv is a fundamental aspect of life in Sweden, argues Hill, who advises associations in Sweden on how to be more inclusive.

“It’s important both for Swedish culture and society, it’s crucial for democracy, and of course, it’s also an important way of socialising,” he told The Local, adding that foreigners can nonetheless face hidden obstacles. 

“There is definitely room for improvement. There’s no discrimination from a formal perspective. But in practice, there is the language issue, obviously, and there also might be prejudices. 

In his PhD Demokrati på köpet or “Democracy for Sale”, which looked at how Swedish associations inform new members about democratic procedures through their handbooks other literature, he found that the approach to open involvement tended to be very formalistic, and to ignore soft barriers to broader participation. 

“The view of democracy [in Sweden] has been technical,” he said of his findings. “It was about following your bylaws and having votes, but it wasn’t a matter of ‘how do you make sure that people actually know what they’re voting for?’ and isn’t that an important part of having a democratic association?”

Nonetheless, he said, the studies that have been done have found that foreign-born people living in Sweden are as likely to be involved in an association as those born in Sweden.

“Actually, there’s not much of a difference. And of course, that doesn’t tell you much about which organisations these are, and how long these people have been here and so on, but if you look at these quantitative studies, there’s not much difference.” 

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Moreover, associations have been a motor for integration historically, with the Chileans who fled to Sweden’s from the dictatorship of General Pinochet, for instance, quickly meeting Swedes through the then thriving organisations protesting the Pinochet regime. 

“Most of them were political refugees obviously and they immediately joined the Chilean solidarity movement in Sweden, and because most people in that movement already spoke Spanish – even the Swedes – that way they could like integrate really well.” 

How to deal with the language issue 

Hill, who is himself German, admits that the language issue as a challenging one for the associations and clubs he advises. 

“One might hope that people eventually will learn Swedish, which, of course, would solve this issue, but then again, you can’t expect people to speak the language on the first day, so I think that every association has to find their own way.” 

Switching the language of an association to English, he said, risked robbing foreigners joining associations of the opportunity to use the experience to improve their Swedish, while also excluding Swedish speakers, who thought they might speak English, might lack the language skills to run a board meeting. 

“I think a good point of departure is to be conscious about the issue and try to solve the problem rather than just like, say, ‘oh but we speak Swedish here’. So I think that’s a good starting point.” 

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Another obstacle for clubs and associations that want to involve foreigners is that foreigners can struggle to understand the democratic structure, and membership model that almost all Swedish föreningar have in common. 

“It’s very much based on you becoming a member, which gives you a democratic rights. But if you look at like, the US, the UK, for instance, non-profit organisations don’t necessarily have members in that same sense: they would have volunteers and donors. This means that this whole concept of volunteering, which might be very strong in other countries, is not that established here in Sweden,” said Hill.

This can be an obstacle for foreigners who do not want to wait until the next annual general meeting to get elected, and who may not want to commit to being involved in an association for an entire year. 

“Of course, this means they would have a lot of influence and be part of the democratic process. But not everybody necessarily wants that,” he said. “And also if you don’t speak the language, that makes it way much more difficult. So I usually advise associations to think about whether there might be a way to participate and to contribute without taking a formal position.”

Sports clubs, for instance, could let people volunteer as coaches or trainers without necessarily having involvement in the board. 

What should foreigners do if they face discrimination? 

Foreigners who are finding it difficult to get accepted into the club or association they are interested in joining, should, Hill recommends, see if there’s another organisation doing the same thing that might be more welcoming. 

“One should choose an organisation to get active in very consciously. Maybe an organisation doesn’t really want you – and they perhaps wouldn’t tell you that openly, but if you feel that, it’s much better to just find another one and not waste time on that one.

“Nobody will say openly, ‘it’s too much hassle with English, we don’t want to bother’, but it definitely happens. And then the question is, ‘why should I give my time to that kind of association if there are so many others?’.” 

Where he makes an exception to this is for organisations like housing associations or trade unions where foreigners have no real choice and where not participating risks losing them part of their democratic rights. 

Is Sweden’s föreningsliv unique and is it in decline? 

Sweden’s föreningsliv is far from unique, with very similar democratic structures in Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands and Germany, all of whom originally copied the model of collective organisation from the US.

“This whole tradition of popular movements is very much inspired by the US – the national assembly of Swedish movements is often called a ‘congress’ and that’s where it comes from. It’s only that the US has abandoned this structure in the mid 20th century.”

Also, while people in Sweden often rue the declining national participation in clubs and associations in Sweden, Hill said that this anxiety is not in fact backed up by the statistics, with föreningsliv still going strong.  

“There’s always this notion that there’s a crisis in civil society and youngsters don’t want to get involved anymore. A hundred years ago, it was like, ‘oh, they just want to dance’. And then it was cinema. Then TV, they just want to watch TV and then it was like, video games and now it’s social media. But really, if you  look at the numbers, it’s stable.”