| Summary: | This essay examines the historical development of group rights for cultural minorities in Sweden between the years 1970 and 2010. The purpose of the study is to analyze the development of political measures taken at government level for different minority groups, foremost explaining the division that have arisen between measures aimed at the five national minorities, the Sámi, the Swedish Finns, the Roma, the Jews and the Tornedalians, and measures directed at other ethnic groups. My conclusions are that the division in Swedish public policy between one the one hand national minorities, and on the other hand immigrant groups, is in no way self-evident. The division has arisen from an international standard on how democratic states, such as Sweden, should treat their cultural minorities. Further, this division has had an immense impact in shaping public policy as well as determining the type of group rights introduced for minority groups in Sweden. A difference has also been found in how the minorities are perceived by state actors. Immigrant groups are currently perceived as less entitled to group rights due to their short presence in Sweden, whereas national minorities are seen as more entitled to group rights due to their long historic presence in the country. However, as this essay shows, this view has not always been the prevailing view in Swedish politics in the 1970s and the 1980s, a time when national minorities had little or no say in matters concerning minority rights.
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