This book addresses the contemporary debate about the 'third way' in European social democracy, by analyzing the exemplar case of social democracy - 'the Swedish model' - this book challenges the recent 'third way' perspective. The author argues strongly against the widely held belief that the nature of contemporary capitalist restructuring and globalization has rendered traditional social democracy obsolete. Engaging with the comparative welfare state literature and drawing on the conceptual framework of regulation theory and Gramscian international political economy, this book argues that: * there is nothing inherently neo-liberal about the technological forces behind contemporary 'post-Fordist' capitalist restructuring and globalization, and these forces could be mobilised to address contemporary social problems in a manner that is compatible with the norms of social democracy and democratic socialism * the power of neo-liberal ideology as such, and its effect on the subjective outlook of social democratic elites, is crucial. It has played a decisive role in the neo-liberal structural bias of transnationalization of production and globalization of finance. By applying concepts from critical international and political economy, this book makes a significant contribution to this highly topical debate about globalization.