I feel like there should be an internet wide ban on comparing Sweden and Norway to the US, China, India or Russia or, hell pretty much anywhere.
Obligatory Reference to wit: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/08/29/will_everyo...
Obligatory Reference to wit: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/08/29/will_everyo...
So... (1) maybe a welfare state isn't that bad? and (2) that's akin to not believing in small-scale trials/pilots because they're small.
As for 'incredibly homogenous', they have a larger foreign-born population (15%) than the US (14%) or the UK (12%). While that number doesn't tell the full story, sure, it does show that Sweden isn't some hermit-state. And it's neighbour Norway has the highest immigration rate of any western democracy that isn't a city-state.
Trying to find reasons to exclude Sweden as a comparator is basically condoning bad behaviour. It's not a perfect fantasy state; they're just doing really well in the quality-of-life stakes.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grenade_attacks_in_Swe...
Georgia, Michigan, NC and NJ are the closest in size but that's about where it ends. Michigan probably has the closest demographic homogeneity. However the existence of the federal government as well as natural resources as a economic base throws a wrench into any further comparisons.
True for Norway, but not any other country in the neighborhood (fine, Scotland I guess)
Also, as some other commenters point out, their homogeneity isn't on a different scale from places that aren't topping the charts.
I can understand saying "well they have a bunch of Oil money and not much ground to cover" but most things in the universe can be solved at scale in the same way they're tackled in these countries.
It'd be like if Sweden was the only place that invented spark plugs and you're like "Well they're a really small country so they have less people to give spark plugs to so it's feasible".