Swedish society is characterized by secularization, and at the same time, as a result of migration, the country has become more pluralistic. An important consequence of this is the increasing possibilities for cooperation between different religious communities, and a variety of inter-religious cooperation are currently taking place in Sweden. The aim of the article is to show how inter-religious cooperation arises and is maintained at a local level in Sweden today, but also to highlight what the hurdles are. The article is based on interviews with people who in different ways were involved, or had chosen not to be involved, in inter-religious cooperation at a local level in Sweden. It is also based on participation in five local inter-religious groups during 2010 and 2011. The study shows that inter-religious cooperation at local level in Sweden is largely influenced by differences in conditions between religious communities. These differences mainly derive from the positions the religious communities have in society, i.e. there is a strong power imbalance between the religious communities that is clearly reflected in the inter-religious cooperation.

In recent decades, a new type of room has been established in public institutions in Europe: the rooms of silence. In this article, rooms of silence at three Scandinavian universities are analyzed with focus on intention, materiality, and use in relation to increased religious diversity in the student population, individualization, and ongoing secularization. This is done by using a typology which distinguishes between individual and collective use and use associated with religious, spiritual, and secular practices. The analyses show that plans and policies for the rooms emphasize stress-reduction and spiritual or secular reflection. The chaplains actively facilitate the shift from collective to more individual use of the rooms. The analyses also show that the restricted materiality of the rooms shapes practices in ways that either hinder collective Muslim prayer or force students to perform prayer as an individual “silent” action.

In Swedish contemporary society we nd ongoing processes of secularization and the idea of secularism be- ing challenged by a growing religious plurality in society. e overall purpose of this article is to highlight what happens when religion in a secularized and secular society enter into the public sphere as a result of inter-religious groups’ collaboration with local authorities. is is done through interviews and observations of three inter-religious groups meetings during 2010 and 2011. e collaboration between the inter-religious groups and the local authorities were initiated as a result of perceived problems of integration in the society and aims to include religious communities in society which may change the ongoing processes of seculariza- tion. One of the major problems with the collaborations was related to which religious community could be included by reasons of economic resources, access to personnel and premises and the acceptance and establishment in society.

This article starts by giving an overview on religion in contemporary Sweden and a historic background on IRD-organisations and IRD-activities in the country; followed by a more in-depth description of contemporary IRD, presenting both national and local IRD-organisations and IRD-activities. The article ends with an analysis of how IRD-organisations and IRD-activities relate to the sociocultural context in Sweden, which shows the importance of the increase in religious plurality in Sweden and the Church of Sweden’s still dominate position, in the establishment and upholding of IRD-organisations and IRD-activities in the country. Another sociocultural context influencing is the highly secularised Swedish society together with the secular state. This leads both to a delay in establishment of IRD-organizations in Sweden, and later on, for the establishment of these IRD-organizations and for IRD-activities, if the aim of these are less religious and foremost social.

In the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, as elsewhere in Europe, governance of religious diversity has become a matter of renewed concern. A unique aspect of the Scandinavian situation is the hegemonic status of the respective Lutheran Protestant majority churches, usually referred to as 'folk churches', with which the majority of the population associates, alongside a prevalence of high degrees of regional secularism. As such, the majority churches have played a key role as both instigators and organisers of several interfaith initiatives, and have thereby come to interact with the public sphere as providers of diversity governance. Based on country-level studies of policy documents on majoritychurch/interreligious relations and field studies, this article sets out to explore the prompting and configuration of majority-church-related interfaith initiatives concerning church-state relations and the governance of religious diversity.