Alva Myrdal was a feminist public intellectual, social policy researcher, ambassador, socialist internationalist, and eventual Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. She is remembered both as one of the major architects of the Swedish welfare state and as a significant figure in international disarmament. For much of her life she was engaged in debates about social policy, initially within Sweden and then on the international stage, first as principal director at the UN Department of Social Affairs in New York from 1949, then director of the Department of Social Sciences at UNESCO from 1951, and finally as Swedish Ambassador to India from 1955 to 1961, before becoming the head of Sweden’s delegation to the UN Committee on Disarmament from 1962 to 1973. Alva Myrdal’s life and work offers a window into social democratic internationalism at the period when it was at its most idealistic and influential. As this chapter shows, the struggle over how to interpret her legacy is closely tied up with the rise and fall of social democracy in Sweden and beyond over the course of the twentieth century.
Anne Orford is Melbourne Laureate Professor and Michael D Kirby Chair of International Law at Melbourne Law School.