This February will mark thirty years since Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was shot to death in central Stockholm. The identity of the assassin is still unknown.

Sweden during the time of Palme has often been seen as the pinnacle of social democracy: high living standards and a relatively small income gap; low unemployment; and an advanced welfare system that was financed by progressive taxation and boasted generous pensions and sick insurance, paid parental leave, and universal child care. When asked what his ideal country would be, former French president George Pompidou, hardly even left-leaning, answered: “La Suède avec un peu plus de soleil” — Sweden, with a bit more sun.

Today, Swedish social democracy has largely lost its position as an international beacon for the socialist left. Many point to the late 1980s as the time when things started to change, when the gains of the last half-century began to be reversed. So did the Swedish model die with Olof Palme?