Political reforms, particularly measures that reduce the scope of the welfare state, are potentially an important cause of political protest in Western European countries. Sweden is no exception and there have been numerous protests against governments’ plans to change labour, healthcare, school and elderly care policies, or local (municipal) level plans of cutting the welfare system. But do these actions actually achieve their goals? Which actions are more “effective” in this respect? As Sweden is often seen as a country with open political opportunity structures and negotiations, which favour less confrontational protest strategies, one would not expect retrenchment policies to be met by waves of public disruption and nor should protests have much impact on policy-making. This talk focuses on citizens’ reactions to welfare state reforms by means of a new large data set covering protest events in Sweden during the period 1980–2011, as well as the political consequences of these actions. Results show that protest have direct little political power at national level, but the situation is different at local level. As many other scholars have suggested before, but not shown in the Swedish case, the power of protest depends much on allies, that is political parties, and the specific context of protest.