This essay examines the changing behavior of young Swedish voters in the 2022 election, showing a shift towards right-wing parties compared to older voters. Focusing on the period from 2010 to 2022, it analyzes the influence of gender and education on subjective political alignment and party choice of young voters in parliamentary elections. The study relies on a statistical analysis of exit poll surveys from Swedish Television, from the elections that took place during the period. Previous research suggests that today's younger generations lean towards post- materialistic or libertarian values due to improved material and economic security, while older generations lean towards materialistic and authoritarian values. As older voters pass away and young people gain voting rights, support for libertarian parties is expected to increase while backing for authoritarian parties should decline. However, this essay challenges the previous research, suggesting that despite increased opportunities for higher education and affluence, certain demographic groups, particularly young men who opt out of these opportunities, are more likely to adopt authoritarian values. The results disclose that both gender and education significantly impact the political alignment and party choice of young people throughout the studied period, with the most significant changes observed among the youngest men.

Syftet med studien är att undersöka om det finns skillnader i den politisk kommunikationen på digitala plattformar beroende på vilken målgrupp kommunikationen riktar sig till samt analysera hur dessa skillnader utspelar sig. Målet är att ge en djupare förståelse för hur politisk kommunikation är anpassad till olika målgrupper och hur strategier och budskap är utformade för att nå och engagera väljare i olika åldersgrupper. Forskningsfrågan som ska besvaras är: Hur anpassar politiska partier sin kommunikation på digitala plattformar för att nå sin målgrupp? Huvudmaterialet består i första hand av primärkällor, men även sekundära källor förekommer. Till de primära källorna hör bland annat Instagraminlägg från Moderaterna (MUF) och Socialdemokraternas Ungdomsförbunds (SSU) sidor samt Facebookinlägg från Moderaterna (M) och Socialdemokraternas (S) officiella sidor. De sekundära källorna består huvudsakligen av tidigare forskning och artiklar. Studiens teoretiska ramverk bygger på Gunnar Sjöbloms teorier om de tre politiska arenorna och Jürgen Habermas teorier om det offentliga samtalet och det fria ordet, metoden som används är en kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Slutsatserna visar bland annat att ungdomsförbund, som riktar sig till en yngre målgrupp, tenderar att ha en mer informell och humoristisk ton medans de officiella partierna, som riktar sig till en äldre målgrupp, tenderar att kommunicera mer objektivt och formellt. / The purpose of the study is to investigate whether there are differences in political communication on digital platforms depending on which target group the communication is aimed at and to analyze how these differences play out. The goal is to provide a deeper understanding of how political communication is adapted for different target groups and how strategies and messages are designed to reach and engage voters in different demographic groups. The research question to be answered is: How do political parties adapt their communication on digital platforms to reach their target group? The main material consists primarily of primary sources, but secondary sources also occur. The primary sources include, among other things, Instagram posts from the pages of the Moderate Youth Union (MUF) and the Social Democrats Youth Union (SSU), as well as Facebook posts from the official pages of the Moderates (M) and the Social Democrats (S). The secondary sources mainly consist of previous research and articles. The study's theoretical framework is based on Gunnar Sjöblom's theories about the three political arenas and Jürgen Habermas theories about the public sphere and free speech, the method used is a qualitative content analysis. The conclusions show, among other things, that youth associations, which are aimed at a younge target group, tend to have a more informal and humorous tone, while the official parties, which are aimed at an older target group, tend to communicate more objectively and formally.

Throughout the years there has been rise to extensive debate in the media and in the research world about the Swedish Democrats being labeled as a populist radical right-winged party or even leaning towards a centrist position with authoritarian values. With a general election coming up soon this year the aim of this study is with the help of a two-dimensional approach, combining the traditional left/right dimension and the GAL-TAL dimension, to find out where the SD place themselves on the political spectrum. The left/right dimension focuses on socioeconomic interests – the relationship between the state and the market while GAL-TAN considers socio-cultural issues such as independence and the degree of individual freedom. By conducting a qualitative content analysis and an ideal-type analysis in this study, several statements from the party's manifestos from the year 2010, 2014 and 2018 have been analyzed to find out where the party can be placed on the political spectrum. The study shows that the SD can be placed on the two-dimensional scale, where the party combines elements of TAN, some libertarian elements (GAL), where SD positions itself as a centrist-right party in some issues of the economic dimension. In addition, results show that social conservatism has been a prominent ideology in the SD:s manifestos over the years. / <p>2018-06-07.</p>

This study is about the two largest and longest existing parties in Sweden, The Social Democrats, and The Moderate Party. These two parties have two different classical ideologies as their foundation which are socialism and conservatism. The question is then, have these political parties deviated from their classical ideological background? Moreover, if the parties’ positions are compared with the new scale GAL-TAN, are they more similar or dissimilar compared to when comparing the ideologies? The essay will present an explanation on what the new scale GAL-TAN is and then discuss the scale compared to the ideologies. The conclusion is that when the two parties are compared with their ideology, The Moderate Party has deviated the most from conservatism. The Social Party still follows socialism but with a modern adaptation. However, The Moderate Party has more in common with socialism than the Socialist Party has with conservatism. Moreover, the two parties’ position on the GAL-TAN-scale is very close but, The Moderate Party’s position is stronger because they focus more on individualism.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate to which extent two Swedish political parties, founded in the early 1900s, represents changes in public opinion. The question of issue to be answered is to which extent the Social Democrats and the Moderates represents their former voters´ opinions. The question of issue will be investigated throughout a comparison of party politics and public opinion in 2014 and 2018, the years Sweden had parliamentary elections. The analysis was performed by applying the GAL-TAN and left-right division on these data. The results shows how there has been a change in politics between these years among both the parties and voters. The change in public opinion is reflected in party politics in areas such as immigration and law and order but there are parts of politics that is considered irrelevant for how the voters choose to vote. The Social Democrats and Moderates are capable of representing changes in public opinion to some extent.

This thesis deals with the nature of the Left-Right scale. Theories and ideas about the Left-Right scale have been tested by a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods. The research questions are, in short, firstly if voters’ preferences on political issues, where economic issues are tested in this specific thesis, can consistently explain voters’ Left-Right self-placement, secondly if this level of explanation can vary depending on changes in national political discourse, and finally if a high level of correlation between issue and Left-Right self-placement facilitates the matching process of parties and voters of similar ideological conviction. A regression is run on data from the World Values Survey and the European Values Study, data which consists of survey questions about attitudes towards economic preferences and self-placement on the Left-Right scale. The selection is restricted to old democracies, as there is some discrepancy between new and old democracies with regards to the capacity of the electorate to relate to the Left-Right scale. The independent variable in this regression is attitudes toward different economic issues, while the dependent variable is self-placement on the Left-Right scale. The first question is answered by the regression, which is if preferences regarding issues can explain self-placement on the Left-Right scale. The answer that is given is that there is indeed a consistent relationship between preferences on economic issues and self-placement on the Left-Right scale, over time. Albeit it is higher for some countries, like Scandinavia, and lower for other countries, like Japan and Ireland. The two remaining questions are answered by case studies, selected through the method of least likely and most likely cases. These are Netherlands, Sweden, Japan and France. In essence, these cases show that the Left-Right scale is indeed flexible, and can adapt to the current political discourse, and that a high relationship between preferences on political issues and self-placement on the Left-Right scale facilitates the matching of voters and parties of similar ideological conviction.

This thesis aims to map what arguments are used by the two biggest parties in Swedish politics, The Social Democratic Party and the Moderate Party, when discussing European politics in the European Affairs Committee (EAC) of the Swedish parliament. In order to realise this, frames used by the party representatives in the committee have been analysed. With the typology of Helbling et. al. (2010), a categorisation of four frames is applied, where each frame corresponds with a side of the left-right or the GAL-TAN-dimension. The study is structured by a number of hypotheses constructed based on findings of previous research, comparing both between the parties and changes over time. The results are assessed in relative terms, meaning that the study focuses on the parties’ relative use of frames rather than the absolute. All hypotheses find full or partial support, confirming expectations of previous research made on other European countries. However, some surprising results are found, highlighting new potential research questions for future studies.

The Swedish People’s Party have for over one hundred years functioned as a political tool for the liberals and center-right of the Swedish-speaking minority of Finland. As a party the SPP stands out in comparison to most other European minority parties as not working for regional self-governance or independence, but instead wanting to uphold constitutional language and service rights. The SPP was a part of every coalition government in Finland from 1979 to 2015 and has held multiple ministerial posts despite only having approximately 5% of the votes. The aim of this essay has been to examine the variance in the value based political issues in the SPP to see if there is a divergence on a liberal/conservative divide within the party. With a theoretical framework based on the GAL-TAN political scale, a socially based dimension of measuring party positions, I have operationalized a liberal and conservative stance to Weberian ideal types, and by first e-mail interviewing party representatives to build a frame of issues to investigate, I have then performed an idea based content analysis by examining motions from 2009 to 2017. The results show that, even though there are a divergence between some of the proposals themselves, and in some cases, between the official party line as described in the party program, the differences are too insignificant to draw conclusions from. The conflict between the motions speaking for and against nuclear power stands out as being very even, while the motions concerning Finland joining NATO stands out as being fully for.

Uppsatsen “Nuförtiden får man ju inte säga ett skit” ‘ är en debattanalys av Europaparlamentarikers kritik gentemot politisk korrekthet i EU. Studien tar ett avstamp i tidigare forskning berörande populism, euroscepticism, GAL-TAN dimensionen, och applicerar detta till ett inte tidigare tillämpat teoretiskt perspektiv för denna typ av forskning, politisk korrekthet. Syftet med studien är att beskriva och kategorisera de huvudteser samt argument som förs i kritiken gentemot ett påstått PK-etablissemang i EU:s viktigaste och enda demokratiskt valda organ. De huvudteser som återfanns i argumentationen var följande: att EU består av ett etablissemang som underminerar EU-medborgarnas sanna vilja med PK-het, att EU är i politisk kris då yttrandefriheten förtrycks, att EU bär på en dubbelmoral av vilka åsikter som får uttryckas och inte, att EUs överstatlighet försummar nationernas egna intressen, och att PK- etablissemanget i EU förvrider den objektiva sanningen och kallar sina motståndarna för populister likt ett retoriskt vapen. Det nytillämpade teoretiska perspektivet, PK, bidrar med ett nytt synsätt på den politiska debatten och de dimensioner av sociala normer som tycks styra det politiska talrummet.