This essay is about the change of the Swedish party Socialdemokraterna (S). It is a very current subject, since many political newspapers write about that the party moves into the political middle. Apparently the party is not what it used to be and that is what this essay will explore and analyze. My purpose is to explore what ideal type answers best to the Social democrats change. The chosen ideal types are neo-liberalism, reformist socialism and the third way. And the materials I use are political programs from 1990, 2001 and 2013. To achieve my purpose I’ve chosen two different methods: 1. Content analysis 2. Idea analysis. Each of them has been very useful and to combine them has proved efficient. The results of the content analysis show that the party in 2001 and 2013 is using a different vocabulary than in 1990. The results of the idea analysis are that the political program from 2013 show that some of the ideas are divergent. For example, a traditional social democratic value is that the working hours should be shorter. But in 2013, the party doesn’t suggest shorter working days and weeks.

This thesis examines the Social Democrat party’s and Moderat Party’s ideology. The purpose of this essay has been to investigate the ideological approach of Social Democrats and Moderats. In order to fulfill the purpose of the study, ideological similarities between the parties have been distinguished. In order to complete the study, the Social Democrats party programs from 2001 and 2013 and the Moderat party programs from 2001 and 2011 have been used.  In order to answer the purpose of the study has theoretical approach been used. In addition, the study uses the ideologies of the parties as well as an explanatory theory that is catch all-parties which is used to understand the party’s behavior. The ideologies that been used by the study are the ideology of Social Democrats, which represents socialism and reformist socialism and the Moderats which constitute Conservatism, Liberalism and Neoliberalism.  In order to complete the essay, qualitative methodology with an idea and ideology analysis has been applied. However, in order to distinguish ideological similarities between the parties, the study has used dimensions which means that ideologies have been operationalized. They constitute human perception, the view of the state and the view of economics. In order to study the ideologies of the parties, the study has focused on these three areas to map ideological similarities.  The result of the study shows that the views of social democrats and moderators are different from each other in the first dimension, which is human perception and it does not change during the period of time the study has focused on. In the second dimension, the political parties’ have different view in their party programs from 2001. However, there are similarities between the parties because the Moderates change positions in their party program 2011 while the Social Democrats hold on to the same attitude in 2013 as they had in 2001. In the final dimension, there will be different results, because the Social Democrats and the Moderates have the same views in the view of economics in 2001 and 2013. Why the parties change their mind in one of the dimensions, have been able to understand by the Catch all-party theory, which means that the parties act strategically to reach as many select groups as possible to win elections. By tapping down its ideology, the parties reach a wider electoral group, both ideological and non-ideological voters.