This master's thesis Political Parties, their Organizational Framework and Functioning deals with the political party organization, especially with their organizational framework and functioning. The observation of the party classification models has shown that models do not reflect party framework and functioning in a sufficient way. Therefore, the aim of the thesis is to define the important phenomena which enable us to study the organization and functioning of political parties and to reflect their inner party dynamic. The considered variables are the power structure, the organizational framework, membership and the hierarchy of members, the role of factions and bureaucracy. The theoretical conclusions are used in the case study which deals with the party organization of the Czech Social Democratic Party.

This paper strives to answer a question most anyone remotely involved with education has encountered: what is the relationship between the content taught and its purpose? In this case, the question is in the context of the Workers’ Education Association in Sweden (ABF) and other educational efforts made by the Swedish labour movement. In order to answer such a question one must first outline in some detail what the content to be taught was, and what purpose the association itself saw as the important one. But the matter is also further explored: the Swedish labour movement appears to view education and culture in a rather non-Marxist manner, which poses a question to be untangled in order to fully understand the connection between content and purpose, namely that of what view they did in fact hold. Here, it will be argued that the Swedish labour movement held a proto-Bourdieuan view of culture as a form of societal and cultural capital which must be distributed in order for the emancipatory and egalitarian efforts to succeed.

This diploma thesis (Journalism of Social Democratic Exile after February 1948 /1948- 1953/) studies the history of social democratic party in exile between the years 1948 and 1953 with special focus on journalism, news service and propaganda. The thesis describes formation of party fractions and deals with how they defined themselves, communicated and presented themselves in the media. The thesis then goes on to analyse the newspaper format, production and financing thereof as well as the number of copies. It looks into broadcasting activities of social democrats and their plans related to the setup of illegal radio. Based on the cases of party secretary Vilím Blažej and Bohumil Laušman, the last party chairman prior to February 1948, the thesis analyses the question whether single groups within the party in the given time period tried by its journalistic activities to primarily influence events in Czechoslovakia or whether these efforts slowly faded due to rivalry between fractions and frustration over hopeless political situation and lack of audience in such an extent that media outputs were later on confined only to discussions within the party and to barely expressing political views.

Swedish political parties are characterized by their markedly different support across geographical space. In most cases, the sources of these regional variations date back to the time of the founding of the parties. Moreover, the regional strongholds and the areas of weak support for the parties have survived major societal changes such as the transition from the agrarian to the industrial society, emigration, and urbanization. Why is it that a certain area evolves a political tradition that sets it apart from neighboring areas? This study addresses itself to this and similar topics with empirical emphasis on the Swedish Social Democratic Party (the SAP).The study is based on the conviction that the regional imbalance in the SAP vote originates in the interaction/competition between various social and political movements in the local environment. The initial model used to explain these imbalances comprises three different factors that influence the party's vote: the socio-economic structure, the local organizational environment and the effect of local party organizational efforts.In order to test the importance of these factors three different areas were selected; one strong, one weak, and one unstable in terms of the Social Democratic vote.The findings show that no single factor alone accounts for the variance in the regional support of the SAP. Rather, what is decisive are the interactions within the structural and social properties of a context.By way of conclusion, this study lends support to the following conclusions of the prospects for the SAP to mobilize the electorate: to establish itself in the local setting the party needs an organizational culture, a local party organization and the absence of strong local opinion against the party's activities and organizational efforts. The party also seems to be favored by a high level of political mobilization (participation), whereas there is nothing to suggest that the SAP's prospects of becoming successful are hampered by competition from the left-wing parties. / digitalisering@umu

The aim of this thesis is to analyse the conceptualisation of the social relations of class and gender within the Social Democratic Women’s Association during the period 1972 – 1993, on the basis of their programmes for action. The analysis of the concepts is based on an ideology critical study focusing on the manifest ideology. The study is based upon the theoretical concepts of class and gender,  The class analysis is based upon the broadened concepts of class by Erik Olin Wright and Ira Katznelson. The gender analysis is mainly based upon a Marxist understanding and a critical point of view of Marxism and feminism in the context of patriarchy and capitalism. The period of the study is where the social democracy is challenged, both by radical socialism and feminist ideology and the economic crisis during the 1980’s, as well as the possible threat of an organised women’s party in Sweden. It is also a period with major changes in the Swedish class structure, especially in the change when married women become a part of the female labour force rather than being housewives. The results indicate that the use of the concepts of class and gender is mainly sparsely used. The concepts are often paraphrased in varied terms of social equality. Class is clearly more used, and more often implied, than gender. Gender policies are formed from a latent ideology to a more practically oriented policy, without any real progress concerning power and equality, when Sweden at the same time forms policies for gender equality, from which the women’s association could benefit, even though they may not have been the actors of this change. The analysis also indicates that some of the ideological changes within the women’s association are a result of both outside influences from more radical groups as well as ideological crises within the social democracy. In this struggle between class and gender the Social Democratic Women's Association positions itself in between.

The arguments concerning the unviability of Social Democracy at the beginning of new century within the context of globalization, and the accusations for its shift towards the New Right/Neo-Liberalism in the case of the Third Way has been criticized in a historico-critical way in this thesis. It is claimed that the insufficiency of these arguments arises from their analysis of Social Democracy merely through policies, or party politics, which have displayed great variety in the evolution of Social Democracy. Their shortage also stems from misunderstandings concerning Social Democracy before 1980, such as that it was against the market economy, that it was a working class ideology, and that it neglected the individual. Against the arguments of unviability and the accusations directed to Social Democracy, the thesis will assert that the theorization of Social Democracy should be based on its principles, such as democracy, progressiveness (movement) and social justice. By focusing on social democratic conception of social justice, this thesis defends that there is continuity within the tradition of Social Democracy, even in the face of globalization and in its encounters with the developments after 1980.

The aim of this paper is to study and outline the factors governing political leadership at the party leader level, and to conclude to what extent a party leader rules and to what extent the party leadership is contextually determined. The theories used are based on Elgie's interactionistic study of political leadership and Stewart's organisational model of leadership as well as political culture. Thus, the questions raised are if the leader leads or if the leader follows; if the leadership environment is formed by the leader or if it is, merely, implemented on the leader; and what a model of the political leadership consist of? To answer these questions a text analysis comparing Sahlin’s speeches to the party’s political programme is used as well as in-depth interviews with members of the Board of Party. The conclusion shows that the leadership is contextually framed, but the leader is free to implement his or her ambitions within that frame as long as it is coherent to the party line.

The overarching aim of this essay is to understand why gender equality policy proposals sometimes fail to be adopted even in very favorable circumstances. The paper searches to do so by examining the political debate and the process that lead to the Swedish Social Democratic Party’s decision in 2014 to not adopt a law against gender discrimination in commercial in Sweden, despite their longstanding arguments to impose such a ban. The case is considered being a “failed case”, that is, a situation where gender policy adoption failed. Drawing on feminist political theory and frame analysis the study examines the arguments made by proponents and opponents in the debate. The study finds that the Liberal People’s Party possibly might have managed to pursue the Social Democratic Party to switch position by reframing the issue regarding gender discrimination in commercial. The study also observes that freedom of speech can be seen as a competing and higher valued interest to gender equality. Furthermore, the paper demonstrate that Sweden generally have been reluctant to reach gender equality through harder measures, which additionally can be seen as an explanation to the failure of the proposal.

This study focuses upon the adaptation of the Swedish Social Democratic Party and Moderate Party towards the European Union. Adaptation is explored by examining attitudes the political parties have on different issues related to the EU. In other words it is assumed that adaptation is dependent on attitudes, amongst other things, and the attitudes are examined by studying officially expressed opinions by the parties in party programmes and in parliamentary protocols. By expanding the study to three years possible alterations in the attitudes can be detected and something can be said on the level of adaptation the parties show towards the EU in each research question. The questions are (1) Should Sweden take an active part in developing the European integration process?, (2) Is it believed that participation in international collaboration provides output benefits that the nation state no longer can provide?, (3) Is pooling of sovereignty problematic?, (4) Is military non-alignment important for Sweden? and (5) Is it important that Sweden participates in a common European security policy? The three years of research are 1995, 2006 and the first half of 2010. Two of the questions are developed by utilising the fusion perspective, that is a part of the fusion approach, which is also the theoretical framework of this study. The findings of this study show that both the Social Democratic Party and the Moderate Party experience attitudinal alterations in almost all the questions investigated. This causes some shifts in their level of adaption towards the European Union. Furthermore the results show that the Social Democratic Party and the Moderate Party are adapted towards the Union in most of the years researched.

Denna uppsats analyserar två tal av Sveriges statsminister Stefan Löfven; det ena från Socialdemokraternas partikongress 2015 och det andra från Almedalen samma år. Syftet är att ge en inblick i hur visioner för framtiden uttrycks av en samtida högt uppsatt politiker och att undersöka om det finns några skillnader i hur dessa visioner uttrycks beroende på om talaren i första hand vänder sig till sitt eget parti eller till en bredare opinion. Uppsatsen lyfter fram tre olika aspekter av politiska visioner (praktiska, utopiska och imaginära) och analyserar talen med fokus på dessa. Detta kombineras med en retorisk situationsanalys som syftar till att belysa och förklara skillnader i hur visionerna uttrycks i de två talen. Resultatet visar att de visioner som Löfven uttrycker i båda talen lägger ett större fokus på att lösa omedelbara praktiska problem än att bygga ett framtida samhälle. Det framkommer även att talet från partikongressen mer tydligt kopplar visionerna till socialdemokratin som ideologi än vad talet i Almedalen gör. / This thesis analyses two speeches by the Swedish prime minister Stefan Löfven; one from the Swedish Social Dmocratic Party's congress in 2015 and the other from Almedalen week the same year. The purpose is to provide insight into how visions for the future are expressed by a contemporary high-profile politician and to explore if there are any differences in how these visions are expressed depending on whether the speaker is primarily adressing his own party or a broader public. The thesis features three different aspects of political vision (practical, utopian and imaginary) and anyses the speeches focusing on these. This is combined with an analysis of the rhetorical situations, intended to highlight and explain differences in how the visions are expressed in the two speeches. The results show that the visions expressed by Löfven in both speeches tends to focus more on solving immediate problems than buildning a future society. The thesis also reveals that the speech from the congress connects the expressed visions to social democratic ideology more clearly than the speech from Almedalen Week does.