The purpose of this study is to address a period in Swedish political history when the politicization of the Church of Sweden was formed, a politicization that still exist. How this period came about is viewed through the writings and speeches of an important member of the Social democratic party, Arthur Engberg, who became Minister of Education and Religion in the first Swedish social democratic government in 1932. Prior to being a minister, Engberg first argued to immediately separate the church from the state. Later, he argued that the church first must be reformed by the state before the separation can take place. The question addressed in the study is, if Engberg continued his efforts as a minister, 1932­–1939, or if he instead, as some implies, aligned with the church? The most authoritative literature when studying Engberg is Beltzén Arthur Engberg – publicist och politiker (Arthur Engberg – publicist and politician) from 1973 which suggest that he did follow his early intensions. This is however contradicted by a contemporary prominent party member, Rickard Lindström in an article in Tiden 1946. The method applied to study this question was to research Engberg’s writings and speeches in a chronological order and to put them into context with the parallel processes of the formation of the Christian Socialist Group and with the internal reformation of the church.  The conclusions drawn by the study is that Engberg became a defender of the church as the cultural institution he wanted it to be. He had come to realize that the church could be accepted and even useful for managing the religious matter of the state. As such it must be controlled by the state and a separation between state and church is not necessary in the foreseeable future.

The strength of a nation’s control of the fiscal economy affects not only the nation, but also individual citizens. How to develop, support and maintain a strong national economy that also affords the individual citizen a good standard of living has challenged economists over the past century and longer. This bachelor thesis examines whether the ideas of Ernst Wigforss, a former Swedish Minister of Finance (1933–1949), have had a long-term impact on Swedish fiscal policy. Wigforss has been relatively ignored in research, and this bachelor’s thesis also aims to redress this neglect. To address the question of Wigforss’ impact during the 20th century, an idea analysis at three points in time (1937, 1973 and 1997) has been conducted. These dates were picked out from an interpretive framework as represented historical points during the 20th century coupled with clear transformations in fiscal policy. The empirical data that was the base for the analysis were Wigforss ideas and Swedish parliamentary papers. This analysis shows that Wigforss’ fiscal ideas and specifically his thoughts relating to the important of a policy supporting expansive fiscal policy played a major role in Sweden’s fiscal policy until the end of the 1990s. Yet, after the fiscal policy reform in 1997, the ideas of Wigforss are no longer evident in the development or the presentation of Swedish fiscal policy.

The daily Právo lidu (Peoples' Rights), a paper of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party (ČSSD), started to be published 12 of May 1945, immediately after a forced break during the Second World War. However, its renewed edition did not last much longer than mere three years. After the Social Democratic Party merged with the Communist Party the newspaper was closed, or more precisely "diverted" under the auspices of Rudé právo (Red right), the central organ of the Communist Party. My aim in writing this thesis is a study of this period as such, its presentation on the pages of Právo lidu, or a presentation of some major historical events on the pages of the diary and the form of the paper itself. The work is therefore divided into two main parts. The first is a theoretical introduction describing pivotal moments in the development of post-war Czechoslovakia, where I am focusing on the description of the aspects that shaped the period, formed the internal political situation and directed the former Czechoslovakia into the Soviet Union's sphere of influence. The second part of the thesis is devoted to the very analysis of the diary in the years 1945 - 1948, its form, its way of distributing the information and describing certain political moments, as well as the anchorage of the daily in party structures. A...

<p>The Social Democratic Party and the Moderate Party are two parties with different ideological background. The parties have different opinions in issues of public and private matters. The Social Democratic Party profiles it self, through the local and national party programs, as a party for solidarity and security. The Moderate Party, on the other hand, profiles it self through their programmes as a party with a possibility for the individual to shape his or her own life. Through a survey on members in the local government, and two key persons at national level, the view of municipal self-government has appeared. The party programmes constitute a platform for the parties´ views on municipal self-government. These views have been put together with the result of the survey. Urban Strandberg has designed an analysis frame related to municipal self-government. His concept, municipalities’ basic character, board of directors and administration, is the theoretical foundation of the thesis. The content of the Party programmes and the results of the survey are thendiscussed within the frame of Strandbergs concept and Demokratiutredningens rapport SOU 2000:1. From the collective perspective of the theory, the content of party programmes and the result of the survey an image of the parties’ views on municipal self-government starts to grow. Within each party respectively, they keep a common strategy in important issues, which the local governments and the parties’ basic characters have raised. There are dividing lines due to the administration of the municipalities. Civic participation unites the parties in ideological issues. The opinions, in the issue of municipal self-government, differs between the Social Democratic Party and the Moderate Party. The reason for that is because of their fundamental different views in the fields of social order and ideology, as it is described in the party programmes. In reality when the parties shape the politics they cannot profile themselves as much as in the"vision"in their party programmes. The parties have to find a middle course, which is reflected in the answers from some of the respondents.</p>

Based on the concept of rhetorical situation, the purpose of this study is to compare and describe the three Socialist leader's May Day speech from the years 1954, 1978 and 2011. The results of the analysis showed that there is a big difference in how the leaders chooses to appeal to the rhetorical audience. Erlander, 1954, never appealed directly to his audience which Palme, 1978, did both initially as repeatedly throughout his speech. Juholt, 2011, has a personal and frequent appeal which is repeated throughout his speech, which is interpreted as a sign of the intimization of the public language. It proved difficult to discuss the Socialist rhetoric as one unified form. The rhetoric realm is influenced by too many external factors, such as the media, which makes it impossible to speak of it as one. The analysis revealed that the language of the 1th may-speeches is characterized by the people who use it. It is inevitable that the speaker puts his utmost emphasis, in both language and speeches. It would require a larger and more comprehensive analysis to allow any conclusions about a social-democratic language.Keywords: Rhetorical situation, genre, ethos-logos-pathos, 1th May, the Swedish Social Democratic Party, Tage Erlander, Olof Palme, Håkan Juholt

This essay is regarding the problematic facts about child poverty in Sweden. Since the beginning of the new millennium child poverty has increased, in Sweden. The last report which came out in the spring this year (2012) opened up for a lively political debate as well as big headlines in news papers and other media. The attention it got in Society became hard for the politicians to avoid. The Swedish section of Save the Children, demanded in their report concerning child poverty in Sweden that the Swedish Government need to do an inquiry about the increasing child poverty.    Today in Sweden, there are two big parties, and they have been the biggest for a long time now. The two are Socialdemokraterna and Moderata Samlingspartiet. The first mentioned one is representing a socialist policy whilst the second one is representing a right-wing party. This study will deal with whether the parties have changed over time or not. The big question will be whether they have changed their opinions and positions since the beginning of 1960. This year is chosen in particular because it was during this period the largest development of the welfare state of Sweden started. It will be about if the parties changed according to, in particular poverty in Sweden. There are two main questions that I intend to answer throughout the text, to finally analyze the questions in the last part of this essay.

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 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 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.