This study is a qualitative study of how two Swedish newspapers Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter reported about the former Swedish Prime Minister Thorbjörn Fälldin between the dates of 1/12-1979 to 1/5-1980. The reason I chose this time span is due to the nuclear power referendum that took place in March 23 1980 in Sweden. The study uses the theory of agenda-setting journalism, which is partly about how media reporting affects the users. The study include 41 articles written about Thorbjörn Fälldin, one of the articles is presented in the background of this study where Aftonbladet´s journalist Börjelind reported so harshly against Fälldin that the Prime Minister pressed charges against Aftonbladet. The main task of the study is to elucidate how two newspapers whose leader pages have different political appellation and how they reported about Fälldin before and after the nuclear power referendum that took place in Sweden in March 1980. The study also highlights the political languages ​​that the newspapers report in, where Aftonbladet is clearly against Fälldin. Aftonbladet's reporting differed from Dagens Nyheter, where Aftonbladet repported harshly about Fälldin before and after the nuclear power referendum, while Dagens Nyheter is softer in its reporting on Fälldin. The people that Aftonbladet's access space in their paper tend to be critical of Prime Minister Fälldin where Dagens Nyheter rather highlights people who are positive about Fälldin. Aftonbladet chooses to go roughly at Fälldin, they writes several articles that Fälldin should resign, Dagens Nyheter writes more nuanced and demands for resignation are only mentioned once.

I slutet av femtiotalet var det ingen som kunde tro att de tre icke-socialistiska partierna Centern, Folkpartiet och Högern skulle kunna enas om något politiskt program och än mindre samsas i en regering. Med tiden förstod partierna ett efter ett att det enbart var genom en borgerlig samverkan som de skulle kunna bryta Socialdemokraternas makthegemoni. Några händelser var av yttersta vikt för att borgerligheten skulle kunna enas. Centern gick från att vara ett resultatfokuserat stödparti åt Socialdemokraterna med annat fokus än bara böndernas, vilket ledde till en mer marknadsekonomisk orientering. Folkpartiet däremot behöll sin profil och arbetade i många år för ett närmande till Centern, vilket var källan till både glädje och sorg för partiet. Högern å sin tur, som präglades av starka interna stridigheter, reformerades till ett modernare parti under sextiotalet men det var först under Bohman som partiet enades och därmed blev ett mer trovärdigt regeringsparti. Högern, sedermera Moderaterna, var det parti som under flera år arbetade hårdast för att borgerligheten skulle samla sig i ett gemensamt regeringsalternativ, emedan framförallt Centern under en lång period höll emot. Utöver partiernas egna utveckling kan också nämnas socialdemokratins radikalisering som en en för borgerligheten sammansvetsande faktor. Detta tillsammans med samhällsförändringarna gjorde att sextiotalets förarbete resulterade i en borgerlig regering 1976.

This study investigates differences in foreign policy among Swedish political parties during 1972-1982. For 44 years, Sweden was led by the Social Democrats until the centre-right coalition gained power in 1976.  Social Democrat Olof Palme is probably one of the most notable Swedish politicians, known for his strong commitment in foreign policy including opposition to American involvement in Vietnam. However, certain signs show that the centre-right parties also had a strong commitment in many conflicts during the investigated period. Deepened research comparing the left and the right during this period has however not been done. Hence, this study aims to compare if there was any change in policy after 1976, but also look into similarities and differences between the political parties during the whole period. This is done through a comparison of the yearly Swedish foreign policy debates from 1972 to 1982, comparing views in four conflicts at the time: Vietnam, South Africa, Afghanistan and Central America. The findings show many similarities and differences, with small general differences in Swedish foreign policy before and after the historical shift of power in 1976. Interestingly, there is a notable commitment to foreign policy among the centre-right parties - sometimes stronger than Palme and the Social Democrats.

The topic of the present dissertation is argumentation in the late statesman Olof Palme (1927-1986). One may reasonably think that the fascination for Palme is mainly due to his way of expressing his policy, and therefore also to his argumentation strategy. The theoretical background consists of Lloyd F. Bitzers’s theory on the rhetorical situation, Stephen E. Toulmin’s theory on the description of argumentation structures and on the notion of fallacy, as it appears in pragma-dialectics and informal logic. The rhetorical situation is used to identify vital presuppositions and conditions surrounding the analysed argumentation.Toulmin’s theoretical model is used to analyse structures in the argumentation, and the notion of fallacy is used to discover infringements upon these structures. The object of this analysis is the decisive electoral debates of autumn 1976 between Olof Palme and Thorbjörn Fälldin, held in Scandinavium, Gothenburg, Sweden. Palme had to think of a number of surrounding conditions, such as that the debate was decisive, the composition of the audience. Palme and Fälldin otherwise appeared to be rather equally equipped for the debate. Palme’s task was primarily to gain the number of votes needed to continue to keep social democracy in power. There seem to exist several levels making up his argumentation, grouped under attack and defence. Defence is in most cases based upon a strong connection with the social democrat tradition. The attack is more complicated, linked to Palme’s overall argumentative intention: to depict the non-socialists as a bad governing alternative, and the social democrats as a better one. Fallacies are regarded as instances of breaking the frame of rules that govern a critical discussion. Palme has several fallacy-like features in his argumentation. Among those, most common, are that he attacks the person Thorbjörn Fälldin, instead of the policy or party that he represents. Palme also starts from presupposed premises and tries to link the economic policy of the alliance to an intellectually-thought delimiting between liberal and conservative capitalism and social-democrat solidarity. He strives to portray the liberals and conservatives as money-orientated, whereas social democracy is depicted as people-orientated.Palme goes arguably too far at several moments during the debate,which possibly hurts his own argumentation. / Innehåller en 20-sidig utskrift från radions P1 från duellen mellan Palme och Fälldin i Göteborg den 1 sept 1976.