Swedish state aid to the press (presstödet) aims to ensure diversity in news publishing and advocacy and is considered to fill an important democratic function. However, the technical development has left the aid system obsolete, and plans are under way to replace the system in its current form with a technology neutral aid (mediestöd), addressing news media of all content forms and means of dissemination. A recurring debate in this context has been whether the new aid system is to include a so called “democracy criterion”, requiring publishing companies that receive aid to display “democratic values”. A corresponding rule already exists in the Swedish Radio and Television Act. The legal conditions surrounding such a rule targeting the press are, however, fundamentally different. Above all, it can be questioned whether a democracy criterion would cause the state aid to be considered a preventive action in violation of the Freedom of the Press Act, which forms part of the Swedish constitution. In this thesis, it is argued that so, in fact, would be the case. It is also maintained that arguments relating to the democracy promoting objective of the criterion are of no relevance to the legal analysis.

I denna uppsats undersöks hur problem kring bidragsgivning till civilsamhället framställs i Demokrativillkorsutredningen (SOU 2019:35) om skärpta demokratvillkor. Givet att civilsamhällesforskningen pekar på att det offentliga alltmer knutit civilsamhället närmare till sig är det intressant att studera den förändrade relationen i förhållande till den skärpta bidragsreformen. Med en kritiskt granskande ansats kombineras fenomenet shrinking civic space med Carol Bacchis policymetod What’s the Problem Represented to be (WPR) för att analysera statens föreställningar om det odemokratiska civilsamhället samt för att sätta begreppet krympande civilsamhällsutrymme inom en svensk kontext.  Studien av dagens civilsamhällsdiskurs visar att det odemokratiska civilsamhället antas hindras genom ökade kontroller både av de offentliga bidragsgivarna och organisationerna själva. För detta framstår civilsamhällsorganisationer behöva ha fullständig koll på sin verksamhet. Med dagens problemföreställningar och lösningsförslag konstruerar staten således en ny civilsamhällsroll kännetecknad av säkerhetsarbete, kontroll och misstänksamhet. Därmed identifieras modern demokratidiskurs i samverkan med säkerhetiseringsdiskursen bidra till en tudelning av civilsamhället med binära effekter som utgör en grund för att diskutera effekten shrinking space. Studien visar även en frånvaro av civilsamhällets särart samt att interna och externa maktrelationer under de nya demokrativillkoren kan få missgynnande effekter för nyare, mer kontroversiella och marginaliserade civilsamhällsgrupper. / In this essay I examine how problems concerning contributions to civil society are presented in the Democracy Conditions Inquiry (SOU 2019: 35) on stricter democratic conditions. Given that civil society research indicates that the public sector has become more closely associated with civil society, it is interesting to study the changed relationship in relation to the stricter benefit reform. With a critical approach, the phenomenon of shrinking civic space is combined with Carol Bacchi's policy method What's the Problem Represented to be (WPR) in order to analyze the state's notions of undemocratic civil society and to put the concept of shrinking civil society space within a Swedish context. The study of today's civil society discourse shows that the undemocratic civil society is assumed to be hindered by increased controls by both the public donors and the organizations themselves. For this, civil society organizations appear to need to have complete control over their activities. With today's problem representation and solution proposals, the state thus constructs a new civil society role characterized by securitization, control, and suspicion. Thus, modern democracy discourse is identified in collaboration with the security discourse to contribute to a division of civil society with binary effects that form a basis for discussing the effect shrinking space. The study also shows an absence of the special nature of civil society and that internal and external power relations under the new democratic conditions can have unfavorable effects for newer, more controversial, and marginalized civil society groups.