This thesis argues that the aggressive and informal style of discourse used in Thai parliamentary debates is a product of the Thai political sphere, serving clear functions In its context. Adopting the approach of Critical Discourse Analysis, the thesis presents discourse as socially constituted as well as socially constitutive. The research employs a two level analysis to explore this hypothesis. At the macro level, Critical Discourse Analysis and the Sociocognitive Approach are operationalised to investigate the socio-political conditions that prompt this 'unparliamentary' mode of parliamentary discourse. At the micro level, politeness theory and pragmatics are employed to investigate the potential functions that small linguistic features may serve under such social conditions. Five sample accusatory speeches and two sample respondent speeches from recent debates are selected for close textual analysis using this approach. It is argued that the unparliamentary style of the debates' discourse is the result of discursive strategies used in politicians' speeches. These strategies are textual evidence of sociocultural practice and discourse practice. They reflect the speakers' attempts to subvert three competing conjunctures in the Thai political domain: the debate's formal and actual purposes, its Code of Behaviour, and its multiple audiences. Debaters need to balance three contending purposes: the desire of highly partisan participants to cause maximum damage to the opposing side, their attempts to seek public support (including the maintenance of face), and their need to stay within the parliamentary Code of Behaviour. This thesis identifies a number of strategies that potentially serve these conflicting purposes, for example, intertextuality, enthymeme and prolepsis/disclaimer. These findings lead to the conclusion that an unparliamentary debating style, constituted of small, seemingly insignificant linguistic features, carries larger social implications. Despite being a reflection of social conditions, this debating style has the potential to redefine these conditions. Thai no-confidence debates offer an accomplished parliamentary speaker the opportunity to achieve apparently contradictory political and linguistic ends, within the same tightly-crafted speech.

Canada’s federal prison population has been rising for the past 10 years. This is perplexing given Canada’s national official crime rate has been declining since the 1970’s. One possible explanation for the rising prison population could be related to the restrictive measures imposed on parole policies during the last forty years. This thesis intends to analyze the recent parliamentary discourses surrounding recent legislative changes brought to parole by the conservative government. In doing so, a document analysis is conducted on the Parliamentary debates pertaining to section 6 and section 7 of Bill C-10 as well as the content of the amendments within section 6 and section 7 of Bill C-10. The purpose of the document analysis is to analyze the themes within these documents and determine whether or not these themes represent a potential change in the punitive approach towards parole. Given that a more punitive approach could have negative impacts on certain offenders and on society in general, this thesis aims to better understand the discourses and values of the Parliamentary debate participants’ changes to the legislation and the potential impacts these restrictions may have for Canada’s federal prison population.

For the last two decades Sweden has been one of the most important receiving countries for asylum seekers, hence regarding itself as a “humanitarian superpower”. Historically Sweden has had one of Europe’s most extensive migration policies and made its latest mark by 2015 by allowing the highest number of asylum seekers ever to the country. The media coverage and the public debate on the war refugee migration to Sweden has been comprehensive and thereby put the topic of migration in the centre of parliamentary discussions. The aim of this study was to examine if and how migration has been a subject of securitization in the parliamentary debates. The study was conducted by using a qualitative text analysis of parliament protocols from 2013–2015. The results show that during the period of study a number of parties have made securitising statements regarding migration, but that the subject of migration was securitized first in 2015 when the securitising problem formulation was adopted by a majority in the parliament. I have also concluded that there has been a slight change in the way in which migration is securitized. In 2013–2014 the majority of the parliament parties used the diffuse securitising technique when debating migration, while in 2015 there was a shift towards the exceptionalist securitising technique.

Significant criminological attention has been given to the relationship between immigration and crime. However, this relationship has not been researched in the UK to any great extent, and consequently the information on the UK context is limited. This research investigates how the criminality of foreign nationals have been constructed by examining the nature of immigration policy, foreign criminality discourses, and the media in the UK to understand how crime in particular has been used to define, refine, and inform control of immigrants. This study refers to the legislative, policy, and political factors that underpin this process, and particularly explains how immigration policy and political debates have emphasised the criminality of foreign nationals in the UK. In order to achieve these goals, this research reviews a brief history of British immigration policy and legislation and outlines the connections made between foreign nationals and non-immigration criminal offences. In addition, secondary data from different British institutions and data collected via the Freedom of Information Act 2000 have been used to illustrate the level of foreigners’ criminality as well as the type of crimes compared to the British representation. Finally, Parliamentary debates and related political discourses have been used to examine the role of politics has in reinforcing the relationship between foreign nationals and crime and elevating negative public sentiment and the relationship with media reports. This research highlights the limitations of existing data relating to the criminality of foreign nationals in offending records in England and Wales, partly due to the disorganised recording of offender nationality. This study reveals that nationality is the new racism; whilst immigration has become a central focus in political and public discourses on crime they as a group in statistical terms exhibit low levels of offending but are more likely to be imprisoned for less serious crimes. The relationship between foreign nationals and crimes is thus a political issue rather than a legal one. As such, foreign nationals supposed criminality has been used to control immigration, avoid the blame of failing policies, gain electoral votes, and facilitate changes in immigration and crime policies.

This thesis explores the growing phenomenon of climate refugees and their right to protection. The aim is to investigate from the Human Security Approach developed by UNDP, if the human insecurities highlighted covers the situation of climate refugees making them eligible for protection. Thus, the purpose is to examine if insecurities caused by climate change are reason enough to be granted asylum in Sweden and if not, what the debate on extending asylum to climate refugees looks like. The research questions for this thesis are: What insecurities do the Swedish legislation consider grounds for granting asylum that could include the protection of climate refugees? and How do the debates in the Swedish Riksdag and the European Parliament discuss climate refugees and their legal status in Sweden's and the EU's asylum regulations? A qualitative content analysis of the Swedish Aliens Act and the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) revealed that even though all insecurities listed by the Human Security Approach are considered grounds for granting asylum, protection for climate refugees is not guaranteed. Consequently, debates in the Swedish and European Parliaments were examined to explore the intentions of extending the right to protection for climate refugees by including them in the legal framework. While the debates in the Swedish Parliament showed no indication of changing the legislation to include climate refugees, the European Parliament both debated and voted on proposals which sought to extend protection to climate refugees. Nonetheless, it is still not decided whether or not the EU will include climate refugees as a legal status in its asylum system.

The buying of domestic services in Sweden has become an increasingly privatized practice, something that correlates with the global feminization and racialisation of domestic labour. Although RUT deductions within the domestic sector historically have been a criticised phenomenon, it is today representing a politically normalised labour market measure. In using a WPR-method, social constructions of equality in parliamentary debates are examined with the theoretical perspectives of post-colonial feminism. The result indicate that the parliamentary social constructions of equality are connected to a neoliberal narrative where women’s increased time in the labour market equals female emancipation.

In this thesis, I investigate to what extent and how the normative changes in UN peace operations have left an imprint on Swedish foreign policy tradition. Departing from a constructivist point of view, this thesis explores to what extent the changing international norms on UN peace operations translate to the national level. By way of this, the thesis aims to contribute to the theoretical discussion on how international norms and ideas imprint on a national level. The analysis focuses on the heightened threat level, the increased authorisation of the use of force, the inclusion of new military domains and humanitarian and civilian aspects. The Swedish approach is analysed through parliamentary debates and government propositions on MINUSMA between 2021-2022, where MINUSMA represents the normative changes UN peace operations have undergone. The material is analysed through qualitative content analysis. The results of the analysis indicate that Sweden aligns regarding the acceptance of increased military influence over MINUSMA and also accepts the heightened threat level. At the same time, the mission’s own use of force is played down by the government and parliamentarians, instead choosing to emphasise civilian and humanitarian factors. As a result, the alignment regarding the aspect of the use of force is more difficult to draw firm conclusions around.

Sweden has long been known for an extensive and generous migration policy in relation to the rest of the European countries. Since the 2015 migration crisis Sweden took a turn by implementing several measures in order to restrain the comprehensive immigration. The topic of migration has since been highly debated, not in the least within parliamentary debates. Thus the purpose of this study is to examine whether three of the Swedish parliamentary parties the Moderates, Social Democrats and the Sweden Democrats use a securitizing discourse on the topic of migration in parliamentary debates during the years 2019, 2020 and 2021. The essay used a qualitative text analysis to conduct the study. The results showed that a securitizing language was used by the Moderates and the Sweden Democrats while the Social Democrats showed little to no indications. The analysis of the two securitizing parties could also confirm their use of two specific securitizing strategies. The study also concluded that the general migration discourse of each of the securitizing parties showed an increase of strengthened positions towards refugees through the analyzed years.

This dissertation examines the discussion that took place during the 19th century surrounding men’s violence against their wives, as well as the contemporary norms and ideas that shaped people’s understanding of, and ability to deal with the problem. The overall objective is to examine how cultural conceptions of gender, class, violence and power (relationships) were created and expressed during the period 1810–1880. I approach this objective through an examination of how men’s violence against their wives was reported and treated as marital conflict, both within local religious arenas (such as church councils and cathedral chapters) and in the Riksdag of the Estates. With a longer diachronic analysis of the discussions in the Riksdag of the Estates con-cerning propositions for changes in the law regarding marital conflict and divorce during the period 1828–1860, the dissertation shows that men’s violence against their wives as well as other forms of male misuse of power were neither made invisible, privatised nor marginalised in the public discussion in Sweden, which previous research has maintained. In contrast to previous research, the dissertation also shows that political attention to wife-beating and the reform work that took place in 19th century Sweden cannot be entirely characterised as a secularised project. The attention politicians directed towards the problem took place in a re-ligious context where the clergy, in practice, through their experience of dealing with wife-beating and other unsatisfactory conditions in marital relations, took the initiative and were instigators in the political process that after the middle of the century brought changes in the law on marital conflict and divorce. The dissertation’s investigations of how marital conflict and violence were dealt with by church councils and cathedral chapters also show how those involved talked about marital conflict based on competing ideas of gender, class, violence and marriage. The dissertation supports previous research that has demonstrated how men’s violence against their wives tended to be made invisible when it was interpreted and dealt with as marital conflict within the religious arenas. However, the results of the dissertation open up for other interpreta-tional perspectives regarding how violence was made invisible in the past, demonstrating that the prevailing understanding of violence that existed through concepts such as conflict and maltreatment may rather have resulted in an exposition of violence, which also included other forms of marital violence and oppression that were not physical. With a starting point in a marital ideology that perceived marriage as being in principle life-long, the intention of the church’s warnings during conflicts was to mediate, even in cases that included men’s vio-lence against their wives. The principal significance was not to make it easier for wives to remove themselves from their husbands’ violence, but to preserve the sanctity of marriage. Despite this, the study of praxis during the period shows that the church councils in particu-lar could assume more flexible and pragmatic attitudes towards the law. In their attempts to find solutions to their congregation’s unsatisfactory state of marital problems, they could even pursue actions that conflicted with legal provisions.

Do Populist Radical Right Parties have an impact on the attitudes of other parties? Despite drawing much attention from the general public as well as academics, there is no clear answer to this conundrum. In this paper I examine how mainstream political parties change their positions in parliamentary debates on immigration and refugees after Populist Radical Right Parties enter parliament. In order to do this, I use theoretical concepts such as discourse coalitions and storylines in combination with network methodology to map out how parties in the Swedish parliament relate to one another through their attitudes towards key themes in the debate on immigration and refugees. This paper focuses on the relations between parties through language by applying Discourse Network Analysis on parliamentary debates. Thus, it contributes with a new relational aspect and methodological tool on a relatively underutilised material. The findings indicate that there is a change in other parties’ attitudes towards immigration and refugees, with two mainstream right parties moving closer to the Populist Radical Right Party. However, the datatype does not support causal language and the findings are limited due to small amounts of data.