The aim of this study has been to explain the breakthrough of the green party, Miljøpartiet de Grønne, in the 2013 parliament elections in Norway. This is carried out by an in-depth case study of the party. By using an agency-centered perspective, the assumption is that the party can influence their own ability to achieve entry into parliament. Therefore this study focuses on the party’s actions, specifically the strategies used by the party. I have studied the party’s strategies in three different areas: resources, policies and relations with other parties. This has been carried out by analyzing a large amount of different texts using both qualitative and quantitative methods. My findings show that the party was most successful with their resource and policy strategies. They succeeded in recruiting members and building up the organization of the party, increase the party’s media space and challenge the other parties in environmental policies.

The Center Party’s election results in 2022 was a great loss in comparison to the previous election. A distinguishing difference was the Center Party’s attitude to and choice of coalition partner where they 2018 proclaimed the Social Democrats to one of its main contenders along with the Sweden Democrats for to in the coming election express a will to partake in the same government as the Social Democrats, even though many party members and voters indicated that it wasn’t something they would prefer. This study therefore aims to explain the change in attitude by investigating underlying motives based on Gunnar Sjöblom’s rational theory about parties as strategic actors acting on three arenas: the internal arena, the electoral arena and the parliamentary arena. The arenas have different objectives and the motives are predefined based on these arenas to consist of reaching party cohesion, vote maximization and parliamentary power. Motive analysis is the method which is used to analyze the empirical material which is then analyzed in relation to the arena theories. The result shows that in similarity with previous research, a single motive cannot itself explain a party’s behaviour, however the motive indicators together with the party’s actions that the parliamentary arena’s motive showed to weigh heavier than the other motives.

This dissertation concerns Sveriges Kommunistiska Parti (SKP) [the Swedish Communist Party] – in 1967 renamed Vänsterpartiet kommunisterna (VPK) [the Left Party – the Communists] and in 1990 renamed Vänsterpartiet (V) [the Left Party] – and the Party's process of coming to terms with history and its communist legacy. The aim of the study is to describe and analyse the SKP/VPK/V's process of coming to terms with history for the period 1956-2006, and to set out and problematise the driving forces and constraining mechanisms of this process. The theoretical framework of the study consists of Gunnar Sjöblom’s theory about party strategies of political parties in multi-party systems and Michael Freeden’s conceptual approach to ideology analysis.      During the period of study the SKP/VPK/V has, like no other political party in Sweden, been ascribed historical guilt regarding its own party history but also regarding the effects of world communism. The Party has thus found itself in a situation where it has had history as an adversary. The process of coming to terms with history has mainly revolved around three issues: independence (1956-1977), international ties (1977-1989) and a broadening beyond the communist tradition (1986-2006). The internal debate within the Party has linked these issues to calls for change aimed at ridding the party of what is considered undesirable elements of the Communist legacy. By analysing the arguments pursued in favour of these calls, it is possible to pick out a number of the driving forces behind the Party's process of coming to terms with history, namely an ambition to obtain vote maximisation, programme realisation and maximisation of parliamentary influence. The urge to distance the Party from certain aspects of its communist past has thus been related to fundamental goals that political parties in multi-party systems seek to obtain.      The results of the dissertation show that it is possible to pick out five main constraining mechanisms in the Party's process of coming to terms with history. 1) The safeguarding of Party cohesion. 2) The safeguarding of the distinctive character of the Party.  3) The need to resist external pressure. 4) The desire to avoid unfair apportioning of blame. 5) The safeguarding of the right to define the substance of one's own ideology. The existence of these constraining mechanisms help to explain why the process of coming to terms with history lingered on for several decades, and also why it seems to have been a process of such complexity for the Swedish Communist and Post-Communist Party.