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Is there a relationship between how one views free will – a concept related to issues of moral responsibility and agency – and one’s political opinions? To answer this question, I constructed a survey based on questions from the SOM Institute’s opinion polls and the FAD-Plus index for measuring free will beliefs. The survey asked a sample of 348 Swedish speakers about their views on free will, political ideology, party preferences, and policy preferences regarding punishment and redistribution. Responses were analyzed through a series of regression models. The results show that a stronger belief in free will is positively correlated with party preference and ideology, with right-leaning voters having a generally stronger sense of free will. Furthermore, the study also finds that stronger belief in free is positively correlated with retributive views on punishment, support for harsher sentencing, and support for capital punishment, while negatively correlated with support for a proposal that the state should increase its efforts to reduce income inequality. The adjusted R2 values of the regression models illustrate that views on free will explain a greater deal of variance in self-assigned ideological placement and party preference than common demographic variables often used to predict political leanings, such as gender, age, income, and education level. The study concludes by pointing out possible directions for future research.

This thesis aims to examine the relationship between ideological and affective polarisation and how it is affected by block-crossing cooperation at the local political level. Ideological and affective polarisation is measured in municipalities where block-crossing cooperation prevails, as well as municipalities where traditional block cooperation rules. The method that is used to measure the polarization is a mixed method with a questionnaire survey, directed to politicians in municipalities with different cooperation patterns. Further on, the answers have been qualitatively interpreted and the levels of polarization were converted into a number that represented the mean value of polarization in each municipality. The results indicate that block-crossing cooperation leads to lower levels of polarization, both ideological and affective, with an emphasis on the latter. On the contrary, traditional block political cooperations receive a significantly higher level of affective polarisation. The results can be supported by previous research as well as the theoretical framework. For instance, theories and research fields about social identity, group polarization and political psychology can explain the phenomenon of in-groups and out-groups that can reinforce affective polarization.This research has provided deeper knowledge and understanding of polarization and incentives for cooperation in Swedish politics with a focus on the local level. The thesis contributes to the existing research field of polarization. Hence, it opens for further research about polarization and deliberation, both at the municipality level as this thesis emphasizes, but also in the broader political realm.

Forskningen om nya partier har främst fokuserat på partier som lyckats ta sig in i riksdagen. Denna uppsats kommer därför att fokusera på Feministiskt Initiativ (FI), ett parti som varit nära att komma in i riksdagen. I riksdagsvalet 2014 fick partiet 3,12 % av rösterna. I nästkommande riksdagsval fick de endast 0,46 %. Genom fyra intervjuer med väljare som röstade på FI i riksdagsvalet 2014, och som röstade annorlunda i riksdagsvalet 2018 ger uppsatsen inblickar i väljares resonemang kring deras val av parti, samt svarat på frågan om vad som förändrades hos dessa väljare mellan riksdagsvalen. Resultaten har analyserats utifrån en egen analysmodell som utgått från tidigare forskning gällande hur personliga värderingar, den politiska kontexten, partiutvecklingen och partikonkurrensens har påverkat väljare i olika riktningar.     Varför väljarna röstade på FI i riksdagsvalet 2014 berodde på det upplevda hotet från Sverigedemokraterna, de feministiska värderingarna hos väljarna och Feministiskt Initiativ som det enda legitima alternativet för feministisk politik. Varför väljarna röstade annorlunda i riksdagsvalet 2018 berodde på att väljarna upplevde att övriga partier hade tagit in ett bredare feministiskt perspektiv, att FI försvann från den samhällspolitiska debatten samt att väljarna hade bytt ideologi. Förändringen hos väljarna kan således förstås genom den förändrade politiska konkurrensen, personliga värderingar och partiutvecklingen för FI.

This essay will examine the inauguration speech of Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. The aim is to analyze how political psychology can affect the design of the speeches and how globalization and nationalism can help understand what they really say in their speeches and what underlaying messages might be found. By doing qualitative ideational analyzes of the speeches, it is found that political psychology may affect the design of the speeches regarding the presidents’ personal backgrounds and the aim to create emotions with the citizens. Globalization and nationalism can be found in different ways in each president’s inauguration speech.

Denna studie tittar på hur personlighet och generellt politiskt ställningstagande samvarierar med politisk tolerans i en svensk kontext. Formerna av tolerans som undersöktes var generell politisk tolerans samt riktad politisk tolerans mot både höger och vänster i dess mer extrema form. Studien undersöker också samband mellan personlighet samt en vilja till att tysta andra. Studien baserades på en internetbaserad enkät med 273 respondenter i det slutgiltiga urvalet. Resultaten visade att personlighet hade en inverkan på hur vi agerar gentemot andra expressivt där nivåer på extraversion och neuroticism korrelerade med viljan att tysta andra och där extraversion även var en prediktor. Studiens resultat visar också på att personlighetsdraget öppenhet predicerade riktad politisk tolerans mot vänster samt att politiskt ställningstagande kunde predicera tolerans mot höger. För generell politisk tolerans var neuroticism från Big Five samt ärlighet från HEXACO signifikanta prediktorer. Detta skiljer sig delvis från tidigare forskning. / This study examines how personality and general political stance correlate with political tolerance in a Swedish context. The forms of tolerance investigated were general political tolerance as well as directed political tolerance towards both the right and left in its more extreme form. The study also examines the relationship between personality and a belief in silence others. The study was based on an internet-based survey with 273 respondents in the final sample. The results showed that personality had an impact on how we behave towards others expressively, where levels of extraversion and neuroticism correlated with the belief in silence others, and where extraversion was also a predictor. The study's results also show that the personality trait openness predicted directed political tolerance towards the left and that political stance could predict tolerance towards the right. For general political tolerance, neuroticism from the Big Five and honesty from HEXACO were significant predictors. This differs partly from previous research.

Syftet med denna kvalitativa empiriska studie var dels att ta del av ett antal invandrares motiv till att ansöka om svenskt medborgarskap (naturaliseras), detta för att få en ökad förståelse för vad det finns för olika skäl till ansökan om medborgarskap. Dels och huvudsakligen var syftet vidare att ta reda på huruvida individen i enlighet med medborgarskapslagens intention de facto upplever stärkt samhörighet med Sverige och det svenska folket vid erhållandet av sitt svenska medborgarskap. Insamlingsmetoden var semistrukturerade intervjuer, och analysmetoden kvalitativ (tematisk) innehållsanalys samt ett analysschema. Resultatet visade att det bland informanterna fanns tre motiv till ansökan om svenskt medborgarskap. Dessa var trygghetsskäl, praktiska skäl (erhållandet av svenskt pass) samt integrationsskäl, och praktiska skäl var det dominerande motivet i studien. Resultatet visade vidare att en majoritet av de tolv informanterna – nio stycken – de facto kände en känsla av samhörighet med Sverige, och i sex av fallen kunde denna samhörighetskänsla åtminstone delvis kopplas till erhållandet av det svenska medborgarskapet. Slutsatsen kunde därmed dras att medborgarskapslagens intention om stärkt samhörighet med Sverige och svenskarna vid erhållandet av svenskt medborgarskap var till viss del uppfylld i den här studien.

Media and terrorism is said to have a symbiotic relationship: terrorists want publicity whilst media wants to publish. There is a consensus that threat such as terrorism increases authoritarian attitudes in societies – but studies on how the media reports on terrorism is still a relatively unexplored area of research, at least outside of the US. The events of 9/11 has contributed heavily to the research on media and terrorism, suggesting that terrorism-related reporting is dominated by an authoritarian discourse, namely George Bush’s War on Terror. However, questions on whether this trend is transferable to other countries or if there are alternative discourses remain unclear. Using critical discourse analysis on French editorials after the three major terrorist attacks 2015-2016 (Charlie Hebdo, Paris and Nice), this paper aims to bring new light to the research on media discourses about terrorism. Out of 27 editorials, six discourses were identified: three authoritarian discourses and three counter-discourses. My findings suggest that both authoritarian discourses and counter-discourses occur more or less to an equal extent and propose a framework to analyse them.

The general view among researchers is that a well-functioning democracy rests in the handsof the political behaviour of citizens. In this behaviour, political interest is one of thecornerstones. Thus, there are reasons to regard it as a threat to democracy when young peopletend to have ever-lower levels of political interest. Therefore, to know how interest couldincrease, there is a need to know where it comes from and why it differs. There is yetuncertainty regarding this, notably since political interest as a concept rarely is used as adependent variable. Consequently, this thesis was aimed to explain why political interestdiffers among upper-secondary school students in Sweden. The focus was on the two types ofnational programmes, political socialization and socio-economic background. The findings of survey data (N=398) suggest that the average youth has low levels of politicalinterest. As hypothesized, there are, on average, higher levels of political interest amongstudents in preparatory academic programmes compared to vocational programmes. Alonethough, this pattern cannot explain variations of interest. Instead, agents of politicalsocialization have strong explanatory power, in particular friends and media. Also, family dohave a direct effect on political interest. However, this relationship appears to be dependent onsocio-economic background. The school as a political socialization agent cannot explaindifferences in political interest.

Today, Västra Götaland is Sweden’s second largest region in terms of population.  This means that there is a large variety of different municipalites to take in account when implementing a deepened democratic figure and coordination of the region’s politics. This essay aims to examine how different citizens, living in different municipalities within Västra Götaland, perceives how well regional democracy works. The theoretical framework for the essay is centrum-periphery and political psychology. The purpose of the essay is to find if there is a difference between citizens living in the theoretical centrum or periphery, and how they perceive the democracy within Västra Götaland. Can these divisions contribute to democracy being perceived differently depending on whether the individual lives in a smaller town or a larger city? This essay examines this through data collected by the SOM-institute yearly citizen surveys in Västra Götaland and compares this data from the year 2002 and 2018.  The results indicated that there has been a change through the years of how town size affects the outcome of how the respondents perceives the regions democracy. There was a difference between citizens living in centrum or periphery in 2002, but a less difference in 2018.