<p>This study focuses upon the adaptation of the Swedish Social Democratic Party and Moderate Party towards the European Union. Adaptation is explored by examining attitudes the political parties have on different issues related to the EU. In other words it is assumed that adaptation is dependent on attitudes, amongst other things, and the attitudes are examined by studying officially expressed opinions by the parties in party programmes and in parliamentary protocols. By expanding the study to three years possible alterations in the attitudes can be detected and something can be said on the level of adaptation the parties show towards the EU in each research question. The questions are (1)<em> Should Sweden take an active part in developing the European integration process?, </em>(2)<em> Is it believed that participation in international collaboration provides output benefits that the nation state no longer can provide?, </em>(3)<em> Is pooling of sovereignty problematic?, </em>(4) <em>Is military non-alignment important for Sweden? </em>and (5)<em> Is it important that Sweden participates in a common European security policy? </em>The three years of research are 1995, 2006 and the first half of 2010. Two of the questions are developed by utilising the fusion perspective, that is a part of the fusion approach, which is also the theoretical framework of this study.</p><p>The findings of this study show that both the Social Democratic Party and the Moderate Party experience attitudinal alterations in almost all the questions investigated. This causes some shifts in their level of adaption towards the European Union. Furthermore the results show that the Social Democratic Party and the Moderate Party are adapted towards the Union in most of the years researched.</p>

The aim of this study is to investigate and analyze the views that the three metropolitan Swedish newspapers Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet had on the Vietnam issue between 1969 and 1973. The source material consists of clips from Swedish newspapers from press archives at the Department of Government at Uppsala University, which is in the form of microfilm at Umeå University Library. The source material has been studied using quantitative content analysis with qualitative elements.The results shows that there is a difference in the perception of Vietnam issue between, on the one hand, social-democrat Aftonbladet and liberal Dagens Nyheter and conservative Swedish Dagbladet on the other hand, during the whole investigation period. Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter denounced the American war and presence in Vietnam and took a stand for North Vietnam; The United States was regarded as a great power which had goat on a small and poor country. From this perspective, small Nations had the right to independence from the great powers, regardless of social system. The two newspapers regarded the United States as the party to the conflict who did not want to negotiate and instead wanted to continue the war. Svenska Dagbladet regarded the United States instead as the guarantor of freedom and democracy in South-East Asia. The United States would defend South Vietnamese people from Communist North Vietnam, which was regarded as the offending party in the conflict: from this perspective United States deserved thus support. Svenska Dagbladet's view of the conflict was thus marked by the cold war. The newspaper regarded the United States as the party of the conflict who wanted peace and wanted to negotiate, in contrast to North Vietnam.The investigation also shows that Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter supported the Swedish Government, who supported North Vietnam and condemned the American presence in Vietnam; the Government's policy on the other hand, got a harsh criticism from Svenska Dagbladet, that considered that the Government's stance towards the United States would be harmful to the Swedish neutrality policy. Keywords: Vietnam War, Cold War, Swedish press, Social-democratic Party, Liberal Party, Conservative Party, negotiations, Swedish Government, Unites States, Communism

<p>The aim of this paper is to study and outline the factors governing political leadership at the party leader level, and to conclude to what extent a party leader rules and to what extent the party leadership is contextually determined. The theories used are based on Elgie's interactionistic study of political leadership and Stewart's organisational model of leadership as well as political culture.</p><p>Thus, the questions raised are if the leader leads or if the leader follows; if the leadership environment is formed by the leader or if it is, merely, implemented on the leader; and what a model of the political leadership consist of? To answer these questions a text analysis comparing Sahlin’s speeches to the party’s political programme is used as well as in-depth interviews with members of the Board of Party.</p><p>The conclusion shows that the leadership is contextually framed, but the leader is free to implement his or her ambitions within that frame as long as it is coherent to the party line.</p>

Placing politics in time can greatly enrich our understanding of complex social dynamics. The question this thesis tries to answer is which mechanism led to the change in attitudes of the German Social Democratic Party and the British Labour Party towards the welfare state during the period from 1990 to 2010 and which effects in consequence these changes had on the existing welfare states. This thesis builds on the welfare state categorization work done by the Danish sociologist Gosta Esping-Andersen ("Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism"). However, the thesis focuses its in- depth analysis on Germany and the United Kingdom as prototypical conservative and liberal states. The heuristic text analysis, as well as the discourse analysis of party leader speeches, party manifestos and programmes, as well as the conducted expert interviews reveal that social, political, technological and economic changes during the given time period radically challenged and changed the norms and values of the welfare providers and with it the given welfare state, as well as the meaning, function and value of work. While many may argue that it was mainly the neo-liberal political and economic style that changed the attitude towards the welfare state, it was in fact just the trigger for a radical change in the interpretation of the basic social democratic values of freedom, justice and solidarity. This change made significant welfare state reforms inevitable and only with further changes can a balance and satisfaction within the welfare state system and within all welfare providing sectors (the state, the market, households and the third sector) be achieved. A new balanced social democratic approach for the 21st century is a ‘symmetrical welfare state’ that stands for mirror-image equality.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether there has been a divergence between the aims of LO and the Social Democratic Party in Sweden during the period 1994–2018. This study also has the purpose of investigating whether this has affected which party the members of LO will vote for in the Swedish elections. The hypothesis of this study is that there has been a divergence between LO and the Social Democratic Party and that the aims differ more in 2018 than they did back in 1994. This is a qualitative text analysis with the purpose of both being descriptive and explanatory. This study is scientifically relevant as it highlights the role of ideology in Swedish politics and how this can affect voter support. It is also interesting for people who are not researchers since this affects Swedish politics and therefore everyone who lives in Sweden. This study shows that there has been a noticeable divergence between the aims of LO and the Social Democratic party in Sweden during the period of 1994–2018. Back in the 1970:s there was also a divergence between the aims of LO and the Social Democratic Party. During the 1970:s, the members of LO to a lesser extent voted for the Social Democratic Party which supports the hypothesis of this study. The hypothesis was correct but the noticeable divergence was not the divergence that was expected since the study showed that LO more and more had switched focus from broad policy areas to labour policy. The answer to the question whether this divergence probably has affected which party the members of LO will vote for or not, is yes. It is very probable that the divergence between LO and the Social Democratic Party has affected which party the members of LO will vote for.

Thesis is about The Czech Social Democratic Party and its activities between 1989 and 1998 focusing on those happening in Kutna Hora district. The aim is to introduce not so well known topic in a comprehensive way - motions of Kutna Hora executive district committee together with descriptions of peoples' personal lives acting in the field of Czech Social Democratic Party. National development of the Czech Social Democratic Party and its influence on Kutna Hora executive district committee has been described. The methods used in processing of this thesis were: exploration of the archival documents, literature research focused on the topic and oral history. Summary of Kutna Hora executive district committee activities as well as reminder of people who were important for the history of Kutna Hora' s Czech Social Democratic Party is, in my opinion, the merit of the thesis.

National debates on European Union politics have long been viewed as a consensus-oriented activity. This applies especially to big mainstream parties, both to the center-left and the center-right. The perceived lack of ideological conflict over European issues is connected to the problem of the democratic deficit, and has led scholars to call for deeper politicization. Consequently, the aim of this study is to describe the presence of classical ideologies and ideological conflict in Swedish EU debate. This is done by analyzing statements from two major parties, the Social Democratic Party (Socialdemokraterna) and the Moderate Party (Moderaterna), in chamber debates in the Swedish parliament during the parliamentary year 2018/19. A qualitative ideational analysis is performed by systematically categorizing the ideological content based on ideal types. The results show that although ideological arguments and left-right conflict did occur, they were not common in the debates as a whole. Ideological conflict was most pronounced in debates on the EU’s social dimension and migration policy, while the economic issue area was characterized by liberal consensus. It is also argued that the Social Democratic Party faces greater challenges in transferring their ideology to the EU level. Moreover, I discuss how the results relate to previous research and the issue of the democratic deficit.

This doctoral thesis deals with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and its foreign policy towards Czechoslovakia during the 1970s and 1980s. It aims not only to analyse the relationship between SPD and KSČ (Communist Party of Czechoslovakia) but also the communication and cooperation between SPD, Czechoslovak dissidents and Czechoslovak political emigration. The main goal of the dissertation is to answer three basic questions: What were the goals of social democratic eastern policy (Ostpolitik) towards ČSSR? Were they achieved? Does the party changed its attitude towards Czechoslovakia after 1982, when it became an opposition party?

The purpose of this study is to address a period in Swedish political history when the politicization of the Church of Sweden was formed, a politicization that still exist. How this period came about is viewed through the writings and speeches of an important member of the Social democratic party, Arthur Engberg, who became Minister of Education and Religion in the first Swedish social democratic government in 1932. Prior to being a minister, Engberg first argued to immediately separate the church from the state. Later, he argued that the church first must be reformed by the state before the separation can take place. The question addressed in the study is, if Engberg continued his efforts as a minister, 1932­–1939, or if he instead, as some implies, aligned with the church? The most authoritative literature when studying Engberg is Beltzén Arthur Engberg – publicist och politiker (Arthur Engberg – publicist and politician) from 1973 which suggest that he did follow his early intensions. This is however contradicted by a contemporary prominent party member, Rickard Lindström in an article in Tiden 1946. The method applied to study this question was to research Engberg’s writings and speeches in a chronological order and to put them into context with the parallel processes of the formation of the Christian Socialist Group and with the internal reformation of the church.  The conclusions drawn by the study is that Engberg became a defender of the church as the cultural institution he wanted it to be. He had come to realize that the church could be accepted and even useful for managing the religious matter of the state. As such it must be controlled by the state and a separation between state and church is not necessary in the foreseeable future.

The strength of a nation’s control of the fiscal economy affects not only the nation, but also individual citizens. How to develop, support and maintain a strong national economy that also affords the individual citizen a good standard of living has challenged economists over the past century and longer. This bachelor thesis examines whether the ideas of Ernst Wigforss, a former Swedish Minister of Finance (1933–1949), have had a long-term impact on Swedish fiscal policy. Wigforss has been relatively ignored in research, and this bachelor’s thesis also aims to redress this neglect. To address the question of Wigforss’ impact during the 20th century, an idea analysis at three points in time (1937, 1973 and 1997) has been conducted. These dates were picked out from an interpretive framework as represented historical points during the 20th century coupled with clear transformations in fiscal policy. The empirical data that was the base for the analysis were Wigforss ideas and Swedish parliamentary papers. This analysis shows that Wigforss’ fiscal ideas and specifically his thoughts relating to the important of a policy supporting expansive fiscal policy played a major role in Sweden’s fiscal policy until the end of the 1990s. Yet, after the fiscal policy reform in 1997, the ideas of Wigforss are no longer evident in the development or the presentation of Swedish fiscal policy.