The purpose of this study is to examine the Swedish parliamentary debate on socioeconomicsegregation over two time periods: between 1995-2000 and 2016-2021. Considering thatsocioeconomic segregation has been on the rise in Sweden over the past three decades, thisstudy attempts to analyze how the Swedish parliament has discussed this particular issue.Using frame analysis, this study provides an overview of what frames are prevalent during theparliamentary debate over the course of each period. Essentially, this paper explores howsocioeconomic segregation has been conceptualized, particularly how the problem has beendefined, what the underlying causes are, what remedies are proposed, and what moraljudgments are made by political actors. As parliamentary debates frequently seem to revolvearound a struggle over who should get priority for a particular problem definition, this studyalso takes a further look at the framing strategies used by political actors in parliamentarydebates. As demonstrated in the results, there may have been a change in discourse over timeas political actors have to a greater extent moved away from an emancipatory frame in favorof a broader perspective on the segregation problem with housing policy measures as thecornerstone. In addition to showing which frames were advocated by which actor, analyzingframe construction through language to uncover who wins the hearing for their problempicture, results in a far more extensive and deepened understanding of power, politics andinterests.

<p>This paper concerns the freedom of speech in our democracy and the principles underlying the restrictions. The study is aimed at using a descriptive theory to provide a useful basis for analyzing a justification of the role behind freedom of speech and its limitations. The analysis is made on the basis of the Swedish parliament debate in the form of motions and the non-governmental organization Swedish Helsinki Committee's report. The study has a focus on the law of hate speech and will be done with an idea centred analysis. On the basis of democratic theory, the central role of freedom of speech was clarified on the basis of a clear need for a reliable communication. An absence of this process could disrupt the democratic order. The theoretical function of restrictions is to maintain that reliable communication process where, for example, special circumstances, threats of violence and certain types of information were seen as examples of situations where the process could be in danger.</p><p>The empirical result was largely in line with the theoretical conclusions. The ability to argue and keep open debates was seen as important building blocks in a democratic society and therefore implies the benefits of a reliable communication process. Justification for the restrictions was made with regard to harmful information, threatening circumstances and xenophobic organizations, who were examples of counter-productive expressions to the democratic order. However, the study showed that parliamentary motions and the Swedish Helsinki Committee often focused their justifications on different fundamental views which partly could be explained by the concepts of positive and negative freedom and the perception of minority rights. The findings indicated that the issue of restrictions on freedom of speech is extremely complex because of the varied opinions in the drafting of the law of hate speech. The dilemma of freedom of expression can therefore be seen as relevant up to this day.</p>

This study looks at the development in policy towards homosexuals in Sweden from criminalization to constitutional protection. A study on the ideational development in parliament has yet to be conducted. By studying the frames expressed in the official documents between 1933 and 2010 the study analyses ideas in terms of problems and solutions to describe how change occurred. The result is that Swedish policy towards homosexuals has been determined by two frames of understanding: a sexual frame  and an emotional frame. The policy process of the frames developed similarly in terms of institutionalization. Initially both frames saw homosexuals as dangerous which resulted in a different legal status. The frames gradually harmonized with a new scientific understanding that reinterpreted homosexuality as harmless and the different legal status problematic.

Although the descriptive representation of women in parliaments is continuously improving, sexist practices such as sexual harassment and domination techniques continue to permeate the inner workings of parliaments. No workplace is immune to sexual harassment but its prevalence in parliaments has serious implications, not only for those exposed but for democracy itself – conveying a message of who belongs in politics. While previous research has established the scope of the issue and its gendered and intersectional manifestations, little is known about parliamentary responses to sexual harassment. This study thus seeks to address this gap through a qualitative case study of the Swedish Parliament’s anti-harassment work, encompassing both Members of Parliament and parliamentary staff. By conducting qualitative text analysis on parliamentary documents and material gained through interviews with Swedish Members of Parliament and parliamentary staff, three dimensions of the Parliament’s anti-harassment work are explored. Initially, perceptions of sexual harassment are addressed, partly through the use of intersectional theory. Building on pioneer work in the field, de facto measures against sexual harassment are thereafter attended to. Lastly, by approaching parliaments as a specific form of gendered workplace with certain structural features, the difficulties inherent to the Swedish Parliament’s anti-harassment work are explored. Findings from the study indicate an awareness of sexual harassment as a gendered issue in the Parliament, albeit as a problem of limited scope and without recognition of how interactions between different social identity characteristics can further exposure. The mapping of different responses to sexual harassment through the three categories of regulations, complaint mechanisms and preventative/accompanying measures, reveals that measures are substantially more well developed for parliamentary staff and highlights that although there is active anti-harassment work in the Swedish Parliament, progressive efforts for Members of Parliament are continuously halted. While several difficulties are identified, the establishment of an independent complaint mechanism for Members of Parliament appears particularly pressing. Altogether, the findings indicate that the structural features of employment status, power and recurrent processes of socialising newcomers, integral to the parliamentary workplace, are important to consider when attempting to understand the disparities in measures between Members of Parliament and parliamentary staff and the difficulties in coming to terms with the issue.

Social tipping in Swedish Parliamentary Debate on Climate Change can access transformative policy pathways to realise safe and just futures for all. In this thesis, social tipping processes is applied as a theory of social change to understand, identify, and navigate such instances of abrupt self-reinforcing change. The aim is to describe topics of the Swedish Parliamentary Debate on Climate Change 2010-2021, understand how political salience affects the structure of debate, and identify barriers and enablers for social tipping in parliamentary debate. In this pursuit, a mixed-methods approach based on computational content analysis is applied to study patterns emerging from two natural language processing models, a deep learning classifier and a Structural Topic Model. The results indicate that the last decade was decisive to diversifying the parliamentary debate on climate change beyond energy politics, as contemporary debate has a broader focus on the green transition of industry and transportation. Since early 2018, the intensity of debate has doubled from 2.5% to 5% of parliamentary debate, plausibly due to increased issue contention between governing parties and coalitions. Two case studies of politically salient topics, climate targets (16) and energy politics (22), indicate that social tipping in parliamentary debate is a complex and context dependent social process. The political consensus on Sweden’s long-term goals carries transformative potential, however, as climate issues are increasingly contested there is an increased risk of policy lock-ins. To facilitate social tipping, parliamentarians should transcend imaginary lock-ins to the status quo by promoting global diffusion of stringent net-zero targets and inclusive and fair policies for the green transition. / What makes effective climate policy politically feasible? Formas-ID 2020-00175

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This paper concerns the freedom of speech in our democracy and the principles underlying the restrictions. The study is aimed at using a descriptive theory to provide a useful basis for analyzing a justification of the role behind freedom of speech and its limitations. The analysis is made on the basis of the Swedish parliament debate in the form of motions and the non-governmental organization Swedish Helsinki Committee's report. The study has a focus on the law of hate speech and will be done with an idea centred analysis. On the basis of democratic theory, the central role of freedom of speech was clarified on the basis of a clear need for a reliable communication. An absence of this process could disrupt the democratic order. The theoretical function of restrictions is to maintain that reliable communication process where, for example, special circumstances, threats of violence and certain types of information were seen as examples of situations where the process could be in danger. The empirical result was largely in line with the theoretical conclusions. The ability to argue and keep open debates was seen as important building blocks in a democratic society and therefore implies the benefits of a reliable communication process. Justification for the restrictions was made with regard to harmful information, threatening circumstances and xenophobic organizations, who were examples of counter-productive expressions to the democratic order. However, the study showed that parliamentary motions and the Swedish Helsinki Committee often focused their justifications on different fundamental views which partly could be explained by the concepts of positive and negative freedom and the perception of minority rights. The findings indicated that the issue of restrictions on freedom of speech is extremely complex because of the varied opinions in the drafting of the law of hate speech. The dilemma of freedom of expression can therefore be seen as relevant up to this day.

This thesis aims to study if descriptive representation, i.e. the social likeness between representatives and population, is considered important and if it changes when a national parliament is prevented from convening in full-format during a crisis. A maintained descriptive representation is important as it reflects that representatives have equal opportunities to execute their representational duties during a crisis (fairness argument), and because the interests of underrepresented groups otherwise risk being represented to a lesser degree (interest argument). By adopting a mixed-methods approach, semi-structured interviews are used to study how representatives were selected to participate in the reduced voting procedures in the Swedish parliament during the COVID-19 pandemic, and if descriptive representation (gender, age, geographical) was considered in this process. Results show that while descriptive representation was considered by five out of eight party groups – most prominently gender representation motivated by the fairness argument – it was not as influential as other more practical factors in the selection process, such as proximity to parliament or the need of being present for other reasons. Furthermore, changes in the descriptive representation in the Swedish parliament are studied by voting data using descriptive statistics and regression analysis. Results show that the share of women increased slightly during votes during the pandemic, contrary to developments in many other parliaments. Representatives over 65 years old decreased, as did representatives from constituencies far from parliament. Significant differences in average voting participation rate arose for the different age and geographical groups, indicating unequal opportunities to execute their representational duties during the crisis.

År 2005 inleddes förhandlingar med Turkiet gällande medlemskap i Europeiska Unionen, detta efter en synnerligen lång process av anpassningar från den turkiska sidan. I den svenska riksdagen jublades det från höger till vänster då man enligt egen utsago länge varit en förkämpe för Turkiets inkorporering i den europeiska gemenskapen. Slutligen skulle Turkiet, detta stora muslimska land i öst en gång ansett som ett av de största hoten mot Västerlandet bli en del av detsamma; men kan man i realiteten bli det? Ser Västerlandet i allmänhet och Sverige i synnerhet verkligen på Turkiet som på vilket annat land som helst, eller bär orden inom diskursen på djupt rotade föreställningar om landet? Det är detta som studien utifrån ett teoretiskt ramverk bestående av Edward Saids Orientalism och den postkoloniala teoribildningen ämnar behandla; kan man i den svenska politiska diskursen kring Turkiet finna spår av föreställningar hemmahörande i kolonialismen och orientalismen? Turkiet har inte ett lika tydligt kolonialt förflutet som många andra länder; inte heller har Sverige någon djupt gående historia av kolonialism på det direkta viset. Att då applicera teorier tydligt förknippade med och sprungna ur kolonialismen som maktfenomen på dessa länder kan te sig något avigt; denna uppsats menar motsatsen. Det viktiga här är att se bortom kolonialismen som explicit politisk maktutövning och istället inrikta sig på den koloniala maktstrukturen och imperialismen denna medförde; som vi kommer att se påverkas långt fler av efterdyningarna av kolonialismen än bara de direkt berörda parterna. Det är de föreställningar som en global imperialistisk makstruktur skapar som är det centrala i denna studie, och det faktum att dessa tränger igenom politiska, sociala och kulturella gränser, och på så sätt skapar en distinkt diskurs av vilken allt som sägs och produceras i ämnet är en del. Edward Said kallar dylika tankesystem för bojor smidda av tanken; smids dessa bojor även här i Sverige, i själva symbolen för den svenska folkviljan, riksdagen, och är det vi själva som smider dem, omedvetet fångade i en diskursiv ordning? Syftet med studien är att undersöka den svenska politiken förd i riksdagen gentemot Turkiet under den valda tidsperioden utifrån de teoretiska perspektiven postkolonialism och orientalism, det senare definierat av Edward W. Said i dennes magnum opus betitlat Orientalism.Konkret ger detta vid handen att ambitionen med studien är tudelad; det finns dels en strävan av deskriptiv karaktär, och dels en av mer analytisk art. Den deskriptiva delen av studien ämnar redogöra för och beskriva riksdagsdebatten gällande Turkiet, utifrån de nedslag som har valts för studien, med fokus på Turkiet i den europeiska kontexten och frågan kring Turkiets eventuella medlemskap i Europeiska Unionen. Vidare ämnar den analytiska, eller teoriapplicerande, delen av studien undersöka om det finns fog för tanken, vilken även utgör studiens grundhypotes, att den svenska politiska diskursen kring, med fokus på framställningen och bilden av, Turkiet, bär spår av en orientalistisk, postkolonialistisk och imperialistisk tankestruktur. Liksom syftet kan studiens frågeställningar delas upp i mer deskriptiva och mer analytiska, eller teoriapplicerande, frågeställningar. Hur har den svenska riksdagsdebatten gällande Turkiet i den europeiska kontexten sett ut från början av 1980-talet fram till idag? Kan man i denna debatt finna spår av en orientalistisk, postkolonial och imperialistisk tankestruktur, och i så fall på vilka sätt?

I den här masteruppsatsen frågar vi oss vilka faktorer som har betydelse för riksdagsmandatets representation. En stor del av den allmänna bilden är att svensk politik i huvudsak är nationellt partiorienterad och att basen för folkviljans förverkligande är åsiktsrepresentation. Tidigare forskning tycks också ge stöd åt detta antagande. Uppsatsen frågar sig om detta verkligen är fallet. I studien används en kvalitativ intervjumetod för att ta sig ann forskningsproblemet. För att närmare förstå frågan använder vi oss också av en bredd av respondenter som inkluderar inte enbart riksdagsledamöter utan även regionala partiföreträdare. Förhoppningen är att detta ska ge en tydligare bild av hur olika politiska företrädare förstår riksdagsuppdragets representation.Med hjälp av representationsteori som referens visar analysen att även den regionala nivån har betydelse för riksdagsuppdraget. Både riksdagsledamöter och regionala partiföreträdare öppnar upp för att, även om den nationella nivåns betydelse inte är oviktig behöver man också införliva den regionala nivån och erkänna den betydelse. Detta tar bland annat uttryck i att så länge den nationella partilinjen fortfarande formas finns en förväntan att riksdagsledamöter ska driva länsfrågor och detta är något som ledamöter även menar sig göra. Men när den gemensamma partilinjen har formats finns också en utbredd acceptans för att riksdagsledamöter måste hålla sig till denna.Här finns en grund för fortsatt diskussion och forskning om vad som är fundamentet för den parlamentariska representationen i Sverige. Vad folkviljan baseras på och hur denna representation förstås är en hörnsten i hur vi förstår svensk politik. Genom att öppna upp för att mer än en enskild faktor är av betydelse då man definierar riksdagsuppdraget är uppsatsens viktigaste bidrag följande; att enbart förstå och tolka riksdagsuppdraget in i den nationella partipolitikens ramar blir en alltför snäv förståelse. Istället behöver man väga in fler faktorer för att förstå hur folkviljan förverkligas och som denna uppsats visar är den regionala nivån ett viktigt exempel på detta. / In this master's thesis, we ask which factors are important for the understanding of the representation of the parliamentary mandate in Sweden. A large part of the general picture is that Swedish politics is mainly nationally party-oriented and that the basis for the realization of the will of the people is representation of opinion. Previous research also seems to support this assumption. The essay asks if this is really the case. The study uses a qualitative interview method to address the research problem. To better understand the issue, we also use a breadth of respondents that includes not only members of parliament (MPs) but also regional party representatives. The hope is that this will provide a clearer picture of how different political representatives understand the parliamentary representation.With the help of representation theory as a reference, the analysis shows that the regional level is also important for the representation of MPs. Both members of the Riksdag and regional party representatives are open to the fact that, although the importance of the national level is not unimportant, it is also necessary to incorporate the regional level and recognize its importance. This is expressed, among other things, in the fact that as long as the national party line is still being formed, there is an expectation that members of the Riksdag will pursue county issues, and this is something that MPs also claim’s to do. But when the central party line has been formed, there is also widespread acceptance that MPs must adhere to it.Here is a basis for further discussion and research on what is the foundation for parliamentary representation in Sweden. What the will of the people is based on and how this representation is understood is a cornerstone in how we understand Swedish politics. By opening to the fact that more than one individual factor is important when defining political representation, the thesis' most important contribution is the following; to only understand and interpret representation within the framework of national party politics becomes an overly narrow understanding. Instead, more factors need to be considered to understand how the will of the people is realized and as this essay shows, the regional level is an important example of this.