This paper examines how the Swedish nationalistic political party Sverigedemokraterna communicates regarding the crisis they experienced when the Swedish newspaper Expressen published a few video clips of three, in that time, highly important party members that got in an argument after a late night of drinking. Two of the party members were at the time of the publication the members of the Swedish parliament and all of them had important senior positions in the party. In the argument one of the party members used abusive, offensive, sexist and racist language while all acted threatening and even armed themselves with iron bars from a nearby construction site.The aim of this paper is to examine how the party Sverigedemokraterna conducts their crisis communication, if they apologies and the fashion of the apology. A press conference with the party leader and the most active user of abusive language and also an interview with the second member of parliament who is involved in the argument are studied. The rhetorical arena is used to describe and pinpoint the most important stakeholders in the crisis. Hearits structure “from wrongdoing to absolution” is used to describe the crisis and it’s context. Benoits apologiastrategies and Hearits requirements for an ethical apologia are used to describe and assess the crisis communication and apologia at the press conference and interview.The paper concludes that the individuals who communicate the apologia use different strategies. The party leaders focus is towards the future and corrective actions while claiming not to have all the necessary information. The other two party members portray themselves as victims. One of them apologizes while the other only acknowledges wrongdoing without apologizing. They all acknowledge wrongdoing.

Aim: The nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan, raised global criticism against nuclear power. In Sweden, the criticism has not been very visible and the government now allows a renewal of the nuclear power plants. The purpose with the study is to have a closer look on how Swedes in position of power motivate their positive attitude to nuclear power and how they conduct themselves to each other and to their opponents. The rhetorical perspective will be in focus for the analysing. Method: Four different artifacts represented by Swedes in position of power having a positiveattitude to nuclear power were chosen. Three rhetorical theories (the rhetorical arena, stasis andethos, pathos and logos) were used with the research question in focus. Result & Conclusions: The analyses resulted in conclusions about the strategies used by the participants such as: the importance of contexts, meaning for example that the greenhouse effect legitimizes nuclear power as a source of energy with important benefits. Redefining the meaning of key words such as “environment friendly”. Using authority, emotions and knowledge as a way to persuade. Suggestions for future research: It would be interesting to go further with the fundamental values and ideologies which seem to have an important role in the Swedish nuclear power debate. Contribution of the thesis: This study has hopefully brought new light on the nuclear power debate and can be a contribution to a broader understanding how to bring more nuance and transparency to it.