“MEN VI SKILJER JU OSS ÅT” En kvalitativ textanalys av polariserande retorik i Sveriges riksdag

Abstract

This essay studies how Swedish MPs used polarizing rhetoric in four public policy debates in 2014 and 2018. The aim was to investigate whether and how polarizing rhetoric has been used in the Swedish Parliament and how polarizing rhetoric has changed over a four-year period. Four parliamentary debates were studied, two dealing with migration and two with infrastructure policies. Previous research shows that polarization in Sweden increases along a so-called “cultural value dimension”, suggesting that the use of polarizing rhetoric would be more prominent in the later migration policy debate. The infrastructure debates were the critical cases, meaning that increased use of polarizing rhetoric should mean that polarization has increased in a more general sense. The analysis was conducted using a qualitative text analysis and showed that polarizing rhetoric was used in all debates in different ways. Only minor changes in the character of the debates emerged. The later infrastructure debate was characterized by more elements of polarization than the earlier one. At the same time, the polarizing rhetoric was slightly more prominent in the earlier migration policy debate than in the later one. The outcome, therefore, did not meet expectations. The conclusion is that the political landscape, party system and polarization have undergone a major reorientation during the period. Future research should continue to study polarizing rhetoric using qualitative methods in different political contexts to capture nuances in language that quantitative methods cannot.