Vind i seglen, men vart är vi på väg? En idéanalys av konfliktlinjer mellan partierna i Riksdagens EU-nämnd

Abstract

This study aims to investigate whether issues related to EU politics are politicised or depoliticised among the government parties and opposition parties in the Swedish Committee of European Affairs. Within the research of Europeanisation and national parties there are two different theory building perspectives. On the one hand, scholars argue that Europeanisation hollows out political conflicts among the government parties and the opposition parties which in turn leads to party system cartelisation. On the other hand, there are scholars arguing that left-right conflicts are inevitable. As the Union develops it is hard to keep issues related to the EU depoliticised among the national political parties. Meanwhile diverse studies show different results of the relation between government parties and opposition parties in the Swedish Committee of European Affairs. With inspiration from Loxbo (2014) and Mair (2007) the study applies a qualitative text analysis method where two dimensions constitute the instrument for the analysis. In conclusion, the result implies that when issues related to EU-politics are debated in the Swedish Committee of European Affairs there are conflicts among governments parties and opposition parties rather than conflicts being reduced to silence resulting in party system cartelisation.