Sveriges NATO ansökan – ett fall av inkrementalism eller ”punctuated equilibrium”?

Sammanfattning: Sweden's application to join NATO marks the end of 200 years of nonalignment and neutrality. This change marks an important historical event in Sweden and Europe's development. This essay aims to explore this new reality and describe Sweden's departure from the policy of nonalignment. This is done through looking at two different theories, “incrementalism” and “punctuated equilibrium theory”, and how these explain policy change. The material that has been chosen to study this are statements made by the Swedish government during four different time periods (1994, 1999, 2008-2009 and 2016-2017). These statements are studied by utilising a classification table that presents three categories (positive, negative and unclear). The categories represent a way to categorise statements relating to military cooperation, non alignment and neutrality. The study finds that there is evidence that incrementalism is the theory that best describes Sweden's departure from the policy of nonalignment. The study contributes to the literature in that it tests the different theories on new empirical material (the Swedish case) but also that it expands and contributes to the studies on non alignment and also the new Swedish security situation.