Centerpartiet och kärnkraften : En studie av förändring i ett parti

Sammanfattning: ABSTRACT D Level Essay in Political Science, Autumn Semester 2008 by Mattias Andersson. Tutor: Alf Sundin. “The Swedish Centre Party and Nuclear Power. A Study of Change in a Political Party” The aim of this essay is to examine the policy of the Swedish Centre Party on nuclear power. More exactly the aim is to study if the Centre Party has been going through a change of policy on nuclear power and, if so, how the policy has changed. The essay is about the Centre Party, the Centre Party’s Youth League and the Centre Party’s Women’s Association. The Student Association as well as different special interests in trade and industry with a connection to the Centre Movement have been delimited. The time periods studied are 1979-1988 and 2001-2008. The analysis of the ideology is based on Herbert Tingsten. The various arguments are presented in tables. A couple of concepts from Gunnar Sjöblom have also been used. These are the research questions: - Has the Centre Party changed its ideology on nuclear power? - Has the Centre Party changed its arguments on nuclear power? - Has the Centre Party’s Youth League changed its policy and its arguments on nuclear power? - Has the Centre Party’s Women’s Association changed its policy and its arguments on nuclear power? - Have the prospects of success for the Centre Party’s policy on nuclear power changed:a, in the electoral arena?b, in the parliamentary arena?c, in the internal arena? The research has been made from political and environmental programs as well as some newspaper articles and interviews. Motions on nuclear power to the Centre Party’s assembly have also been studied. The essay makes it plain that the Centre Party has changed its ideology on nuclear power. The fundamental values have changed as well as the recommended action. The main arguments are still the same and have not changed, however a few of the arguments from the earlier time period are no longer used. The Centre Party’s Youth League has been going through the biggest change and is today even in favour of uranium mining in Sweden whereas the Centre Party’s Women’s Association has changed from a strong commitment into a lack of a policy on their own. Earlier there was a strong sense of consensus in the Centre Movement. Today there are all kinds of views on nuclear power within the movement. The policy of today has good prospects of success in the parliament and among voters but is problematic within the party. Remaining research fields are to further examine the internal opinions on nuclear power, especially within the Youth League and the Women’s Association. Another field is to study whether the change has been influenced by special interests in trade and industry. A further examination of the concept of change would also be clarifying.