Socialdemokrati, kultur och regionala variationer : En norrlandsstudie

Sammanfattning: The foundation of this study is based upon earlier research that have brought into light the variation in social democratic electoral support between political regions in Sweden. The focus of this study is more directedly aimed to the variations found in northern Sweden. This thesis aims to contribute to the line of research which have been trying to explain differences in regional political support. In my attempt to find an explanation to this phenomenon I have directed focus to cultural factors which hopefully could bring light to the reason for why some political regions show a stronger support for the social democratic party then others. I have continued to choose three theories that could help identify those cultural factors that affect social democratic support, these are the theory of social capital and two types of political spectrums, that is the left-right scale and the GAL-TAN scale. Thus, I analyze social democratic citizens volume of social capital and their differences in political values and test the relevance of the theories. The data is collected from 800 survey participants from 45 municipalities of northern Sweden. The results varied, in the search for potential cultural explanations to the variating party support the theory of social capital came somewhat close to what can be seen as a partial explanation. As for the political spectrums, none of them gathered statistical relevance. Therefore, this study can be summarized as having pointed out a direction for further research.