Does Sweden’s counterterrorism strategy correspond with the EU?

Sammanfattning: In this thesis, the norms used in Sweden’s counterterrorism strategy will be compared to the norms that are used in the European Union’s counterterrorism strategy. Sweden has been criticized by scholars and parties of the parliament for not implementing laws that are strict enough so that Sweden can sentence those who have travelled and joined terrorist groups like ISIS. The EU sets out strategies and directives as guidelines that its member states should adopt. The aim of this research is to see if Sweden’s is regressive in relation to the EU, or if Sweden’s way of handling counterterrorism is in line with the directives and strategies that EU set out for its member states. To be able to study this, content analysis is used to analyze material from Sweden and the EU that focus on how the work of counterterrorism should be done. With the use of norm theory, the central norms in the material is recognized, and the norms which Sweden uses is compared with the ones used within the EU. The comparison shows that there are differences in how the norms are used. Sweden has adopted norms from the EU and changed them to fit in the Swedish context which repeatedly refers to the importance of the norm’s compatibility with human rights.