Från samförstånd till konfrontation i den svenska utrikespolitiken? : En studie om svensk utrikespolitik mellan åren 1989-2000

Sammanfattning: This thesis aims at investigating the conflict development of Swedish foreign policy debates during 1989-2000. It is rather assumed that the Swedish foreign policy debates have been highly characterized by a large consensus. Despite that, there have been certain occurrences where the political parties have flushed into party struggle and shown disagreements over the party frontiers. This has raised questions about the range of conflict and consensus in such debates where I have studied the political parties' backchats. I have studied situations where the political parties replicate each other in order to investigate the range of consensus and controversy that exists within different foreign policy areas. The purpose has been to determine if Swedish foreign policy has undergone substantial changes during the 1990s and transformed into a more conflict-ridden foreign policy in contrast to earlier post-war era. The empirical analysis reveals that the foreign policy of Sweden has undergone minor changes over time. The period of 1990s consists of a larger amount consensus than conflict and more controversy within internationalistic issues instead of national interests issues during the post-war era. The parties that are most given to politicize within different foreign policy issues are the Social Democrats, the Moderate Party and the Left-wing Party during the 1990s.