Sterilization in 2023 : A Historical Analysis of LGBTQIA+ Rights in the Nordic Countries

Sammanfattning: This thesis aims to generate a model to answer why there is a notable gap in legislative action with regards to expanding and modernizing LGBTQIA+ rights between Sweden and Denmark and the other Nordic countries, groups described by Jens Rydström as the Progressive Core and Conservative Periphery respectively. In order to do so, there is an analysis of the applicability of Rydström’s model to legislative history. This legal review is then applied to the shared colonial experiences of Norway, Iceland, Finland, and the Faroe Islands to generate the beginnings of an explanatory model. The model is then complexified by using the shared colonialist past as an exemplar of lost state capacity before and after independence. This model of lost state capacity is then applied not only to the above gap, but also to the even larger legislative gap between action in the above groups and in a new category consisting of Finland and the Faroe Islands. The last step is an in-depth application of this model to the Finnish case in comparison to the Progressive Core and the Conservative Periphery. This is accomplished in two ways: first through a content analysis of party platforms from five separate eras of Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian politics, and, secondly, through a qualitative analysis of the legislative action data.