Sweden, Norway, and Sovereignty : A comparative work of the ideals of sovereignty between Norway and Sweden and how their respective perspectives can explain differences in Sámi rights.

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this thesis is to explore how different versions of sovereignty manifestthemselves in the central founding documents relating to the Sámi parliament in bothNorway and Sweden. This analysis of the different approaches to sovereignty could beused to give an explanation to the differences between the Sámi parliaments in Norwayand Sweden. The research questions of this thesis were: Within central foundingdocuments can one see different versions of sovereignty between Sweden and Norway?What differences can one observe between the countries in relation to ideas regardinginternal and external sovereignty? To answer these questions, different theories ofsovereignty were presented and evaluated. This thesis used content analysis with adeductive approach and the primary materials that were analysed were the founding legaldocuments and law propositions to the Sámi parliaments. The major finding of this thesispaper were that Norway and Sweden were observably different when it came to theirversions of sovereignty, in conclusion Sweden had a stricter adherence to internalsovereignty and Norway was exceedingly more orthodox and put more effort into theirexternal sovereignty.