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”Samförståndsavtalet om värdlandsstöd” En processpårning av policyprocessen som ledde till Sveriges samförståndsavtal med Nato

Andis Heljedal, Louise LU (2018) STVM25 20181
Department of Political Science
Abstract (Swedish)
In May of 2016, the Swedish parliament voted yes to a Memorandum of Understanding between NATO and Sweden. The agreement was criticized by its opponents, who claimed that there was no public debate leading up to its acceptance, and that it changes the Swedish approach to defense politics, which has traditionally been one of neutrality. Both ruling parties in Sweden at the time of the vote, the Social Democrats and the Green Party, are against Swedish membership in NATO, and the Green Party had representatives who openly criticized the memorandum. This paper uses process-tracing to test John W. Kingdon’s Multiple Stream Approach theory on this policy change in Swedish defense politics. The study is conducted through a test of various... (More)
In May of 2016, the Swedish parliament voted yes to a Memorandum of Understanding between NATO and Sweden. The agreement was criticized by its opponents, who claimed that there was no public debate leading up to its acceptance, and that it changes the Swedish approach to defense politics, which has traditionally been one of neutrality. Both ruling parties in Sweden at the time of the vote, the Social Democrats and the Green Party, are against Swedish membership in NATO, and the Green Party had representatives who openly criticized the memorandum. This paper uses process-tracing to test John W. Kingdon’s Multiple Stream Approach theory on this policy change in Swedish defense politics. The study is conducted through a test of various theory-driven hypotheses that have been separated into two categories: a general category that represents the theory, and corresponding case-specific hypotheses. The result shows that all three streams that are essential in Kingdon’s framework were triggered at the time of voting, which may explain why the Swedish parliament was able to say yes to the memorandum, even though there were no obvious political incentives, and public opinion has remained consistently against Swedish membership in NATO. Kingdon’s framework proves well-suited to explain this outcome. The method that is used, process-tracing, provides the tools necessary to map the causal mechanism that allowed the policy change to take place. (Less)
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author
Andis Heljedal, Louise LU
supervisor
organization
course
STVM25 20181
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
John Kingdon, Multiple Stream Approach, Nato, samförståndsavtal, svensk försvarspolitik
language
Swedish
id
8940293
date added to LUP
2018-08-22 14:45:06
date last changed
2018-08-22 14:45:06
@misc{8940293,
  abstract     = {{In May of 2016, the Swedish parliament voted yes to a Memorandum of Understanding between NATO and Sweden. The agreement was criticized by its opponents, who claimed that there was no public debate leading up to its acceptance, and that it changes the Swedish approach to defense politics, which has traditionally been one of neutrality. Both ruling parties in Sweden at the time of the vote, the Social Democrats and the Green Party, are against Swedish membership in NATO, and the Green Party had representatives who openly criticized the memorandum. This paper uses process-tracing to test John W. Kingdon’s Multiple Stream Approach theory on this policy change in Swedish defense politics. The study is conducted through a test of various theory-driven hypotheses that have been separated into two categories: a general category that represents the theory, and corresponding case-specific hypotheses. The result shows that all three streams that are essential in Kingdon’s framework were triggered at the time of voting, which may explain why the Swedish parliament was able to say yes to the memorandum, even though there were no obvious political incentives, and public opinion has remained consistently against Swedish membership in NATO. Kingdon’s framework proves well-suited to explain this outcome. The method that is used, process-tracing, provides the tools necessary to map the causal mechanism that allowed the policy change to take place.}},
  author       = {{Andis Heljedal, Louise}},
  language     = {{swe}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{”Samförståndsavtalet om värdlandsstöd” En processpårning av policyprocessen som ledde till Sveriges samförståndsavtal med Nato}},
  year         = {{2018}},
}