Bildning och assimilering : En diskursanalys av sverigedemokratisk bibliotekspolitik

Sammanfattning

The purpose of this study is to create an understanding of how the increased influence of the radical right party the Sweden democrats in Swedish politics may change how the democratic role of the public libraries is understood. The research questions asked are which discourses concerning cultural politics and library politics that can be discerned in cultural policy statements from the Sweden democrats, in what ways these discourses relate to the democratic role of the libraries as traditionally understood in Sweden, and what significance the party’s culture policy positioning can get for public library operations. The source material are cultural policy documents from the party, as well as interviews with five local politicians from the party, who are the board responsible for libraries in their respective municipalities. The material is analyzed using discourse theory. I find that in the politics of the Sweden democrats, the notion of culture is discursively linked to the notion of the nation, and understood as one and the same, a national culture. This national culture is portrayed as objective, and is in turn linked to democracy, which is understood as an inherent part of the national culture. With such an understanding, multi culture becomes a threat to the national culture and thus a threat to democracy. The role of cultural institutions such as the library, therefore, is to keep and protect cultural heritage as well as to work with assimilation of outsiders into the national culture. Establishing a nationalist discourse and claiming the voice of the people, the party creates a seemingly nonideological position from which to speak. This position also makes political interference in everyday operations of libraries possible in a way that challenges the arm’s length principle that is the norm of Nordic cultural politics.