Geopolitical Therapy: Psychological Defence and Individual Responsibility : A genealogical analysis of Swedish psychological defence policy

Sammanfattning

Sweden has a unique policy of psychological defence stemming from the post war period in which the state, civil society and the population bear different responsibilities of the defensive efforts. Using a Poststructural theoretical framework and a genealogical analysis, this thesis investigates the origins of these responsibilities and how they represent an ideal identity production, and how the term psychological defence has been operationalised through analysis of governmental reports from 1953, 1980 and 2020. The results showcase how the main objectives of maintaining defence willingness and combatting foreign disinformation has been continuous throughout the policy’s history with changes in their level of importance and respective responsibility. Geopolitical tensions, technological developments and Sweden’s historic neutrality are shown to have been drivers of these changing responsibilities in the policy. The analysis concludes that certain moral components between prepared and unprepared are created through problem representation, yet it is argued that it is inconclusive to state that the policy is producing an ideal identity.