När krisen kom till Sverige: En analys av svenska partiföreträdares uttalanden under kulmen av flyktingkrisen 2015 : En undersökning av svenska partiföreträdares uttalanden med hjälp av dokumentstudier och kritisk diskursanalys

Sammanfattning

This bachelor’s thesis examines how Swedish party representatives discursively constructed and legitimised the 2015 European Migrant Crisis during the party leader debate held in the Swedish Riksdag on the 14th of October 2015. The study investigates how each party representative represented the crisis and how their arguments and political positions were legitimised. The material consists of the transcribed prepared speeches delivered by representatives of all parliamentary parties. Methodologically, the thesis combines Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis, specifically the concept of representation, with Theo van Leeuwen’s theory of legitimation. The analysis identifies how the crisis was described, which causes and solutions were emphasised and which actors were considered responsible in the context of the crisis. The results show that the parties constructed the crisis in different ways. Some of the representatives framed it primarily as a humanitarian responsibility, while others presented it as a welfare or system crisis. Several parties also connected the refugee crisis to their ideological core issues such as solidarity, climate change, employment, national order or family values. The essay concludes that there is a relationship between how a party represented the crisis and the legitimation strategies that were used. Strategies such as moral narratives, warning narratives, rationalisation and appeals to authority were used to justify differing political interpretations of the same event.