Nästa: höghastighetståg? En analys av den svenska policyprocessen kring byggande av nya stambanor för höghastighetståg

Sammanfattning

The Swedish government has decided to start building high-speed rails. The objective of this study is to analyze the policy process behind this decision. This is done using Bacchi’s What’s the Problem Represented to Be approach, which is designed to investigate the problem representations behind any policy, as well as their underpinnings. Eight different problem representations have been found, that each represent a problem the rails are supposed to solve: lack of capacity, too small labor market regions, climate change, lack of housing, lack of time, the trains aren’t punctual, social injustices and the transport system’s side effects. These problem representations are underpinned by three different main themes: increased accessibility, societal development and sustainable growth. These themes are largely based on visions of the future, where the high-speed rail helps create a society with high mobility, economic growth and societal development, while meeting the targets in the Paris Agreement. Within these visions, however, a lot is left unproblematized. The policy process lacks discussions surrounding whether increased mobility is a sustainable path forward, a questioning of the need for increased economic growth and its effects, and whether the high-speed rail can help lead to a truly sustainable transport system. At the same time, the official calculations regarding decreased greenhouse gas emissions and the economic effects show that the rails won’t impact society to the extent that is portrayed in the visions. To conclude, the high-speed rail is put forward as a solution to the problem arising from the need to create a climate neutral society, while maintaining the current economic and transport systems. It is, however, uncertain whether the rails have the capacity to do this.