Watching the Train Leave the Station? A Strategic Action Fields Perspective on AI Field Emergence in Sweden

Sammanfattning

This thesis examines the emergence of a Swedish AI field through the lens of Strategic Action Field theory. Rather than treating national AI strategy as a fixed policy document, the study conceptualises strategy as an ongoing socially constructed process shaped by interaction, negotiation, and power relations among heterogeneous actors. The empirical material is based on a qualitative case study of the Swedish AI-Commission on its work on the Roadmap for Sweden, where 17 semi-structured interviews have been conducted with key actors. Our findings indicate that a Swedish AI field is currently emerging, driven by the rapid diffusion of generative AI as an exogenous shock that mobilised previously uncoordinated actors. The AI commission functioned as a temporary arena for consensus building, where actors utilized social skills to reach a beneficial settlement. The findings further point to four converging shared understandings that structure the emerging field. At its core, a struggle over resources; statefunding, infrastructure and investment capacity. Power is concentrated among a small set of actors, notably large corporations and highly digitalised public agencies. The rules of engagement are deeply bureaucratic and constrained by formal notions of legitimacy. These dynamics are unified by a collective interpretive frame in which AI is seen both as technically inevitable and existential for Sweden's future competitiveness.