Att förvalta sitt ideologiska arv: den ideologiska utvecklingen i Socialdemokraternas ekonomiska politik under 1994–2006 & 2014–2019

The aim of this paper is to research if the critical outcry in Swedish media during january 2019 concerning the lack of ideological strength in The Swedish Social Democratic Party, is legitimate or not. This was unsprung from the parliamentary and political deal knows as Januariavtalet. In interest of this, the purpose of this research is to exam the ideological development in the economic policies of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, and map the the ideological state of that party. More importantly, how the ideological state in economic issues compares to the ideas of the founding ideology of The Swedish Social Democratic Party, socialism. The research has been constructed in two steps. Firstly, an ideal model has been constructed based upon earlier research and literature regarding socialism. The model is later used as a point of reference in which the analysis is based upon. Secondly, prior research regarding the ideological development of The Swedish Social Democratic Party has been inspected. This research found that most of that discourse ends in the early 1990s. Because of this fact, the research of this paper have been limited to 1994-2006 and 2014-2019. The final result of the paper is summarized in three parts. Firstly, the analysis finds that The Swedish Social Democratic Party has taken a clear stance against more radical ideas in socialism regarding economic policies. Secondly, the analysis shows that, despite a change in focus to more friendly ideas, the connection between the The Swedish Social Democratic Party economic policies and socialism, can still be questioned. Thirdly, I found that the state is not an obvious main character in the economic polices, and that the party to a large extent put their trust in private companies, which traditionally is seen as an antagonist in socialism. Finally, because of these results, the critical outcry in Swedish media in January 2019 can be seen as justified