”Bland onda ting välja det minst onda”: Konservativa Svensk Tidskrifts syn på icke-demokratiska stater i Europa 1918–1945

From the perspective of the Swedish conservative magazine Svensk Tidskrift, this thesis compares the view on nine different totalitarian and authoritarian regimes in Europe during the period 1918–1945. There is a clear research gap when it comes to comparative studies of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes in particular, and of authoritarian regimes in general – a gap this thesis aims to bridge. The source material, coming from the magazine itself, consists mainly of editorial articles representing some of the leading conservative political views of its era, most prominently that of Gösta Bagge, leader of the Right Party in Sweden 1935–1944. The theoretical framework consists of a definition of the concepts of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes by drawing on the political scientists Carl J. Friedrich & Zbigniew K. Brzezinski and their book Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (1965), as well as political scientist Juan J. Linz and his book Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes (2000). By answering the question ”How did Svensk Tidskrift view non-democratic states in Europe during the period 1918–1945, and what does this tell us about the Swedish conservative view of democracy and what makes a state legitimate?” the following conclusions are made: Totalitarian regimes are viewed more negatively than authoritarian because they are too radical, revolutionary and ideological. These aspects are recognized to be prevalent both in parliamentary democracies as well as in totalitarian regimes and are seen as the main threats to the national interest and therefore state legitimacy. The decisive reasoning is not about the extent of autocracy – e.g. that of concentration of power to the few or the systematic removal of individual freedoms and rights. Additionally, this signifies that the distinction between democracy and autocracy becomes irrelevant. Instead the distinction is to be made between the all-encompassing non-ideological national interest on the one side, and the dissidence and radicalism that threatens the state on the other