SVERIGES FÖRSVARS- OCH SÄKERHETSPOLITIK I FÖRÄNDRING, FRÅN LIBERALISM TILL REALISM?

The Swedish government states that the security policy situation in the region has changed in the last decade, mainly due to Russia's increasingly aggressive actions in Europe. In this study liberalism and realism are used to investigate how Sweden has chosen to safeguard its state security in this period. The study focuses on the Swedish defence bills from 2009 (2008/09:15) and 2015 (2014/15:109). To collect data, a qualitative text analysis was used with indicators derived from liberalism and realism. The result shows that the Swedish defence bill from 2009 is characterized by a liberal security policy where cooperation, integration and interdependence were considered to be factors that promote security. The defence bill from 2015 reflects an increase of the realistic security perspective where territorial integrity, sovereignty, independence and military defence have a higher value. The realistic view of security has thus gone from almost non-existent in the former bill to being equivalent to the liberal view of security in the latter. It is a remarkable shift that suggests that Sweden has changed its view of security in the last decade