Vem bestämmer över skogen? : En kvalitativ innehållsanalys av intresseorganisationers inflytande på Sveriges nationella skogsprogram

As the effects of climate change worsen, the role and importance of forests in climate mitigation strategies seem to be growing. However, key actors have different views of how the forests should be used in order to curb the consequences of climate change. The future use of forest will therefore depend on these actors’ ability to realize their visions in the political arena. This thesis sets out to investigate how and to what extent a certain type of actor, in this case interest groups, influences forest policy. This is accomplished through a qualitative content analysis of the process toward Sweden’s first national forest program, using preference attainment as the theoretical approach to measure the influence of each interest group. The main finding is that interest groups representing economic values had a larger amount of influence on the policy-making process than interest groups representing environmental values. The study’s primary contribution to the interest group research field is hence empirical