Brottsligheten – en het potatis : En kritisk diskursanalys av en svensk partiledardebatt om lag och ordning

During the year before the 2022 Swedish parliament election, law and order is one of the most debated topics. To discuss their views on the subject, the leaders of the eight parliament parties participate in a broadcasted debate hosted by the Swedish TV channel TV4. The party leader debates are viewed as one of the most important platforms for the party leaders' communication with the voters, and the participating journalists have an important role in deciding what will be discussed, and which questions are asked. This thesis examines how the topic of law and order is constructed by the partaking party leaders and moderating journalists during the debate. This by the use of Norman Fairclough's model for critical discourse analysis, and with the theoretical approaches of Wodak, Giddens and ‘agenda setting theory’ to examine the debate on different analytical levels. The study finds that the topic of ‘law and order’ is constructed by including the debate of immigration, which makes immigrants the group most clearly connected to the debate. We could also derive that a certain amount of ‘rhetoric of fear’ was being used during the debate, where party leaders exemplified how the viewer could be subject to crime. Lastly, a recurring construction of the topic that could be found is that tougher penalties is described as a necessary measure to fight the criminality in Sweden from both the opposition parties and the government.