Marklund, Josefina
- Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Research article2025Peer reviewedOpen access
Freedom as a discursive instrument in Swedish transition governance: how political actors strategically construct normative power
Marklund, Josefina; Förell, Nora; Fischer, Anke
Abstract
A growing field of research investigates the role of justice as a value in the making and un-making of climate transition governance. However, in climate political debates, we increasingly observe the use of another value – freedom – in ways that intersect with justice-based arguments, and that reach across the entire political ideological spectrum. To investigate this discursive use of freedom and its implications, we conducted a qualitative document analysis – including policies, parliamentary debate, news and debate articles – of Swedish climate politics 2022/2023. We found that freedom served to (de)legitimize policy proposals, harnessing the normative power of freedom to back up pre-defined policy choices rather than to examine a range of possible options. This strategic discursive practice reduced freedom both conceptually and morally to focus on individuals’ freedom from state intervention, omitting genuine engagement with the role of responsibility and the limits to freedom. Paradoxically, a strong state that protected its citizens from market and other forces was still implied but not acknowledged. The resulting, thin and almost uncontested notion of freedom legitimized the status quo and prevented the consideration of alternative policy options. We conclude with suggestions for an in-depth public debate on the role of freedom in transition governance.
Keywords
Discourse; values; negative freedom; reflexive freedom; justice; discursive agency
Published in
Critical Policy Studies
2025
SLU Authors
Förell, Nora
- Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Fischer, Anke
- Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
UKÄ Subject classification
Political Science (Excluding Peace and Conflict Studies)
Environmental Studies in Social Sciences
Media and Communication Studies
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2025.2476976
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/141165