Dealignment and Realignment: The Swedish parliamentary election of 2022

The study argues that the Swedish parliamentary election of 2022 is related to major long-term changes in Scandinavian and European politics in general. Therefore, the aim is to analyze long-term changes in Swedish politics over time, in relation to significant short-term changes due to the Swedish parliamentary election of 2022. The study describes the Swedish party system and the election campaign preceding the 2022 Swedish parliamentary election as well as the short-term changes, relative to the previous election, that this election brought with it. The study also describes important long-term changes in the Swedish party system since the 1980s. In relation to these changes, starting in the 1950s, the study describes the increased mobility of Swedish voters and the decline of voting along the social class cleavage as dealignment. Moreover, the study addresses the ideological changes of voters along the subjective left-right scale, the economic left-right dimension, and the libertarian-authoritarian dimension in relation to the concept of realignment. In conclusion, the article shows the need to study the long-term processes of dealignment and realignment to be able to understand the transformed party system that became so clear in the 2022 Swedish parliamentary election.