The Securitization of Extremism Threats in the Swedish Government : What Actual Significance does the Alleged Identification and Classification of a Security Threat have for Swedish National Security?

Abstract: The new phenomena of “school attacks” has emerged in Sweden since 2015. Between 2015 and today (2022), Sweden has been a subject of four “school attacks”, whereas three of these attacks have occurred within a period of seven months. In this thesis I aim to gain an in-depth insight about how “school attacks” are represented in the Swedish national strategy against violent extremism and further, to distinguish whether “school attacks” have been securitized in the national strategy. To study this, I will apply the securitization theory by Thierry Balzacq through the methodological framework of a WPR (What’s the problem represented to be?) discourse analysis on the material consisting of the Swedish national strategy against violent extremism from 2016. The findings suggest that there appears to be an undermining of right-wing extremism and exclusion of the loneactor of extremism in the strategy’s claims regarding what is the most prominent extremism-related threat to the State of Sweden and Swedish interests. Furthermore, I was able to distinguish that “school attacks” were not securitized in the Swedish national strategy against violent extremism.