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- Wikman, Lars, 1981-
(författare)
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Don’t Mention the War : The forging of a domestic foreign policy consensus on the entry, expansion and exit of Swedish military contributions to Afghanistan
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Consensus is not something that just happens in the foreign policy domain when political actors seemingly agree on a policy. Rather, in this dissertation I demonstrate that actors construct consensus through the framing of policy as they highlight and downplay certain elements. Interestingly, for consensus to emerge, the attraction of political support is not always necessary; sometimes it is enough to not mobilize opposition. In the Swedish context a “foreign policy line” [utrikespolitisk linje] captures the prevailing consensus view and embraces a particular understanding of foreign policy in the national interest, historically conditioned and elevated above party politics. Based on archival records and 55 interviews, this dissertation explores and analyzes the political process in which a domestic foreign policy consensus was constructed for the entry, expansion and exit of the Swedish military contributions to Afghanistan in the early 2000s.Advocates and opponents frame their preferred policy with the intention of aligning it with a dominating perception of the continuity of Swedish foreign policy to gain wider acceptance. In the case of military contributions to Afghanistan, distancing themselves from sensitive issues such as the US warfare and framing policy so it resembled traditional Swedish foreign policy was a way for advocates to suppress political conflict within the political left and rally support behind the respective government's proposition. Afghanistan was a defining military operation at a pivotal time for Swedish foreign policy. The results therefore have wider implications for our understanding of the domestic politics of Swedish foreign policy, providing an important view of how a general reorientation following the Cold War was managed. In addition to conceptualizing the “foreign policy line” this study contributes theoretically with two frame alignment strategies, which actors employ when faced with an unfavorable context to avoid negative connotations.
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| 2. |
- Wikman, Lars, 1981-
(författare)
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War with the Terrorists or Rebuilding a Nation in Need? : Dutch Public Opinion on Afghanistan : The Theory of the Principal Policy Objective Revisited
- 2016
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Ingår i: Res Militaris. - 2265-6294. ; ERGOMAS:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article points to the need for a more complex understanding of the public's perception of the Principal Policy Objective (PPO) when it comes to citizens' attitudes toward foreign military interventions. In contrast to previous research, where one PPO has been linked to support either by experimental standards or survey practicality, this article uses a survey and a method which allow the analysis to account for conflicting PPOs and leaves the interpretation of the PPO to the individual respondent, increasing the validity of the results. This is done using a dataset based on a monthly survey, conducted during the Dutch military involvement in the Afghan province of Uruzgan (2006-2010), in which questions on support and perceptions of two PPO are separated in the questionnaire permitting a separation of two different PPO measurements on each value of public support. In the Dutch case two PPOs stand out as dominating the public discourse : War on Terror and the Reconstruction of Afghanistan. Both are included in the survey. Based on an OLS regression analysis, this article draws the conclusion that there is a significant relationship between each of the PPOs separately and public support, even when controlled for each other. Previous research has pointed to a dominating PPO that guides attitude behaviour ; however, this article finds instead that several PPOs could be driving support simultaneously and that each has a significant relationship to public support independent of one another. This article offers some possible theoretical insights as to how but additional research is necessary to further investigate how several perceptions of PPO relate to each other during the formation of attitudes amongst the citizenry.
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