Democratic Muslims, Deceptive Islamists : The Portrayal of Swedish Muslims and Muslim organization by the Agency for Psychological Defense 2017-2022

• The term "Islamist" and the way it is used has gained a decisive importance for the discourse on Muslims and Muslim organization in Sweden. This paper is an analysis of how the term “Islamist” is used in six official texts from the department of Psycological Defense at the Swedish Authority for Civil Contingencies (from 2022 the Authority for Psycological Defense). Here, we examine the concept of Islamism through a critical discourse analysis based on a previously performed thematic analysis of six texts produced within the departments knowledge project on Islamist information influence in Sweden, 2017-2022. We show that the term "Islamist" is used fluidly in the examined texts. A precisely defined, anti-democratic and dangerous ideology of “Islamic hooliganism” is defined as entirely distinguished from “ordinary Muslims”, and yet applied to very broad swathes of the population, including people with a Muslim identity, or people who are motivated by their Muslim faith to perform charity work.We have found that, as a result of a plastic and rhetorically malleable conceptual definition, the examined texts have formulated a larger narrative about Islamism in Sweden as virtually synonymous with Muslim organization in general. Islamism is depicted as something foreign, as well as physically, socially, and ideologically threatening, incompatible with democracy and therefore something that needs to be monitored and defunded. The term Islamism thus becomes a tool to defund Muslim organizations and deplatforming Muslim individuals from the public sphere.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Statsvetenskap -- Studier av offentlig förvaltning (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Political Science -- Public Administration Studies (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Islamophobia

Civic Space

Människan i välfärdssamhället, Social välfärd med inriktning mot civilsamhället

The Individual in the Welfare Society, Social Welfare and the Civil Society

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)