Valen till kyrkomötet 2001–2025 efter skilsmässan kyrka-stat

Polarisering och politisk vindkantring

Abstract

The 2001–2025 elections to the church meeting after the separtion of church and state. Polarisation and political shift

Aims: The Evangelical-Lutheran Swedish Church was separated from the state in 2000. In the 2001–2025 elections to the church meeting, a trend of increasing support for political/theological extremes can be discerned. The aim is to investigate these trends in terms of Sartori’s concept polarized pluralism, which was later modified. Results: The political/theological center which consists of the Social Democratic Party, the four bourgeois parties/lists and the independent POSK list totally dominated in 2001 with 242 of 251 seats. The trend in 2001–2025 indicates that the bourgeois parties/lists continually decreased from 130 to 51 seats, while the social democrats retained theirs and POSK recently increased somewhat. Oppositional leftist, green and theologically progressive parties/lists continually increased from 7 seats to 57. Meanwhile, right-wing and theologically conservative parties/lists continually increased until 2017, thereafter displaying declining support. Conclusion: These elections may constitute a special case of polarized pluralism because the center bourgeois and oppositional right-wing and theologically conservative parties/lists have displayed substantially weaker trends than in general Swedish politics, probably due to more severe member losses among rightwing voters. The Church may be tilting towards increasing political radicalism in upcoming years.