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This study examines how Sweden transformed into a target in al-Qaeda’s public discourse in response to the Qur’an burnings in the nation. Using contentious politics, a theoretical framework and collective action frames as the analytical framework, statements made by al-Qaeda and affiliates framing Sweden as a legitimate target were analyzed. The results shows that three diagnostic frames were recurring across the statements constructing Sweden as a target because of its involvement in sacrilege against Islam, Western hypocrisy about freedom of expression, and a continuous war against Islam. The prognostic framing refers to physical violence as the course of action, and Muslim duties and future rewards as motives for mobilization. The findings carry important implications for research into how symbolic incidents can function as triggers for the construction of states as legitimate targets of terrorism. More so, it suggests the need for institutions to take discursive elements of terrorist organizations into account when making risk assessments. Future academic research could build on the findings by conducting a comparative analysis of the effect of the Qur’an burnings in Sweden and Denmark, respectively, on al-Qaeda’s target selection discourse.

Artikeln argumenterar för att Sverige inte bör återinföra personminor eller lämna Ottawakonventionen. Författarna menar att erfarenheter från tidigare konflikter visar att personminor har begränsat militärt värde men stora långsiktiga humanitära, materiella och ekonomiska kostnader. De påpekar att även så kallade ”smarta” minor inte eliminerar riskerna, eftersom tekniken inte är felfri och eftersom minor fortfarande kan lämna explosiva rester i marken. Artikeln argumenterar också för att ett Natomedlemskap inte kräver användning av personminor och att svensk säkerhetspolitik därför bör baseras på kunskap, långsiktig riskminimering och historisk erfarenhet snarare än på rädsla eller kortsiktiga signaler från det pågående kriget i Ukraina.

Promoting restraint among non-state armed groups often requires more than legal appeals—it demands engagement strategies that resonate with the groups’ own goals and concerns. This post outlines five pragmatic approaches to operationalize non-humanitarian drivers of restraint, including engaging legitimacy-givers, facilitating peer learning, highlighting long-term consequences, offering practical training, and supporting internal political education. While some strategies may lie beyond the scope of traditional humanitarian diplomacy, they offer valuable entry points for building trust and encouraging more humane conduct in armed conflict. 

This blog post examines recent European debates over withdrawing from the Ottawa Convention and reintroducing antipersonnel mines in response to perceived Russian aggression. It argues that these debates are driven more by fear and political signalling than by systematic evidence. Drawing on humanitarian, military, and environmental perspectives, the post shows that antipersonnel mines have devastating long-term effects on civilians, communities, agriculture, infrastructure, and ecosystems, often persisting long after wars end. It also challenges claims about their military utility, noting that mines rarely determine battlefield outcomes and are only effective within broader defensive systems. The post further critiques the promise of so-called “smart” mines, whose self-destruction or self-deactivation mechanisms do not eliminate humanitarian risks and are poorly suited to long-term border defence. Ultimately, withdrawing from the Ottawa Convention would weaken humanitarian norms, increase future insecurity, and impose lasting human and financial costs on affected societies. 

This thesis examines the European Union’s (EU) adoption of economic sanctions against Russia between February 22, 2022 and October 23, 2025. The sanctions mark a historical shift in EU sanctions policy, being comprehensive rather than targeted in scope. The thesis analyses the reasons behind the comprehensive sanctions, combining Role Theory and Policy Diffusion, creating the framework of Role Driven Policy Diffusion, allowing a new perspective on the issue. The thesis explores how this theoretical framework can explain the reasons behind the EU's adoption of sanctions.

The findings show that the EU changed its role conception from primarily a defender of international law, to a regional and global geostrategic player. The US influenced the EU through the cooperation and coordination of sanctions. As the EU's role conception evolved, it more closely resembled the US’ role conception, thus motivating the EU to emulate US sanctions policy. 

The thesis provides an alternative perspective on the reasons behind the change in EU sanctions against Russia, stressing the importance of the EU's role conception, but also US influence. The thesis also contributes to Role Theory and Policy Diffusion literature, by analysing EU role conception and transatlantic Policy Diffusion.

The objective of this study is to demonstrate the reciprocal relationship between merchant bankers active on the European financial markets and the Exchange Bank in the Bank of Sweden in the mideighteenth century. It is done by studying accounts held with the Exchange Bank and the drawing, acceptance and depositing of bills of exchange by merchants and brokers. In contrast to what is claimed by previous research, the results demonstrate that the Exchange Bank was frequently used by both merchants and state representatives, and that it played an important role in the financial infrastructure of early modern Sweden.How to cite this book chapter

This interpretive study examines how motivation to engage in the Swedish Home Guard changes among volunteers without prior military experience who discontinue their involvement during recruitment or basic training. Based on nine semi-structured interviews the study applies thematic analysis to understand motivation as a dynamic and relational process. Findings show that initial motivation is often strong and value driven, rooted in civic responsibility and a desire to contribute. However, motivation is gradually challenged through demanding training experiences, organizational ambiguity, limited feedback, and difficulties balancing engagement with everyday life. Withdrawal is typically experienced as a rational and meaningful decision rather than a sudden loss of motivation. Drawing on previous research and Battistelli’s motivational framework, the study highlights how different motivational dimensions are negotiated over time. Importantly, discontinuation does not necessarily imply reduced defence willingness or motivation, but rather reconfiguration of the commitment.

This study examines why the officer’s professional core task – to develop and sustain military capability – is being marginalised in today’s organisation. Despite the military profession being founded on expertise, judgement and continuous capability development, both research and practice describe how administrative requirements, juridification and governance principles have gradually gained increased influence within the Armed Forces. The issue is central to the officer profession and potentially of strategic significance for the operational effectiveness of the defence. The purpose of the study is therefore to analyse which organisational mechanisms drive this displacement and how officers manage the conflict between administrative demands and the military core task in their everyday work.

The study is based on a qualitative research design, using semi-structured interviews with officers at middle-management level within the Army. The analysis is informed by a theoretical framework consisting of profession and competence theory, Friedson’s organisational logics, and Lipsky’s theory of street-level bureaucracy. Together, these perspectives enable a multidimensional analysis of structural governance mechanisms, professional identity, and the practical actions of organisational actors.

The findings show that three interacting factors contribute to the crowding out of the core task: structural resource shortages, juridification, and an administratively driven logic of prioritisation. These mechanisms result in administrative tasks being systematically pushed down to the officer level, formal compliance being prioritised over military professional expertise, and planned activities being repeatedly disrupted by urgent governance signals. Officers develop coping strategies to make everyday work manageable, but these are individual in nature and risk reinforcing the structural problem. The consequences include reduced professional discretion, competence gaps, and increasingly reactive capability development.

The study concludes that the conflict between administration and military professionalism is structurally determined rather than individual, and that, in the long term, it may affect the operational capability of the Armed Forces.

The aim of this study is to explore the significance that military squad leaders attribute to psychological safety for their team’s ability to accomplish its tasks, and how they balance the demands of discipline with the need for an open climate. The study has an exploratory and descriptive design with an abductive approach and is based on semi-structured interviews with eight squad leaders from two units. The empirical material was analysed using thematic analysis. The findings show that psychological safety is perceived as a crucial factor for team performance, learning, and initiative, as it enables the discussion of mistakes, encourages help-seeking behaviour, and promotes improvement suggestions. The leaders describe a strong personal responsibility to actively build psychological safety through leading by example, transparency, individual adaptation, and by demonstrating vulnerability and admitting their own mistakes. At the same time, a continuous balance emerges between authority in high-pressure and critical situations and openness during reflective phases, described as a shift in leadership mode. Hierarchy is perceived both as an enabling structure that creates clarity and as a potential barrier when power distance increases. The main conclusion is that psychological safety and military hierarchy are not inherently contradictory; rather, they can be integrated through situational leadership in which professional competence forms the basis of legitimacy and enables openness, learning, and development.

This study explains why two contemporary European frigate programmes—the British Type 31 and the German F126—developed into larger and more complex warships despite explicit ambitions for simplicity and cost control. Using theory-testing process tracing, the study evaluates competing Path Dependence and Rational Choice explanations across the procurement processes. The analysis shows that smaller platforms were technically feasible but rendered institutionally unrealistic by entrenched standards, doctrinal assumptions, regulatory requirements, and industrial continuities that constrained decision-making early in the process. While rational arguments were present, they primarily served to justify outcomes shaped by these structures. The study concludes that Path Dependence provides the most convincing explanation and highlights the difficulty of achieving transformative change in defence procurement without early structural reform.

Research problem: To improve and grow it is necessary to analyze earlier experiences of technology shifts. After World War II, Swedish society and its military forces went through a rapid regime shift with motorization – engines replaced horses. There are no analyses of how this affected the armed forces, their horses and the staff that took care of them. 

Purpose of study: To describe and analyze how care and health of army horses was affected during the motorization of the army 1945-1955 and, in a wider perspective, investigate and understand how technology shifts affect the armed forces, by identifying inertia. 

Method: Eleven annual official reports from the Veterinary Surgeon General of the Swedish army, which include both a summary of the horse health and maintenance for each year and data sets of diseases and their outcomes, were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitively.

Results and Conclusion: Several frictions related to human resource issues were identified, including lack of interested and qualified recruits for horse placement, presumed to be due to the motorization having made professions such as horse cart driver and farrier redundant.  Lack of qualified staff contributed to increased leg fractures after fights between horses. Horse temperamental disorders increased, mainly in boarded warmblood horses at farms where the farmers had no warmblood experience. Furthermore, minimal effort was made to remedy the horse facilities, despite repeated reports of disrepair and unacceptable building conditions. This may have been caused by miscommunications between the different levels of decision, where the heads have decided that horses should be removed from the army, and those working at regiment-level were unaware or unwilling to accept this decision. Another important issue was that the farmers did not maintain the boarded horses in sufficient shape and stamina for the refresher meetings, which meant that in case of mobilization the army would have insufficient horsepower to maintain mobility.       

This study examines why two military innovation processes developed within the same organizational and political context can result in divergent outcomes. Through a comparative case study of two modernization programs in the U.S. Army, Future Combat Systems and Stryker Brigade Combat Team, the analysis focuses on how the internal dynamics of innovation processes shape their eventual results. Existing research on military innovation has largely emphasized successful cases and structural explanations for why innovation occurs. In contrast, this study adopts a process-oriented analytical framework to conduct a structured comparison of the programs’ design, implementation, and organizational conditions. The findings indicate that differences in how critical thinking were applied within each program contributed significantly to their divergent outcomes. The study contributes to the literature on military innovation and challenges the assumption that innovation is inherently synonymous with success.

This chapter examines the evolution of Ukrainian military symbolism since independence in 1991, focusing on how formative events, especially Russia’s invasions in 2014 and 2022, have reshaped symbols, uses of history, and traditions. Drawing on concepts of military culture and the uses of history, it analyses changes in emblems, honorary unit names, and military holidays. The study highlights the interplay between politics, society, and military institutions in forging a new military symbolic space. It reveals Ukraine’s armed forces’ long transition from Soviet legacies to a national military culture rooted in new historical consciousness and civic values.

This study examines how willingness to defend is constructed in Swedish security policy discourse through the interaction of linguistic framing and emotion. Rather than treating willingness to defend as a fixed or analytically given concept, the study conceptualises it as a societal commitment shaped through political and institutional communication. Drawing on framing analysis and Emotion Discourse Analysis, operationalised through the analytical tool Emotion Direction Legitimation Analysis (EDLA), the study analyses public speeches by political, institutional and symbolic actors from 2025.

The analysis identifies three overarching themes. Societal cohesion, responsibility, and action. Together the themes construct willingness to defend as a normative construction of shared societal responsibility in a context without ongoing war. Through linguistic framing and emotional articulation, meaning-making processes are formed that establish understandings of what is presented as legitimate, necessary, and morally appropriate in relation to security and defence.

This thesis examines how military professionalization is realized in the everyday practice of Swedish Air Force officers. Situated within war studies, the study explores how professional expertise is developed and sustained through the interaction of formal education, organizational conditions, and service demands. Empirically, the thesis draws on a qualitative case study at Blekinge Air Wing, using semi-structured interviews. The material is analyzed through an ideal-type approach, identifying three professionalization logics: practice-driven professionalization, education-driven professionalization, and professionalization through expected expertise. These logics are subsequently related to Karl Ydén’s tentative model for analyzing military professionalism, applied as a diagnostic tool to identify patterns of fit and misfit between education, occupational practice, and organizational expectations of expertise. The findings contribute a practice-oriented analytical approach for studying Military Education (PME) in organizationally complex military settings.

This study examines how grey-zone ambiguity is understood and handled in the process of establishing compatible situational awareness within Sweden’s decentralized total defence system, focusing on the energy supply sector. Using an abductive content analysis with an interpretive approach, it adopts an exploratory case study design based on scenario-driven focus group discussions, applying Distributed Situation Awareness, Hybridity Blizzard Model and Fort logic.

The findings illustrate a paradox: while the sector gives expression to strong operational robustness, it is perceived as strategically vulnerable due to vertical information gaps. Local actors prioritize restoration over attribution, which is interpreted as a risk where coordinated hybrid actions are absorbed into routine disturbances. The absence of proactive top-down intelligence sharing is understood as a factor that constrains the development of compatible situational awareness across levels.

The study indicates that resilience in the grey zone depends on the quality of vertical information links enabling strategic interpretation of ambiguous events.

Sweden’s accession to NATO entails a logistical institutional transition for the Swedish Armed Forces (SAF). This thesis examines how NATO’s logistical ideas are institutionalized within the SAF following accession. The study applies to a qualitative single-case study design based on semi-structured interviews. The analysis is guided by Richard W. Scott’s institutional framework, focusing on regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive mechanisms.

The findings show that NATO’s logistical ideas are not implemented through full adoption, but through a gradual and selective process of institutional translation. Institutionalization is driven by perceived requirements and expectations associated with NATO membership. The process is shaped by professional ideals, administrative legacies, and a risk-averse organizational culture. The concept of sustainment is reinterpreted through existing Swedish understandings of logistics, resulting in adaptation rather than replacement.  Institutionalization proceeds largely through exercises, improvisation, and individual agency.

The thesis concludes that NATO integration in military logistics depends less on formal acceptance of alliance ideas than on alignment between institutional structures, professional norms, and broader societal coordination.