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.