Finns svenskheten? En granskning av teorier om svenskt folklynne, svensk folkkaraktär och svensk mentalitet

Abstract

Does Swedishness exist? A scrutiny of theories about the Swedish national character and mentality

Three prominent analyses of Swedishness are discussed: Do these analyses make it possible to say that Swedishness exists and, in that case, what characteristics it has? Two problems appear when reading these works. The first I call ’the search light problem’, dealing with what to look for when searching for Swedishness, i.e. a theory that defines the area of research. The other problem concerns levels of analysis; it has to do with how national characteristics are related to, on the one hand, transnational and, on the other hand, crossnational phenomena. None of the authors have succeeded in solving these problems in their research designs or in their argumentations; even the awareness of the existence of these problems seems to be very limited. My conclusion is therefore that research on Swedishness has so far not been able to show that Swedishness exists.