Departure From Neutrality: Normative Europeanization, Strategic Alignment, and the Path-Dependent Case of Post-Cold War Swedish Integration Into NATO

Abstract

This dissertation explores the post-Cold War Swedish government’s transition from a long-held policy of neutrality, towards its formal declaration to seek military alignment through NATO accession in 2022. This will be explained by analyzing the evolution of its foreign and defense policies by synthesizing the following interrelated concepts: path dependence, Sweden’s normative Europeanization, strategic alignment, and asa bridging function, the gradual reassertion of NATO’s role as post-Cold War Europe’s primary vehicle for collective defense. Previous analysis on the normative Europeanization of Swedish policies is limited to the 1990s and lacks a deep focus on Sweden’s defense policy. Thus, despite serving as a potential explanatory framework for the evolution of Swedish government attitudes towards military alignment, the concept remains underutilized. At the same time, a structured analysis of Swedish cooperation with NATO through measurable framework of ordinal strategic alignment, and the theoretical concept of path dependence as captured by increasing returns, provides the ability to analyze the cause and effect of qualitative and quantitative increases in Swedish-NATO integration. Swedish membership in the European Union is also analyzed, particularly as the EU’s security policies broke down ideational barriers that paved the way for a growing acceptance of alignment. Thus, this dissertation provides a structured analysis of Sweden’s overall, evolving foreign policy views away from neutrality as a consequence of normative Europeanization, and Sweden’s increasing acceptance of the centrality of NATO to European defense through path dependent-focused analysis of its changing involvement within NATO structures.

Disciplines

International Relations | Political Science | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Department

International Relations (INR)

First Advisor

Symeon Giannakos

Date of Award

1-1-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

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