Disputation med Josefin Hägglund

Josefin Hägglund försvarar sin avhandling: "Demokratins stridslinjer: Carl Lindhagen och politikens omvandling, 1896-1923"

Avhandling: Demokratins stridslinjer: Carl Lindhagen och politikens omvandling, 1896-1923
Ämne: Historia
Forskarutbildningsområden: Historiska Studier
Opponent: Josefin Rönnbäck, universitetslektor i historia, FD, Luleå tekniska universitet
Språk: Svenska

Abstract:
The Battle Lines of Democracy: Carl Lindhagen and the Transformation of Politics,1896–1923.

Carl Lindhagen was one of Sweden’s most well-known politicians at the beginning ofthe 20th century. He entered parliament as a Liberal in 1897 but joined the SocialDemocrats in 1909. In 1917 he became a key figure in forming the Left Socialist party,which became the Swedish Communist Party in 1921 – although it expelled him inthat moment. He returned to the Social Democrats in 1923. During those years,Sweden gradually moved towards universal suffrage, including most men in 1909 andwomen in 1921. As an MP, Lindhagen was a central actor in debates concerning
democracy, combining the roles of the visionary political thinker and the hands-onpolitical practitioner, and doing so in ways that would spark both enthusiasm andcontroversy among his contemporaries. This dissertation examines how Lindhageninterpreted the transformation of politics 1896–1923, how he envisioned a future of“true” democracy and the steps he took to realize his ideals. In his perspective, theconstitutional reforms of the 1910s and the 1920s only achieved “formal” democracy.
From the early 1910s he preferred to label himself as a ”humanist”, seeing Liberalismand Socialism as temporary forces, contributing elements to a historical processapproaching the universal values of “humanism”. In 1919 he also created a partytranscendingorganization for “humanist politics”, gathering like-minded peopleamong Left Socialists, Social Democrats, and Liberal leftists.
This study concentrates on Lindhagen’s most active and influential years, findingits central sources in texts which he wrote, modified, used and reused, for manypurposes within the parliament and in his party organizations, as well as in addressinga general public. Three chronological parts follow Lindhagen through his politicalaffiliations, 1896–1909,1909–1917, and 1917–1923. The study shows a remarkableamount of continuity in Lindhagen’s attitudes and positions, although he elaboratedthem, as well as the language he used to express them, due to new experiences,situations, and political environments. This makes him a tellingly complex case in thehistoriography of Liberalism, Social Democracy, and Communism in Sweden.
Adding to this telling complexity is also the way in which Lindhagen graduallyfocused more and more on political parties as a central political problem, stressingthat a condition for “true democracy” was practical measures of democracy at all
levels in the political process, especially within the political parties which took theirmodern form during the era studied in the dissertation.