| Summary: | The overall purpose guiding this thesis was to assess the possibility of liberal nationalism in Sweden. In order to do that, a descriptive analysis of Swedish citizens attitudes regarding national identity is needed. National identity was assessed as an umbrella term consisting of four separate dimensions: national attachment, national pride, national chauvinism and a normative conception of national identity. The dimensions can be separated empirically and result in different consequences. It’s assumed that older people have stronger feelings about national identity compared to younger. This presumption was tested with a Chi2-test between people below and over 65 years old, acquired from a representative sample of the Swedish people. The main result from this thesis was that overall the Swedish people have a strong attachment to their country, with over 90% feeling close or very close to Sweden. Most are also proud over their citizenship (over 90%), where a strong sense of pride originates from the way democracy works (80%). Attitudes about the normative conception of national identity showed that respect of political institutions and laws, language and culture are seen as important elements of a true Swede. Around 23% had chauvinistic attitudes. The result is however not conclusive since 40% of the respondents chose a non-saying alternative. This requires further investigation, preferably with a qualitive approach. Together with an ethnic conception of Swedishness, chauvinism is the part of national identity that clearly relates negatively to liberal nationalism. In general, no clear differences were found when comparing older with younger. Except for the normative conception of national identity, where a statistic significant difference showed that older have higher demand and also a more ethnic understanding of citizenship. There was also a tendency that older identified more strongly with Sweden, and younger were prouder of how democracy works.
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