Skiftande värderingar i det svenska politiska landskapet över tid. : En kvantitativ studie av sambandet mellan värderingar och placeringen på politiska vänster-högerskalan i Sverige

The purpose of this study is to increase knowledge about which factors affect individuals' placement on the political left-right scale in Sweden, and whether the importance of these factors has changed over time, during the period 2002-2023. The study specifically examines how socioeconomic values, such as attitudes to redistribution, and socio-cultural values, such as attitudes to immigration, affect how individuals place themselves on the political left-right scale. The empirical material is based on data from the European Social Survey (ESS). We analyze these relationships over time and further examine potential gender differences in the correlations. The results show a change in the underlying dimensions of the political left-right scale in Sweden over time, with new issues, specifically socio-cultural values related to immigration, being increasingly integrated into the traditional left-right-scale. Over the entire time period, socioeconomic values have a consistent and relatively strong impact on how individuals place themselves on the political left-right scale, but sociocultural values appear to constitute an additional ideological dimension that has become increasingly important for peoples’ self-placement on the left-right scale in Sweden.