“Forest property rights under attack”: Actors, networks and claims about forest ownership in the Swedish press 2014–2017

Abstract

Sweden is a leading country in governance of property rights, according to global assessments, but Swedish landowners currently argue that their forest property rights are being eroded. Thus, the aim of this article is to investigate when and why the current debate on forest property rights came about, and its resemblance to discussion in an ‘echo-chamber’. This refers to an arena in which information is accessed from limited sources and a small number of actors with ideological homogeneity may exert substantial influence and reinforce established opinions. Hence, it may spread disinformation, increase polemic tensions, and hamper deliberative policy processes in society. We assess the resemblance by identifying where the issue is debated in printed news media, the active actors, the interests they represent and how they problematize property rights, i.e. the claims they make and the claims’ homogeneity. Our results show that the debate has intensified in recent years, but several issues are not new. The debate is mainly limited to the Swedish rural business press and rural conservative press. Moreover, the main claim-makers are representatives of land and forest owner organizations, and members of agrarian and conservative political parties, which have close organizational and individual connections, thereby forming a metaphorical ‘chamber’. The ‘echo’ consists of repetitive claims about withdrawal and management rights, with no efforts to examine and contextualize complex aspects of private property rights in a changing society. The debate about forest ownership in an echo-chamber is problematic in several ways. It hampers efforts of claim-makers in the chamber to reach out, undermines current systems’ legitimacy, and locks important questions about sustainable forestry and property rights into a narrow societal sphere.