The construction of subjectivities and enemies in global warming: searching for the political climate issue in Swedish Election Campaigns, 1988–2014

Abstract

ABSTRACT It has been argued that the issue of global warming has become incorporated into a postpolitical condition that has deprived it of a proper political subject. In this article, the depoliticizing process is examined through a historical analysis of Swedish election campaigns, 1988 to 2014, a domain that traditionally features political language and politicizations. The analysis shows how the rhetoric of political parties was characterized by an increasingly universalizing language which made it problematic to name a political subject, and how the enemy of global warming was constructed as an outsider that threatened the current order. The article argues for the need to re-politicize the climate issue by understanding climate crises as social crises; that is, crises that can be properly politicized.