Power or principle: what a party protects when doctrine gets in the way
Beneath every party's stated doctrine sits a meta-value — the thing it chooses when the doctrine and that value collide. Some parties bend the doctrine to keep power; others sacrifice power for principle. That axis runs through the whole values timeline.
Every party has a doctrine written into its idéprogram — and something it guards more closely than the doctrine. You see the difference the moment the two collide: the party shows what it will give up and what it keeps. Line the parties up by that, and you get a scale, running from the ones that bend the doctrine to hold on to power to the ones that give up power rather than break with their own. This is a reading, not a neutral fact — but a reading that ties a party’s scattered moves into a line you can follow.
When power outweighs doctrine
At this end of the scale, power is the value itself, and the doctrine bends to fit it. The Moderates want to be “the party that governs” — and when the liberal line got in the way, they chose power. The Social Democrats are the oldest statsbärande party: in the 2015 crisis, keeping the country governable mattered more than the usual language of solidarity. The Centre Party lost its farming base long ago and will now drop even signature positions to stay useful at the bargaining table. The Liberals, balancing at the 4-percent threshold for years, traded a century of “never with anti-democrats” for a seat in parliament.
When principle outweighs power
At the other end, the stated value is the thing the party actually works for — and here it is power that gets sacrificed. The Left Party brought down its own government in 2021 to protect tenants: where others bend the principle to fit power, V broke the power against the principle. The Greens gave in to the pull of power once — the 2015 migration reversal — carried it like a wound, and walked out of government in 2021 to get their face back.
Core intact, façade peeling
Two parties keep the core unchanged in words but lay flexible bloc tactics on top. With the Christian Democrats, the Christian foundation stays in the programme text while the choice of allies shifts. With the Sweden Democrats, the nationalist core stays put, while the façade of respectability — “zero tolerance” for racism — peels after every scandal.
The scale does not sort parties into good and bad. It is about something else: what a party sacrifices last. You can stand at the “principled” end and be wrong on the merits; you can stand at the “power” end and run sensible policy. The scale says one thing only: what a party lets go of first when the choice finally has to be made.
And this is no Swedish quirk. Back in the 2000s, political scientists — Tim Bale, Cas Mudde — described a pattern that recurs across Europe: the mainstream right sooner or later takes the radical right on as an ally, once it grows large enough that a right-wing majority no longer adds up without it. The “cordon sanitaire” works while the radicals are small and becomes an unaffordable luxury once they are large. The turn of M, KD and L toward SD is not an exception but exactly that pattern.
Each short “reading” beside an individual shift on the values timeline is one point on the scale. The full walk-through for each party sits in the “Deep value” section of its page.