Almedalsveckan
en studie i hur ett av Sveriges största politiska arrangemang har tagit form
Politicians Week in Visby has since the late 1960s developed to be a fairly unique concept in Swedish politics, which even in recent years has begun to be exported to other countries in Europe. Curiosity and interest around the arrangement of activities and actors have in the past decade become increasingly both nationally and internationally. The purpose of this study has therefore been to find out how ?Almedalsveckan? as a political arrangement emerged and developed. The question that the study mainly tries to answer is how ?Almedalsveckan? became a concept of the open democratic meeting between politicians, citizens, journalists and various organizations in the Swedish society. To find out, mainly newspaper articles from the Gotland newspapers has been used, as well as an interview with the former municipal politician Jan Lundgren (s) has been made. Source material has also been obtained from the Library of Almedalen in the Gotlandica department, ?Almedalsveckan? official website, Gotland Tourist, SCB and SIKA. The investigation has been defined to include the election-years for the period 1968 - 2009 but other years have also been used to see how political participation has been in non-election year and in 2009 to root development at the present time. The results from the survey show how the arrangement evolved to this stage as a meeting place for political debate in which politicians, citizens, journalists and various organizations engaged in informal conversations.