How should the disappearance and re-emergence of food supply as a security problem in Swedish security politics be understood? Recent crises such as the pandemic, the Ukraine War and climate change have put food security back on the agenda after having been abandoned as part of defence policies in the 1990's. This project analyses how the issue of food supply has been framed by different political actors, and explains the process whereby it becomes excluded or included on the security agenda. Through a historical-comparative study this study asks when, by whom, and how, issues of food security have been securitized and de-securitized in Swedish politics. Using novel methods for analysing large corpora of text material, we study food security in the Swedish Riksdag from the early 1900’s until 2025, and two in depth studies of the period of de-securitization in the 90's and the recent period of re-emergence of food as a security problem in Swedish politics. Empirically, the project provides new details to the assumption of the 1990’s as a period of de-securitization, and new empirical and theoretical understanding of the conditions under which de- and re-securitization takes place. The project advances the study of de-securitization, which is largely neglected in previous research on securitization.

The Project

What will we eat? Food as security politics in Sweden 1900--2025 is a four-year research project (2024--2027) funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), agreement number 2023-05783.