Förhållandet mellan civilsamhällsengagemang och partipreferenser - “det är komplicerat”

This study examines the relationship between civil society engagement and party choice between the Social Democrats and the Sweden Democrats in the 2022 Swedish general election. Drawing on prior research on civil society, political participation and changes in the Swedish party system, the study adopts a mixed-methods design. The quantitative analysis uses data from the 2022 Swedish National SOM survey and applies a binary logistic regression with socio-economic and demographic controls. The qualitative component consists of semi-structured interviews with individuals active in civil society organisations, which are thematically analyzed to explore potential underlying mechanisms. The results show that higher civil society engagement is weakly but consistently associated with a higher probability of voting for the Social Democrats rather than the Sweden Democrats. However, the effect is small and close to conventional significance thresholds. Other factors such as gender, trade union membership and place of residence show stronger associations with party choice. The qualitative findings complement these results by indicating that self-selection is a key mechanism. Overall, civil society engagement appears to function as a contextual background factor rather than as a mobilizing force in shaping party choice in contemporary Sweden.