Between neo-militant and quasi-militant democracy: restrictions on freedoms of speech and the press in Austria, Finland, and Sweden 2008–2019

ABSTRACT

After the economic collapse in 2008, we observed rapid changes among media markets, digital transformation of information, and the increasing role of social networks in communication, anti-democratic forces use the freedom of speech and the press to share illiberal rhetoric. Considering these phenomena, this study aims to verify how ruling elites use militant democracy means in consolidated democracies to combat anti-democrats by restricting citizens’ fundamental freedoms to express their thoughts and beliefs. The main argument is that different threats for the freedom of speech and the press have occurred in a consolidated democracy: abusing regulations about hate speech crimes and public incitement to hatred, political interventions in the media system, violating relations between the media market and political system, favouring public media and avoiding using restrictions against them. The scope of those threats is different, resulting from using neo-militant instruments or replacing them with quasi-militant democracy means. The methods employed for the analysis are the qualitative analysis of sources and the quantitative analysis of data in the comparative perspective. Austria, Finland, and Sweden – three EU member states recognised as consolidated democracies, with a democratic corporatist model of media systems – were selected for the study.

KEYWORDS:

• Neo-militant democracy
• freedom of the press
• restrictions on the freedom of speech
• restrictions of freedom of the press
• contentious politics in consolidated democracy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Daniel Hallin and Paolo Mancini (2004, p. 143) characterised a democratic corporatist media model by high newspaper circulation, early development of mass-circulation press, external pluralism, especially in the national press, historically strong party press; a shift toward neutral commercial press, a politics-in-broadcasting system with substantial autonomy, intense professionalisation, institutionalised self-regulation; decisive state intervention but with protection for press freedom, press subsidies; public-service solid broadcasting.

2 The police report described the group as ‘Sweden’s largest hate site’ with over 180,000 members (Patrik Markström döms för rasism på Facebook, 2019).

3 After reporting crime by Finnish prosecution Facebook deleted these comments.

Additional information

Funding

This paper is a result of the research project Contentious Politics and Neo-Militant Democracy. It was financially supported by the National Science Centre, Poland [grant number 2018/31/B/HS5/01410].