Solidarity has a long history as one of the most central and elusive

concepts in socialist language. This article aims to examine social democratic

solidarity as a propagandistic and ideological concept in the 1980s, time of

political rupture when solidarity was being reassessed and redefined. The

concept is examined in the monthly magazines of the Swedish social democratic

youth and women’s branch organisations Tvärdrag, Frihet and Morgonbris. The

study shows that the place and function of the concept of solidarity is

ambiguous. On the one hand, the concept emerges as ideologically central in

that its meaning is subject to struggle. The ambivalent relationship of social

democracy to neoliberal influences exemplifies this. Solidarity could be

presented as the antithesis of neoliberalism, while in other texts and contexts

the concept was almost depoliticised by placing it in the sphere of the private

sphere or presented as the responsibility of the individual.

Begreppshistoria är en etablerad metod i humanistisk forskning och ligger till grund för en rad monumentala arbeten utomlands, men har inte ägnats något betydande samlingsverk i Sverige – förrän nu. 

I Svenska begreppshistorier bidrar ett fyrtiotal idéhistoriker och andra humanister till en ökad förståelse av den historiska process där våra vardagliga och vetenskapliga begrepp tagit form. Tydligt blir att ord vars innebörder kan verka självskrivna i själva verket utgör historiska  spelfält för oväntade betydelseförändringar och överlagringar, som fortfarande gör sig påminda idag.

Genom begrepp som antropocen, samtycke, kris, teknik, psykopati, miljö, revolution, mode och feminism skildras vår samtida kultur i en brokig mosaik.

This article studies the concept of solidarity and the definition of international solidarity in congress materials dated 1972-1985 from the Swedish Social Democratic Workers' Party (Sveriges Socialdemokratiska Arbetareparti, SAP) and its three branch organizations. On the one hand, it examines the different definitions and functions of the concept within the party at large, thereby adding to historical research on the recent history of Swedish social democracy. In source material published by youth, women's, and religious wings affiliated with the SAP, the struggle for the meaning of the concept should become apparent, because these organizations represent both the traditional and official concept of solidarity that had been dominant in social democratic rhetoric, as well as the new, challenging concept of solidarity associated with the emerging solidarity movements of the 1970s. On the other hand, the article has a conceptual historical and theoretical aim, intending to understand how solidarity functions as a political and ideological concept for Swedish social democrats during the studied period of time. The study shows that solidarity as an ideological concept had a unifying function for Swedish social democracy. In the concept of solidarity and in the definition of international solidarity, the relevance and topicality of social democratic politics could be emphasized. This was done temporally by giving the contemporary political relevance of solidarity a historical dimension by presenting solidarity in general and international solidarity in particular as a social democratic concept with roots in the early years of the movement. By accentuating the history of the concept, solidarity, despite its obvious contemporary political link, was presented as a timeless social democratic concept, as central in the early twentieth century as in the 1970s and in the future. Thus, in a conceptual struggle with contemporary movements for solidarity and in polemic with the bourgeoisie's attempts to relegate social democracy to the past, the relevance and topicality of social democratic politics was asserted through the concepts of solidarity and, in particular, the definition of international solidarity.