Public broadcasting and democracy’s defense: responses to far-right parties in Germany and Sweden

ABSTRACT This article studies the response by public sphere institutions in democratic societies to far-right parties, focusing specifically on public broadcasting organizations in Germany and Sweden. With the upsurge of far-right parties these types of institutions are faced with difficult decisions on how to balance norms of inclusivity, impartiality and pluralism while also safeguarding substantive norms related to the protection of equal human dignity and non-discrimination. Public sphere institutions, and public broadcasting in particular, are of key importance for well-functioning democracies. They are also settings where democratic dilemmas appear that have received less attention in the existing literature on democracy's protection. We develop our contribution through a comparative study of the response by public broadcasting organizations to the far-right in Germany and Sweden. Results point to continuing difficulties in navigating dilemmas related to the response to these parties, especially as they are becoming an increasingly normalized part of the political landscape.


Introduction
Observations that far-right parties tend to challenge fundamental liberal democratic values have sparked new life in debates on how the democratic state, as well as other institutions in the public sphere of democratic societies, can and should respond to these political actors. This article focuses on a specific set of institutions that find themselves in the eye of the storm in this regard, namely public broadcasting organizations. When President Trump questioned the validity of the election results during his election statement on 4 November 2020, both private and public broadcasters challenged his statements immediately. For instance, ABC journalists stated that Trump's actions amounted to an attempt "to end the election illegitimately." 1 Trump's frequent labelling of mainstream media as "the enemy of the people" drew from a key page of the populist play book. Similar examples of the far-right's hostility against public broadcasting is in evidence in most European countries. Public broadcasting organizations are recurrently framed as part of a political and cultural establishment working actively to stymy the political ideas of these parties and their supporters.
Conventionally, the literature on how democratic systems respond to far-right challenger parties has focused on the normative and practical viability of efforts employed to push back at such parties and movements, for instance by constitutionally restricting their access to the electoral arena, or by employing less institutionalized means, such as informal cordons sanitaires. The empirical literature has in particular studied party bans, prosecution of hate speech and party funding regulations. 2 This article builds on these discussions but argues that existing studies are missing important aspects of how dilemmas related to the inclusion and exclusion of anti-system political actors, especially on the far-right, play out in contemporary democracies. To capture these aspects, we turn our focus to institutions in the public sphere of democratic societies, and in particular, to how public broadcasters tackle the dilemma of upholding expectations of norms of inclusivity, pluralism and impartiality while at the same time protecting norms of non-discrimination and the protection of human dignity against efforts to undermine those values from the far-right.
We develop our contribution through an empirical study of public broadcasting organizations in two countries, Sweden and Germany. Both Sweden and Germany have well-established public broadcasting organizations that generally enjoy high levels of trust and both countries have experienced the recent rise of far-right parties of considerable size. The two cases, however, differ sharply in that Germany is considered a paradigmatic case of a militant democracy, with far-reaching tools at its disposal for pushing back at such challengers. Sweden, on the contrary, is conventionally regarded as an example of a democratic system without much in terms of repressive capabilities towards would-be anti-democrats. The comparison provides opportunities to explore the response of public broadcasting organizations across two settings that vary considerably in their historical experiences with anti-democratic actors and constitutional traditions regarding democracy's protection. We study legal provisions that regulate public broadcasters, and probe contemporary instances where these organizations have been pushed to consider dilemmas related to the treatment of the far-right.
Our results indicate considerable ambiguities in the application of rules related to safeguarding democratic values in the two settings and continuing difficulties for public broadcasting organizations to find their footing in a political landscape increasingly shaped by the growth of the far-right. Contrary to our expectations the German response appears less militant than what its constitutional provisions and legislation regulating public broadcasting might lead us to think. Instead, we find uneven patterns and a lack of consensus on what a useful response should look like. The response by Swedish public broadcasters wavers between an assertive stance against statements of far-right representatives as well as backtracking when faced with backlash in public debate and in the form of criticism from its own oversight body.

The democratic dilemma in public broadcasting
Dilemmas associated to democracy's protection have been the object of longstanding debates in democratic theory and constitutional law. 3 We engage with what is conventionally considered the core dilemma for liberal democracy in this context, namely how to, on the one hand, safeguard pluralism, impartiality and inclusivity necessary for open democratic debate and, on the other, protecting democratic norms and values associated to non-discrimination and the equal respect for the dignity of all members of society. Here we join a growing empirical literature that has focused on these types of questions. 4 Scholars in this literature have often taken a comparative perspective to study if, how and under what conditions states use repressive means to push back at anti-democratic challengers. The lion part of these studies has focused on formal restrictions on political parties and practices of banning parties. We do not deny the importance of engaging with both normative and empirical discussions related to these aspects of how democracies work to defend themselves from antidemocratic challengers. Two key reasons, however, underpin our shift towards the study of dilemmas related to democracy's protection in the broader public sphere.
The first has to do with the need to study how democratic societies deal with perceived anti-democratic challengers, and the dilemmas that arise as a result, in settings beyond those associated directly to the electoral arena. This reflects the notion that there are a range of arenas where possible harms can arise when political actors undermine liberal democratic rights that do not necessarily amount to a fundamental questioning of democracy as type of regime. These are harms that are more closely tied to various ways in which human dignity of groups and individuals may be undermined by speech and actions of political actors. Such actions, while sometimes covered by explicit legislation often fall outside of hate speech law and are more often covered by conventions, rules and regulations, not always associated with explicit sanctions. Nevertheless, actions by political actors in these grey areas may still be of consequence for the democratic quality of the public sphere. Importantly, they push representatives of institutions in this sphere, be they teachers, journalists, editors, event organizers, social media platform companies or museum curators to take decisions on whether or not certain actors, forms of speech or actions are permissible in a particular context. The second reason for the shift towards the public sphere has to do with characteristics of contemporary far-right parties dominating in Europe and beyond. These parties rarely challenge democracy outright, in terms of core elements such as the majority principle or popular sovereignty and they rarely engage in clear-cut hate speech. In this sense, they tend to fall outside the conventional framing of the problem in the research field, in terms of how democracies can protect themselves from actors that exploit the openness of democratic procedures to destroy democracy from within. 5 Contemporary parties rather tend to challenge key aspects of liberal democracy, such as the rights of minorities. Their political programmes and rhetoric are often built around thinly veiled xenophobia and sometimes explicit hostility towards certain groups of immigrants. 6 However, they are also often able to communicate this within the limits of what is legally permissible. In this sense the contemporary far-right mirrors the shift among post-war successors of fascist parties, from embracing biological racism to essentialist conceptions of national culture. 7 Democracies are thus faced with a growing subset of political actors often perceived as challenging important aspects of the broader catalogue of values underpinning liberal democracy, values that public sphere institutions are tasked to reproduce and, when necessary, to defend. This, we suggest, is at the heart of the strained relationship between the far-right and public sphere institutions in general, and public broadcasting in particular.
Few attempts to conceptualize dilemmas related to democracy's defense from this perspective exist and there is little knowledge on how dilemmas associated with the protection of democratic norms play out in these settings. By looking more closely at responses from public broadcasting organizations we hope to develop new perspectives on this aspect of democratic societies.
Our choice to focus on public broadcasting organizations is motivated by the key role of well-established public media organizations for a functioning liberal democracy. 8 The link between public broadcasting and democracy has been affirmed in most European countries. More broadly, in many European countries public broadcasting organizations are regulated through legislation that specify their key role for the strengthening of democratic norms. Public service institutions are regarded as serving unique functions in providing an inclusive public sphere and a well-informed citizenship. 9 The key role of public broadcasting institutions is also mirrored in the considerable levels of trust that European publics place in them. 10 Perhaps partly as a consequence of this role, public broadcasters constitute an important target for anti-system parties, especially on the far right. 11 Examples abound from across Europe. Public broadcasters are regularly accused by far-right groups and parties of forming "cartels" or a "mafia of political correctness" that silence oppositional voices 12 or, to take a US example, acting as the "enemy of the people." 13 Funding for public broadcasters have been discredited as "coercive fees" 14 resulting in efforts such as the Swiss SVP (Schweizerische Volkspartei) supported referendum in 2018 to abolish license fees in a bid to diminish the financial basis of public broadcasters. 15 The French Rassemblement National have fielded similar proposals. 16 In Sweden, the far-right Sweden Democrats (SD) have called for public broadcasting to align itself with SD's "nationalist-conservative" perspective while also questioning the impartiality of the current system. 17 It is, however, important to refrain from an idealized perspective on public service media as bulwarks against the far-right. Public broadcasters have to an extent been part of normalizing and mainstreaming far-right parties, for instance by framing contemporary events in line with narratives communicated by these parties and by providing visibility and raising their public profile. 18 Nevertheless, their key role as public sphere institutions in democratic societies underlines the importance of understanding how they navigate a political landscape increasingly populated by political actors at the far ends of the political spectrum. Thus, the question we aim to address is how public broadcasting organizations respond to political parties perceived to challenge key liberal democratic values.

Germany and Sweden: militant and social democracy
Our choice to compare Germany and Sweden is motivated by how the two countries differ and overlap in key aspects related to discussions on democratic self-defense. In terms of their constitutional settings and historical experiences the two cases closely approach divergent ideal types. Germany is the "prototypical case of post war militant democracy", informed by its historical experiences with Nazism. 19 The strong constitutional safeguards introduced after WWII as a shield against future anti-democratic threats include the possibility to take various actions against and, under certain conditions, ban political parties that are seen to threaten German democracy. In practice, efforts to ban political parties have rarely been successful. However, the militant aspects of German democracy extend far beyond this particular practice. For instance, the internal intelligence service tasked with protecting the constitution monitors the activities of political actors, parties and even elected officials that it suspects might work to compromise Germany's democratic order. Sweden, in contrast, is an example of a highly pluralist democratic model with few constitutional safeguards against anti-democrats. In Sweden the state cannot restrict access of anti-democratic actors to the political arena, it lacks a constitutional court and its constitution is, compared to most European countries, easy to revise. Otto Kirchheimer argued in the 1960s that in Sweden "tolerant values prevailed" so the country had "no need for such restrictive rules in contrast to countries like Germany". 20 Sweden's twentieth century history lacks experiences of invasion and non-democratic rule, with its Social Democratic party establishing a dominant position already in the interwar years.
Apart from these glaring differences, the countries share important similarities: both have seen the recent emergence of far-right parties. Compared to many other European cases the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and Sverigedemokraterna (SD) emerged from the fringes of the political landscape rather recently but have since then become significant political actors. 21 When it comes to the organization of public broadcasting the two countries have also been identified as forming part of the same type of media system and citizens in the two countries also nurture comparatively high levels of trust in public media. 22 Our comparison retains a significant explorative aspect, corresponding to the article's aim of developing new perspectives on discussions of democratic selfdefense. Our research strategy is to zoom in on crucial events that prompted reactions on the part of the public broadcasting organizations from 2010 and onwards. We are interested in instances where positioning in relation to far-right actors came to the fore and where debates have emerged on how to balance core values of broadcast organizations such as impartiality, objectivity and pluralism, with the democratic values that they are bound to uphold, for instance related to human dignity and the equal worth of all. This dilemma provides analytical starting points for our analysis of responses in the two countries.

Germany: public broadcasting as part of militant democracy
German public service was institutionalized after WWII as an instrument of democratic re-education and de-Nazification by the Allied occupational forces. On 21 November 1947 the American Military government ordered the institutionalization of public broadcasting organizations "as instruments of public service, free from the domination of any particular interested group: governmental, corporate, religious, or any other particular community element." 23 In contrast to public broadcasting in the Weimar Republic the new organization would be decentralized to safeguard against capture by a single political actor. While regulated under federal law it was to be funded by the states and steered by independent boards including representatives of key societal interests such as churches, unions, employers and political parties. 24 Public broadcasting was institutionalized as an integral aspect of the system of militant democracy (streitbare Demokratie). The law regulating the Central German broadcasting organization (MDR) states that its central task is to "defend democratic freedoms and be committed to truth." 25 The jurisprudence of the constitutional court has also established requirements related to balance, pluralism and impartiality in its contents and in its governance. 26 The 1949 South German broadcaster law (Süddeutscher Rundfunk Gesetz) stated that broadcasting must be "uncompromisingly devoted to the advancement of human ideals of truth, tolerance, justice, liberty and respect for the rights of the individual personality." 27 and not submitting to "the wishes or demands of any party, creed, or belief." 28 Similar provisions can be found in all West-German state laws. The Bavarian Broadcasting law states that public broadcasters cannot air programmes "which cause prejudice against individuals or groups because of their race, ethnicity, religion or world view or which may give rise to their disparagement, as well as programmes that offend moral or religious feelings". 29 At the same time all "political parties and electoral groups have during their participation in the elections (…) to be granted adequate broadcasting time if their election proposal is admitted in Bavaria." 30 In these laws the core dilemma laid out above, between openness, impartiality and pluralism on the one hand, and strong protections of democratic values, on the other, emerges clearly.
In the law for the West German public broadcaster (Westdeutscher Rundfunk) the tension between these two points is even more tangible. Public broadcasting programmes are obliged to "respect and protect human dignity. They should help to strengthen respect for life, freedom and physical integrity, for the beliefs and opinions of others." 31 But the law also states that the programmes have to ensure "that the variety of existing opinions and the religious, ideological, political, scientific and artistic trends are expressed in the overall program." 32 The tension between the role of public broadcasters to ensure pluralism while also being an extension of German militant democracy is inscribed at the heart of its legal framework.

The AfD and public broadcasting
The dilemma for public broadcasters gained broader public significance with the election of the far-right wing party AfD into federal parliament in 2017 with 12.7% of the vote giving them 100 seats in the German Bundestag. As of 2022 the AfD is represented in the federal parliament and in all 16 state parliaments although their support varies significantly in different regions. 33 Past instances where parties that more explicitly opposed the liberal democratic order had been excluded from public broadcasting news shows were largely deemed uncontroversial. 34 The AfD, by comparison, poses a far more difficult dilemma since it does not openly threaten the democratic basic order, and is admitted to run in state and federal elections. The evolution of the AfD further complicates matters. The party was founded in 2013 as a Eurosceptic conservative and market liberal party and did not, in contrast to many European far-right parties, emerge from extremist or neo-fascist movements. In a German context this is significant since it has made it more difficult for public institutions, such as public broadcasters, to fashion an unambiguous response to the party. However, during its short existence it has made a decisive journey towards a more clearly defined far-right party. 35 Its representatives, have made public statements that signal a disregard for the equal dignity of minority groups in society. For instance, MP Beatrix von Storch reacted on social media to a message by the Cologne police written in Arabic, "Why is an official police website from North Rhine-Westphalia tweeting in Arabic? Do you mean to appease the barbaric, Muslim, gang-raping hordes of men like that?" 36 Alexander Gauland, the former AfD head created controversy by relativizing the Nazi regime at a party rally, claiming that the Nazi period and Hitler were only a "a bird shit" in German history. 37 Björn Höcke leader of the party group in the parliament of Thüringen stated at a 2015 AfD rally, referring to asylum seekers "They are a burden for us" and that "[t]he nightmares are getting worse and worse, especially for blonde women." 38 Like many far-right parties gaining increasing popular support, representatives have become more careful with the type of statements made in public. Nonetheless, statements of this kind have continued to emerge from the party.
Moreover, the AfD has nurtured an often-hostile position towards public broadcasting organizations and its representatives have on several occasions walked out of live broadcasts, accusing them of being partisan and unprofessional and taking on "the brazen intolerance and clumsy arguments of the SPD and Greens" or threatening journalists with "massive consequences" due to perceived biased questioning. 39 In 2018 the AfD also created its own "newsroom" with various internet-based news channels the stated goal that "Germans at one point will watch AfD and not ARD." 40

Public broadcasting reactions towards the AfD
Despite the historical origins of German public broadcasting, and its organization as part of German militant democracy, its response to the AfD has been far from unified. Some public broadcasting shows have decided to exclude more extremist members of the party from their talk shows. For instance, the ZDF announced they will no longer invite Björn Höcke to these shows. At the same time the East German MDR (Mittel Deutscher Rundfunk) public broadcaster aired a half hour-long summer interview with Höcke in 2021. The editorial board of Hart aber Fair, a popular talkshow on ARD, decided not to invite the AfD politician Alexander Gauland in response to his "birdshit in history" statement. 41 However, another talk show, airing on the same public network kept continuously inviting Gauland and so does the political talk show with the widest reach in Germany, the ARD show Anne Will. 42 These uneven patterns have emerged although they operate under the same legal provisions on inclusion and human dignity, appearing in all the states' public broadcasting laws. While some AfD members have been banned after controversial public statements infringing on the respect for human dignity, no network or show has banned the party's representatives in general. Differences in approaches among the regional broadcasters may to some extent be understood in relation to the considerable differences in voter support for the AfD in different states. The most glaring differences are in evidence between Eastern states where the party in several constituencies received well over 20% of the votes in the 2021 elections compared to West-German states where party support hovered closer to the 5% threshold. However, as already noted, different decisions are sometimes taken even by shows at the same broadcaster.
Ambiguities in the treatment of the AfD is also manifested in how the party has at times been underrepresented in the four most important German public broadcasting talk shows. In the run-up to the 2017 elections appearances by the other parties mirrored more closely their seats in the German Bundestag with the AfD being consistently given less airtime (5.2% in talk shows, 12.8% seats in parliament). 43 Despite threats of legal action from the AfD in 2017 similar discrepancies were in evidence again before the 2021 election. 44 We do not know how often the AfD got invited but did not come to a talk show, however these discrepancies may indicate that broadcasters at times use less visible strategies against the far-right than clearly motivated exclusions. 45 The journalistic debate over AfD The question of the response by public broadcasters to the AfD has given rise to wideranging debates, involving both journalists and politicians. These debates highlight considerations related to the freedom of speech but perhaps more clearly conflicting positions on the role of public broadcasting as well as conflicting interpretations of to what extent the AfD actually challenges fundamental democratic values. These discussions came to a head in 2018 with the publication of a text by the public broadcasting host Georg Restle in 2018 making a "[p]lea for a value-oriented journalism" later evolving into the idea of the "attitude journalist" (Haltungsjournalist). 46 Restle argued that German journalists had an "obsession with neutrality". 47 By trying to be inclusive of the AfD they would become the party's "extended arm." 48 On the issue of neutrality Restle asked if "the truth always lies somewhere in the middle? And if the middle keeps moving to the right, does the truth lie with the right?" 49 In the context of these debates, Restle and jurist Fischer-Lescano argued that it is not enough that the AfD is allowed to participate in federal and state elections to be automatically represented in public broadcasting programmes. 50 Relying on article 5 of the Basic Law they pointed out that only political parties that are "advocates of the general interest" have to be included in public broadcasting events. Since the party, the authors argued, promotes "homogeneous ethnic nationalism" and opposes "essential basic rights such as freedom of opinion and broadcasting, the ban on discrimination or freedom of religionin other words, human dignity" they can be legitimately excluded from public broadcasting. 51 The authors thus emphasized the role of public broadcasting as part of the militant democratic framework.
Unsurprisingly, Restle's intervention sparked strong reactions from the far-right. AfD's Jörg Meuthen called the WDR journalist a "totalitarian villain" and a "repulsive enemy of democracy and free speech" demanding "disciplinary consequences." 52 Invoking a resemblance with East German state television programmes, the AfD announced in parliament that once in power they would abolish public broadcasting bringing "left-wing attitude journalism" to an end. 53 Restle nevertheless defended his position in a series of follow up articles and public debate statements arguing that "[a]nyone who offers the AfD the big stage for this does not support democratic discourse, but participates in the systematic attacks on our basic values." 54 Strong reactions also emerged from other journalists and mainstream politicians. The discussions among journalists crystalized in one side arguing for the exclusion of the AfD while others emphasized the importance of journalistic values of impartiality and pluralism, keeping an inclusive stance vis-à-vis the AfD. Counter positions to Restle identified his efforts as an "active campaign" against the AfD 55 criticizing the journalist's "missionary zeal (…) to promote a certain world view." 56 Mainstream politicians also intervened in the discussion, among them Liberal party MP Kubicki who criticized the public broadcaster ARD for a move away from "objective reporting" stating that "the range of opinions (in society) is not represented in a balanced way in the ARD" further criticizing "educational television" (Erziehungsfernsehen) of the public broadcasters. 57 The head of the WDR on his part stated the term "Haltung" gives him an "allergic reaction." 58 The debate indicates that journalists are far from united on how to deal with the AfD. The scope of the historically militant democratic role of German public broadcasting, and to what extent it would actually apply to a party like the AfD is at the core of these debates. Instead of a unified approach, the response from broadcasters have played out in the context of particular news shows and aimed at individuals that have made particular statements, rather than towards the party as such. The more principled approach against the AfD has instead divided journalists as well as politicians, and predictably, provoked strong reactions from the far-right.

Sweden: new democratic dilemmas in public broadcasting
Sweden's starting point differs significantly from that of Germany in terms of how its public broadcasting organizations developed. It was first established in 1925, taking the BBC as its model. Like other similar organizations across Europe and elsewhere, it was set up to provide impartial information and to contribute to a well-informed citizenry. It is notable, especially given the political context of the interwar years, that no obligations of the public broadcasting organization to protect democratic values where mentioned in government inquiries or legislation on radio broadcasting in the 1930s and 40s. 59 In sharp contrast to German public broadcasting it was thus not regarded as a tool to protect or defend democracy in any direct sense. More generally, in contrast to most European countries, Sweden had no experience of either war and occupation during the twentieth century or with authoritarian government since the introduction of democracy. Even during the inter-war years where political radicalism in terms of revolutionary communism and Nazism emerged as credible challengers to democracy in many places, these anti-democratic threats remained on the margins of Sweden's political debate. 60 Swedish public broadcasting was in this sense not borne out of an immediate concern with defending democracy and its fundamental values.
References to an obligation on the part of public broadcasting organizations to conduct their work in accordance with democratic values were not introduced until a law of 1966 stating that "The program activities as a whole shall be characterized by the basic ideas of the democratic state and the principle of the equal value of all human beings and the freedom and dignity of the individual." 61 The preparatory work for the law, initiated in the 1950s, stated explicitly the necessity of public broadcasting to actively embrace democratic values. 62 While emphasizing the importance of impartiality, the public broadcasting corporation should not remain neutral when it came to the fundamental tenets of democracy. 63 The "democracy clause" has since figured as a standard formulation in legislation regulating public broadcasting. It has also been extended and specified, especially as concerns gender equality. 64 It is also a provision highlighted in the guidelines for public service companies. 65 It is notable however these more specific demands on public broadcasting to uphold substantive democratic rights were for a long time more or less absent from public debate. In contrast to Germany, public broadcasting was not regarded as a bulwark against anti-democratic threats.

The Sweden Democrats and public broadcasting
Sweden, similar to Germany, for a long time stood out in a European context for lacking a far-right party with any significant share of the votes. 66 This changed in the 2010s during which the SD gained increasing support in each consecutive election, finally receiving 20.5% of the votes in the 2022 parliamentary elections, second only to the Social democratic party thus becoming a key supporting partner of a right-wing government coalition. With the ascendance of SD in Swedish politics, the "democracy clause" a previously little-known aspect of the regulation of public broadcasting, and its associated dilemmas, came into sharp focus.
The SD, in contrast to the AfD emerged out of extremist far-right and Neo-Nazi movements of the 1980s and 1990s. During the 2000s it moderated its political image, communicating in 2012 that it would no longer tolerate "racism and extremism" among its members. 67 Further on, in 2022 it published the first part of a "white book" meant to shed light on the extremist past of the party. Its evolution thus differs from that of the AfD in that it has put great efforts into marketing itself as a party that have severed the connections with its highly problematic origins. Nevertheless, and similar to the AfD, several of its representatives have been found to make racist statements, often online, and have, once these statements have been made public, often been forced to leave their positions in the party. 68 Officially, the party has instead retained what it refers to as socially conservative, nationalist and anti-immigration position. 69 Throughout its ascendance, the SD has nurtured an often-fraught relationship with the Swedish public service media and, like politicians of the AfD, its representatives have often argued that public broadcasting is highly biased. 70 Tensions ran high in the run-up to the parliamentary elections of 2010 when SD was excluded from the final televised party leader debate. 71 As late as September 2022 a high-ranking member of the party demanded "fundamental reform" of public service after a guest in the main news programme had referred to information about the party's extremist roots in SD's own white book. 72 Similar demands on reshaping public service media has been recurring theme in SD's rhetoric, and proposals tabled in parliament. 73 An unprecedented 2020 petition from the party demanded that the executives of the public broadcasting organizations be called to the Parliament Committee on Cultural Affairs to answer questions about "lack of impartiality" on the part of the broadcasters. 74 Similar to AfD, SD has focused on what it considers to be biased and unfair characterization of the party by public broadcasters as well as biased reporting on political issues.

Reactions by public broadcasting to the Sweden Democrats
During the 2010s Swedish public service television (SVT) increasingly found themselves in situations where it was pushed to take decisions on how to relate to a political party that was on the one hand gaining increasing electoral support while, on the other, being deemed by some to infringe on fundamental values that public broadcasters are bound to protect. During the decade the Sweden Democrats became an increasingly normalized part of the political landscape and as of the 2022 election it was included as part of the formal parliamentary support underpinning the center-right government. What our analysis highlights is firstly that the impact of legislation on actual responses from the main public broadcaster Sveriges Television (SVT) has been ambiguous. Where this dilemma has played out in concrete instances, striking a balance between impartiality and the protection of particular values has often proved difficult.
The dilemma we discuss in this article is explored here through a series of decisions by the Swedish Broadcasting Commission (SBC) taken during the 2010s. The Commission is an independent government appointed body to which citizens can file complaints regarding breaches of the rules applicable to Swedish broadcasting corporations. Among other things, it evaluates complaints regarding breaches of legislation and the license agreements that regulates public service broadcasting. To capture the specifics of these debates the focus here is on decisions where the Commission found SVT guilty of implicitly or explicitly taking positions against statements on the part of SD, or indeed, failing to do so. 75 The Commission's decisions highlight how neither constitutional provisions nor legislation applicable to public service, for instance requiring a commitment to particular democratic values, like the respect for equal dignity, can alone explicate particular responses, or why they spark debate. The scope of application of these rules, while seemingly clear, are in the concrete application ambiguous and highly dependent on the particular context in which statements are made.
The perhaps most controversial and intensely debated event involving the Sweden Democrats and SVT occurred during the final party leader debate hosted by SVT two days before the 2018 parliamentary election involving all party leaders in Parliament.
Here the party leader, Jimmy Åkesson, said "why is it so difficult for these people to get a job? It is because they are not Swedish. Because they do not fit in in Sweden." 76 In immediate conjunction to the debate the host announced that the statement was "severely generalizing" and that "SVT takes exception" to such statements. 77 SVT's announcement sparked intense reactions and a wider debate on whether or not the announcement had been justified or if SVT had breached its impartiality. The Broadcasting Commission received around 200 separate complaints regarding the debate, some arguing that Åkesson's statement should be considered as hate speech and many others arguing that SVT had illegitimately taken a political position against SD. The Commission concluded that in issuing the statement in this context and in this way, SVT had indeed compromised its obligation to impartiality. 78 SVT on its part argued that its actions fell under rules applicable to statements that could be perceived as derogatory and as questioning the equal worth of individuals in that the statement could be interpreted as arguing that immigrated Swedes could be defined as non-Swedes. 79 However, in the weeks after the debate, and before the Commission's decision, SVT also communicated that it would avoid making this type of explicit denouncements, and would instead work towards making the "democracy clause," an integrated part of its journalistic practice and reporting. 80 The Commission's motivation for its decision underlined that the SD leader's statement was made in the context of a debate with other party leaders and provoked responses from several of them. It also noted that the debate took place in close proximity to the elections and that the way in which the response was issued, in direct conjunction to the debate, risked the appearance of SVT taking a political position. 81 SVT has also received decisions against it for refraining from issuing such immediate denouncements. One such instance occurred during its coverage of SD's annual convention, televised by SVT, where one of the party members gave a speech arguing at some length that Muslims were not fully human. 82 The Commission subsequently reached a decision stating that SVT should have clearly and immediately signalled that the statement risked undermining the respect for the dignity of all humans in or in conjunction to the programme where the statement occurred. 83 It referred specifically to the democracy clause but also to the Commission's own precedents regarding restrictions on programmes that can be viewed as discriminatory and clearly offensive to members of a particular religion. 84 In this instance, the Commission concluded that SVT should have done more to directly denounce the statement of the party representative. The Commission issued a similar assessment regarding a 2016 news broadcast where a Sweden Democrat representative stated that the center-right coalition had, when in government, allowed "tens of thousands sexual offenders and terrorists without proper identification" to enter the country. 85 In its assessment the Commission found that the host should have issued a rebuttal, directly in the debate or directly after, supported by the democracy clause. 86 There are indications that debates and reporting have at times been shaped by the far-right's political outlook. In a 2022 decision against SVT, complainants pointed out that the broadcaster had taken on a "right-wing populist narrative" in a debate segment with party leaders labelled "Integration" where the speakers had been standing against the backdrop of an image of burning police cars. 87 The SBC found in this instance that SVT had breached the requirement of impartiality. 88 Here, the issue of broadcasters' role in normalizing the far-rights framing of political issues comes to the fore.
In two earlier instances the Commission found that SVT lacked in impartiality in reports where the SD were identified as a racist and Nazi party. 89 One report focused on campaigns in the run-up to national church council elections and the second concerned changes in guidelines for inviting representatives of political parties to schools as part of the civics education. In the church council election case, parts of a campaign video of the youth wing of the social democrats was included identifying the Sweden Democrats as "racists, homophobes and antifeminists" without critical commentary. A key reason for the assessment that the segment breached the requirement of impartiality was that it was broadcasted on election day, before the closing of the ballots. 90 In the second case SVT was found guilty of lacking impartiality and objectivity as guidelines aimed at stopping Nazi parties to visit schools were explained with imagery including the SD logo, leading the Commission to argue that SD had appeared as an example of a Nazi party. 91 Debates around responses to the Swedish far-right indicate that SVT has found it difficult to find its footing in relation to the dilemma between impartiality and fundamental democratic values. The way that the dilemma has played out in concrete situations highlight complicated trade-offs that not only include what is being said, but also issues related to the context, timing and more specific manner in which responses and characterizations of parties are formulated.

Comparative insights
In contrast to what the previous studies on militant democracy would suggest, and in contrast to our initial expectations regarding what we would find in the two cases, our study demonstrates that actions taken by German and Swedish public broadcasters in response to the increasing prominence of the far-right seem less clearly informed by the respective countries' constitutional environments. The two cases were chosen as they represent ideal typical cases, with Germany the paradigmatic case of a militant democracy, informed by its experiences of authoritarian rule, and Sweden a political system lacking such experiences and with little in terms of strong formal constitutional safeguards against anti-democratic threats. As was noted above, Germany's public broadcasting system was explicitly introduced as an integral part of its post-war militant democracy. Sweden, on its part, established its public service on the model of the BBC before the war and considerations related to democracy's protection appear largely absent in this process.
Our findings suggest that these stark differences do not cash out in clear differences in the actions of public broadcasters in the two cases. Public broadcasters in both cases have found it difficult to calibrate their response, having been faulted for lacking in impartiality and in other instances for not reacting decisively enough to statements. In Germany, the legacies of authoritarianism and the militant democratic legal institutions that these legacies brought about seem far less prominent in shaping the response by public broadcasters than we expected. The legal framework for public broadcasters in Germany clearly includes strong references to militant democratic concepts but these provisions do little in guiding public broadcasters when dealing with the AfD. Expectations that public broadcasting in Germany would take a far more protective and defensive stance are largely dashed. Here, it seems, professional ethics of journalists and a broader concern with safeguarding the public service media as a guarantor for impartial and non-political reporting often trumps the perceived need to respond forcefully to actors like the AfD. In Sweden, our study demonstrates an ambiguous response, with a considerable discussion of the "democracy clause" related to public broadcasting, and in particular one high-profile instance where it was applied in practice in the 2018 elections, generating considerable debate and backlash. This aspect of Swedish public broadcasting legislation, for a long time entirely absent from public debates, has thus come to the forefront. The lessons drawn by Swedish Television after the 2018 debate signalled the abandonment of explicit admonitions of actors and a stronger emphasis on more carefully considered editorial practices. In both cases we thus see a stronger emphasis on journalistic and editorial ethics rather than on references to constitutional provisions that might be mobilized to push back at far-right actors.
A less expected but clearer difference between the two cases is associated to the organizational structure of the state and the public broadcasting institutions in the two countries. Here the approach to the AfD has been shown to differ across regionally based public broadcasters. The varying electoral strength of the AfD, it seems, is an important factor shaping the reactions of state based public broadcasters. Moreover, the different degrees of ideological extremism that the AfD shows between different states impacts on the reaction of state public broadcasters. Germany's federal structure, both politically and in terms of its broadcasting system, is thus important for understanding aspects of the German response. This stands in contrast to Sweden, a unitary state with a centralized public broadcasting system, where these types of regional differences are largely absent. While one decision issued by the Swedish Broadcasting Commission concerns a report from a local news station covering the Stockholm region there is no evidence to suggest that there are noticeable differences in approaches across local news branches. 92 Hence, rather than strong effects of constitutional environments the structure of the public broadcasting system, in both cases corresponding to the overall organization of the political system, makes a difference in our two cases.
The insights emerging from our study should be interpreted in the context of a clear understanding of what characterizes the contemporary far-right, in these cases and more broadly in Europe, and which make the dilemmas faced by public broadcasters difficult to navigate. The AfD and SD both form part of a group of parties in Europe that have become increasingly normalized in a dual sense. First, their political programmes where overt nationalism and an often essentialist notion of "the people" informs a highly restrictive immigration policy have gained increasing popular support. This simple fact makes it difficult for media companies tied to the state to take an explicit stand against these parties in ways that might have been possible in the past. Second, these are also parties that have shifted their programmes and official rhetoric from previous more extreme ideological positions. This is especially the case with SD that grew out of Swedish Neo-Nazi movements of the 1980s and early 1990s. The internal communication and in web-based media outlets tied to the respective parties provide a less sanitized version of these positions. However, the ambiguity of their messages as well as wellrehearsed outrage when faced with accusations of racism and anti-democracy clearly makes the type of repressive measures implied by a militant democratic perspective difficult to justify. Even decisions to publish denouncements of political statements judged to fall outside of what can be broadcasted has often proved difficult. Considerations of viable responses to the far-right thus become even more complicated as parties become increasingly normalized parts of the political landscape, with more forceful responses likely to provoke criticisms among broader sections of society.

Conclusions
What are the conclusions for the usefulness of the notion of militant democracy, and more broadly democracy's protection, that we can draw from these empirical observations? It lies beyond the scope of the article to discuss the strategies that public broadcasters should employ in relation to the far-right. However, our analysis seems to suggest that responses should be less about taking decisions on whether or not to exclude or include actors. More often, the issue broadcasters are faced with is when to employ expressive tools to take a stand on particular statements. Whether desirable or not, this places a heavy burden on journalists and editors rather than on the state as imagined in the classical notion of militant democracy. In the current political landscape such more indirect expressive actions, if well-crafted, may be more effective than formalized declarations to signal that public broadcasters take exception to statements made by particular actors. As our comparison of the cases suggest, constitutionally enshrined rules in Sweden as well as in the context of Germany, with its constitutional legacy of militant democracy, are difficult to translate into clear guidance for broadcasters. That said, we should not discount the role these rules play in supplying the background values for the functioning of public sphere institutions such as public broadcasting organizations.
The political steering of the public broadcasters was not explored in the article, but our study hints at the need to take such issues into account when considering a reasonable response to the far-right. In Germany, representatives of political parties participate in the steering boards of public broadcasting companies. The possible influence of parties like the AfD on things like journalist appointments and editorial policies of public broadcasters represents a possibly fruitful avenue for future research. In Sweden there are ongoing calls from SD and the right in general, in government at the time of writing, to overhaul the shape of public broadcasting. These issues further complicate arguments for a more clearly defined response from public broadcasting organizations. Translated to a general principle for how to manage such organizations, such responses might provide problematic precedents once the management changes.
Theoretically, our analysis helps demonstrate how dilemmas related to democracy's protection require analyses sensitive to contextual specificities. Public service broadcasting, and its role for democracy, shifts across societies, and emerge from different historical experiences. This, we argue, sets the stage for studies exploring more general patterns of responses in European public broadcasting, taking differences in such experiences and constitutional traditions into account. While this article has focused on public broadcasting, we think that the dilemma that these actors are faced with is ubiquitous in contemporary democracies. While similar to that identified in conventional discussions on militant democracy, restricting actions and speech by actors deemed to challenge democracy in the name of protecting democratic values, it emerges in new forms in institutions in the public sphere. This points to the need for focused normative work to clearly define the values at stake when taking decisions on such dilemmas. Such work can also supply theoretical starting points for studies of the concrete ways in which the dilemma manifests itself in different settings. This may include not only public broadcasting but more broadly institutions such as schools, universities, museums as well as, increasingly, big social media platforms, which while private actors are increasingly becoming an intrinsic part of the public sphere of democratic societies. This also points in the direction of much needed empirical work that would identify the factors that shape responses to anti-system actors more systematically than we have been able to do in this article, as well as teasing out the possible consequences of different institutional responses for the broader quality and legitimacy of democracy.