7 Continuity and Change in the Language of Politics at the Swedish Diet, 1769–1810

In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the Swedish form of government experienced major transformations: first from an absolutist to an estate-dominated system around 1720, then to an increasingly absolutist system after 1772 and finally towards an emerging constitutional monarchy from 1809 onwards. In 1809-10, the long tradition of representative government was divided into two versions, the Swedish and the Finnish. All of these transformations entailed considerable fluctuations in Swedish political discourse as well.