Stabilizing solutionism: – causal assumptions and the discursive politics of AI in the Swedish parliament

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly framed as a policy priority, with governments and international organizations portraying it as a driver of competitiveness, growth, and social progress. Critical scholarship has cautioned that such narratives of ‘technological solutionism’ carry performative power, shaping governance agendas while obscuring social and political alternatives. This paper contributes to this debate by examining Swedish parliamentary discourse between 2016 and 2022. Drawing on political discourse analysis, the study shows how members of parliament (MPs) construct AI through five recurrent argumentative themes: civilizational promise, strategic competitiveness, practical problem-solving, institutional adaptation, and ethical risk. These themes reinforce AI as inevitable and necessary, rendering investment and adoption a national obligation, while framing risks as governable through regulation. The analysis highlights the constitutive role of parliamentary discourse in stabilizing solutionist imaginaries and points to the need for more critical engagement with how parliaments shape the politics of technological futures.