Module: Party Variants - Political Party Name Normalization Framework

Essential party name normalization utility providing canonical mappings of Swedish political party names to their abbreviated codes. Prevents double-counting and analytical bias when multiple party name variants appear in the same content. Critical infrastructure for accurate party perspective analysis and coalition dynamics tracking.

Political Party Context (Swedish Riksdag - 8 parties):

• Socialdemokraterna (S): Left-wing social democratic party
• Moderaterna (M): Right-wing conservative/liberal party
• Sverigedemokraterna (SD): Right-wing populist/nationalist party
• Vänsterpartiet (V): Far-left communist party
• Miljöpartiet (MP): Green party (left-wing)
• Centerpartiet (C): Centrist/rural representation party
• Liberalerna (L): Classical liberal party
• Kristdemokraterna (KD): Christian democratic party

Party Naming Challenges: Articles often reference parties by multiple name variants (full Swedish name, English translation, formal abbreviation). Example: "Moderaterna" = "Moderate Party" = "M". Without normalization, party mention counting becomes inaccurate, leading to:

• Overstated party perspective counts (same party counted multiple times)
• Analytical bias (some parties may use translated names more frequently)
• Quality metrics misalignment (perspective diversity falsely inflated)

Normalization Strategy:

• Maps all party name variants to single canonical party code (S, M, SD, V, MP, C, L, KD)
• Prevents double-counting when both full names and abbreviations appear
• Ensures consistent party perspective analysis across content
• Enables reliable coalition analysis based on party groupings

Core Data Structure: PARTY_VARIANTS object maps canonical codes to arrays of name variants: { 'S': ['Socialdemokraterna', 'S'], 'M': ['Moderaterna', 'M'], 'SD': ['Sverigedemokraterna', 'SD'], // ... etc for all 8 parties }

Text Matching Implementation: extractPartyMentions() function implements robust text search:

• Uses Unicode-aware regex boundaries (\p{L}\p{N}) for proper word detection
• Handles non-ASCII characters: ä, ö, å in Swedish names
• Prevents false matches: searching "M" doesn't match "Moderaterna"'s M
• Searches HTML content directly (works with generated articles)
• Returns Set of canonical party codes found

Integration Usage Across Codebase:

• article-quality-enhancer.js: Counts unique parties for perspective diversity metric
• validate-evening-analysis.js: Extracts party mentions for analytical scoring
• news-evening-analysis.test.js: Tests party mention extraction accuracy
• Intelligence dashboards: Party affiliation tracking and coalition analysis

Intelligence Applications:

• Coalition dynamics analysis: Track party alliances and opposition blocs
• Perspective diversity measurement: Ensure balanced party coverage
• Political polarization tracking: Identify party positioning shifts
• Media bias detection: Identify systematic under/over-coverage of parties
• Electoral analysis: Monitor party popularity and messaging

Unicode Handling for Swedish Characters: Pattern: (?:^|[^\p{L}\p{N}])VARIANT(?=$|[^\p{L}\p{N}])

• \p{L}: Unicode letter (handles ä, ö, å, and all other scripts)
• \p{N}: Unicode number
• Prevents matching party codes inside word boundaries
• Works across all languages despite Swedish character specifics

Boolean Flags for Language Variety: If future expansion includes English translations or other languages:

• S: ['Socialdemokraterna', 'S', 'Social Democrats'] (if needed)
• M: ['Moderaterna', 'M', 'Moderate Party']
• Extension maintains backward compatibility

Data Protection:

• No personal identifiers stored or processed
• Operates on published party entity references only
• Complies with GDPR by not identifying individual politicians
• Audit trail of political party mentions in articles

ISMS Compliance:

• ISO 27001:2022 A.12.2.1 (change log maintenance - version control)
• NIST CSF 2.0 PR.DS-1 (data classification - public content)

Functions:

• extractPartyMentions(html): Searches HTML content for party references Input: HTML string from article Output: Set of canonical party codes (e.g., new Set(['S', 'M', 'SD']))

Usage Example: import { extractPartyMentions } from './party-variants.js'; const parties = extractPartyMentions(articleHtml); const uniquePartyCount = parties.size; // 0-8 const hasBalancedCoverage = uniquePartyCount >= 4; // Min 4 parties threshold