Sweden Democrats Research Articles

The social origins of democracy in Sweden: the role of agrarian politics

ABSTRACT In discussions of Scandinavian democratisation, it is commonplace to argue that long-standing farmer representation in parliament and a lack of feudalism facilitated early democratisation. The present essay questions this interpretation in the Swedish case. It centres on a re-interpretation of farmer politics at the national level from the 1866 two-chamber parliament reform to the alliance between the farmers’ party and Social Democrats in 1933. It is shown that democratisation was late and rapid; the 1866 reform was profoundly undemocratic. Swedish farmers did not organise themselves independently of nobles and landowners until the 1920s, and did not play the role of an independent pro-democratic force. The broad-based organisations of farmers in the 1920s and 1930s, with their democratic, participatory culture, were heavily influenced by the political culture of liberals and the labour movement. The implication for analyses of democratisation is that deep roots are less decisive than often supposed, and that modern political agency and organisation conversely, in contrast to influential research traditions and theories of democracy, can reverse undemocratic traditions.

A Socio-Political Success Story Involving Social Democracy: The Case of Sweden

The subject of the research is the ideology of social democracy and its applications in Sweden. As a matter of fact, every social democrat has his own personal answer to the question of what social democracy means. Social democracy is not, and never has been, a party with a fixed set of dogmas upon which every member must swear. It has a tradition of ideas shaped by more than a century of theoretical discussion and practical politics, and its development can be followed in party manifestos. Therefore, the subject of this research that includes Sweden, a Scandinavian state ruled by the Social Democratic Party for decades and the success story of social democracy there, which has transformed into a unique version of the achievements from central/local democratic administration to democratic economic prosperity and thus from long-term and high-level social peace to social justice and sustainable development, seems important as it is worth examining as a unique example that should always be explored. The research aims to examine the social democracy ideology and the success factors of this ideology, which has achieved success in the Scandinavian geography, through the case of Sweden. In this research, which mainly accepts the qualitative research methodology, the deductive approach is adopted, and the research is benefited from scientific research methods such as content and document analysis on 26 scientific documents, discourse analysis on 9 scientific documents, and hermeneutics as well. Within the scope of the literature review of the research, the basic scientific data and discourse sources are written documents, the sources used in the research are mostly recent scientific documents such as books, articles, reports (between 1990-2020), official publications of the Swedish Statistical Institute and the Swedish Social Democratic Party’s official party documents and publications between 1930-2000 are also scanned and examined. As the main results reached in this research are as follows; (a) it will be demonstrated that the Swedish Social Democratic Party has developed as a social movement in the country by and through the working class; (b) analyzes and determinations of the main factors and parameters of the Scandinavian success of the ideology of social democracy in Sweden will be described; (c) compared to other parties and movements in Sweden for decades, findings and determinations will be made as to why Swedish history is also related to the identity and special nature of the country's Social Democracy Party and the workers' movement. Anahtar Kelimeler: İsveç, Demokrasi, Sosyal Demokrasi, Sosyal Demokrasi Partisi

Economic and Social Outsiders but Political Insiders: Sweden’s Populist Radical Right

AbstractWe study the politicians and voters of the Sweden Democrats, a major populist radical-right party. Based on detailed administrative data, we present the first comprehensive account of which politicians are selected into such a party. Surveys show that politicians and voters of the Sweden Democrats share strong anti-establishment and anti-immigration attitudes that drastically set them apart from Sweden’s other parties. Searching for individual traits that link naturally to these attitudes, we classify the universe of Swedish politicians and voters by social and economic marginalization and exposure to immigration. Politicians from the Sweden Democrats over-represent marginalized groups without strong attachments to the labour market or to traditional nuclear families, which instead are under-represented among politicians in all other parties. Among voters, the Sweden Democrats have higher electoral support in precincts with higher shares of the same marginalized groups. We see the mobilization of the marginalized as an important driver of the party’s success. Finally, we uncover that Sweden-Democrat politicians score lower on a number of valence traits than other-party politicians. In sum, the rise of the Sweden Democrats raised political representation for marginalized groups, but this came at a valence cost.

”Det känns som att jag bara sitter och väntar på att det ska explodera” - politisk påverkan på de kommunala folkbibliotekens verksamhet i sex sydsvenska regioner.

Public libraries are one of several institutions that uphold Swedish democracy. The representative liberal democratic model, expressed in the Library Act, is increasingly being questioned and challenged. Political actors, mainly from the radical right, advocate a democracy focused on the will of the people at the expense of the rights of individuals. With the notion of plural agonistics, public libraries can be seen as important arenas for debates and meetings between people, offering ways to handle conflicts within democratic institutions. Methodologically, this study employs the perspective of institutional ethnography, and the aim of this paper is to develop knowledge about public libraries’ experiences of political pressure and how this is enacted in a time of political turbulence. This paper reports findings from the first stage of a survey study directed at public library managers in 77 municipalities from the six southernmost regions of Sweden. Based on replies in these surveys, interviews were conducted with seven of the participating library managers. Findings show that the interplay between libraries and the local political level, and between national and local political levels, generally functions without notable opposition. Illegitimate political pressure is uncommon, but when it occurs, it is primarily triggered by issues connected to cultural diversity. Results further indicate that local public libraries tend to respond to illegitimate political pressure by development and use of professional policy documents, but also, in some cases, by avoiding certain activities.

Mechanisms of Electoral Support for Populist, Far-Right, and Anti-Immigration Parties: A Comparative Analysis of the Electoral Successes of AfD in Germany and SD in Sweden

European politics are changing constantly. Moreover, the changing demography of Europe have had far-reaching effects on these. In reaction to the immigrant inflow, political parties across Europe changed their policies. Further, new political movements, generally with a far- right stance, formed at a dizzying rate, each offering increasingly radical policy solutions. These parties' impact is frequently larger than their small vote totals would imply, allowing them to influence more popular parties' policies. To understand what these far-right populist parties can do, one can take a closer look at the circumstances in Germany and Sweden. In Germany, AfD has had surprising and evocative effects. Sweden also has its own example through Sverigedemokraterna (The Sweden Democrats). This article attempts to understand the potential motivations behind the rising electoral support towards various anti-immigration and political parties throughout Europe by analyzing the changing dynamics in Germany and Sweden through their respective prominent far-right political movements.

Sympathizing with the radical right: Effects of mainstream party recognition and control of prejudice

The electoral success of radical right parties throughout Western Europe is the biggest change to these formerly stable party systems. Several studies have identified that mainstream parties can shape the trajectory of radical right parties. Our aim is to contribute to this literature, and to investigate if and how radical right parties gain from mainstream party recognition. Theoretically, we draw on the literature that has suggested that when aiming to explain the legitimization of radical right parties, we need to consider that many individuals in Western Europe are influenced by an anti-prejudice norm when forming preferences towards such parties. We hypothesize that when mainstream parties signal that it is acceptable to associate with radical right parties’ they challenge the anti-prejudice norm that dissuade voters from such parties. In addition, individuals with lower internal motivation to control prejudice (IMCP) are more susceptible to be affected by mainstream party recognition of radical right parties as those with high IMCP have a stronger internalized anti-prejudice norm. We evaluate the effects of changes in the normative context in a survey experiment (N = 1133) by manipulating mainstream party legitimization of a radical right party, the Sweden Democrats, before the Swedish parliamentary election in 2018. Our results suggest that when mainstream parties challenge the anti-prejudice norm, individuals are more likely to sympathize with radical right parties. Moreover, the effect of mainstream party recognition is moderated by IMCP – individuals with a low motivation to appear non-prejudiced are more influenced by mainstream party legitimization of a radical right party.

Teacher’s stories about teaching newly arrived refugee youths at a vocational upper secondary school in Sweden

This article presents the stories of four teachers teaching newly arrived refugee youths at a vocational upper secondary school. The youths came to Sweden in 2015 and later, and they live in a so-called vulnerable area. This is a period when many unaccompanied children and adolescent refugees arrived in Sweden. The study aims to contribute to knowledge about teaching newly arrived refugee youths and the way these youths can influence teaching in a vocational school. The methodological and theoretical starting point for the study is based on a narrative perspective. The stories are analysed thematically and show that these students have great solidarity with each other, are ambitious, and create a good mood in the classroom. In addition, there is always “someone” who does not believe in democratic values, although most of the students value the Swedish democracy and equality between men and women. The expulsion decision that some students receive affects the teachers’ teaching as well, since it means that they also have to deal with teaching situations where their students’ lives and deaths are involved in the sense that they are refugees threatened by expulsion.

Xenophobia among radical and mainstream right-wing party voters: prevalence, correlates and influence on party support

ABSTRACT Considering the current political relevance of anti-immigration sentiments, we examined preference to avoid interacting with immigrants – conceptualized here as a manifestation of xenophobia – among radical (Sweden Democrats, Sverigedemokraterna, N = 2216) and mainstream (Conservative Party, Moderaterna, N = 634) right-wing voters in Sweden. Correlates of xenophobia did not differ between the voter groups or compared to other populations in previous research, suggesting that increased societal focus on immigration has not altered the correlation patterns. Intended Sweden Democrat (vs. Conservative Party) voting correlated with Right-Wing Authoritarianism, institutional distrust, less right-leaning socioeconomic attitudes (in both low- and high-xenophobia subgroups), sexist attitudes (low-xenophobia subgroup), male gender and younger age (high-xenophobia subgroup). In both voter groups, respondents with higher xenophobia expressed on average more sympathy for the Sweden Democrats, perhaps indicating a larger potential voter base. We discuss the interplay of xenophobia and contemporary voting behaviours, and the concept of xenophobia in relation to anti-immigration attitudes.

Assessing pariah party status: Concept operationalization and the case of the Sweden Democrats

AbstractThis study presents a novel operationalization of pariah party status, conceiving of pariah status in terms of two continuous dimensions involving (1) a party's coalition potential, and (2) a party's legislative cooperation potential. Recent success of radical right parties has been identified as a common trend throughout Western Europe. Research has focused on mainstream parties' strategies toward these controversial challengers, as well as why some controversial challenger parties are involved in collaborations but others are not. Yet, an elaborate discussion—disentangling the status as pariah—has hitherto been absent in the literature. The article further demonstrates the usefulness of the suggested operationalization, using the Sweden Democrats as an empirical example. When entering parliament in 2010, the Sweden Democrats were a complete pariah party. Recently, however, the party's status has evolved and the Sweden Democrats are now to be regarded as partly pariah.

An ideology-critical examination of the cultural heritage policies of the Sweden Democrats

ABSTRACT Cultural heritage is increasingly used as a political force to achieve societal goals. This is specifically noticeable in the rhetoric of right-wing nationalist parties in Europe. Cultural heritage and ‘politics of the past’ have become key tools in explicit nationalist agendas and right-wing politicians are using cultural heritage to attract disenchanted voters. But how is cultural heritage constructed through these processes? The aim of this paper is to explore the constructions and uses of cultural heritage within the Swedish nationalist party the Sweden Democrats (SD). With non-government bills formulated by the Sweden Democrats as a point of departure, the paper illustrates how an ideological fantasy is reproduced, which is based on establishing a direct connection between the party’s seemingly non-ideological ideology and ideas about an authentic Swedish cultural heritage. The latter reflects a ‘return’ to neorigorism, which refers to the belief in cultural heritage as an objective, given, and non-negotiable, phenomenon.

Government Formation and the Radical Right: A Swedish Exception?

AbstractThis article tests the claim that government cooperation between mainstream parties and radical right parties can be explained by coalition theory. It does so by analysing three Swedish cases of coalition formation where the radical right Sweden Democrats (SD) have remained excluded despite holding a pivotal position in the parliament. It argues that, with the right analytical tools, this exclusion can be explained by coalition theory: cooperation with the SD has been unattractive in terms of policy, and unnecessary because the mainstream parties have been able to form viable minority governments. This argument requires three things: first, that we consider the two-dimensional nature of Swedish politics; second, that we shift the focus from majority government to viable government; and third, that we acknowledge strategic time horizons that extend well into the future. The findings contribute to our understanding of coalition formation and of how mainstream parties respond strategically to the radical right.

‘We are the Others’: A literary analysis of the rise, fall and resurrection of Ultima Thule’s Viking-rock

Viking-rock grew out of the diminishing Swedish punk scene in the early 1980s and is lyrically linked to British Oi! and the far-right ‘Rock against Communism’ (RAC) scene. Previous research on Viking-rock either emphasizes the genre as a cultural expression of the Swedish white power milieu of the 1990s or as a product of the skinhead subculture. However, critical analyses of Viking-rock lyrics are scarce. This study emphasizes the development of the Other, as expressed in the lyrics of Viking-rock flagship band Ultima Thule from the 1980s to the 2010s, in relation to the development of the political party the Sweden Democrats. The lyrics are analyzsed from a comparative literature perspective that draws upon both borealism and the concept of the subaltern as an anti-intellectual voice of power as well as the idea that long-lasting political change is preceded by cultural change. The results suggest that Ultima Thule’s lyrical Other has gone from vague to distinct characterization. Ultima Thule also makes use of self-victimization when confronting journalism and intellectualism, much like the Sweden Democrats’ own view of themselves as political outcasts. Ultimately, the lyrics toe the party line and describe nationalists as an outcast Other in an alleged, politically correct, discourse.

Backlash in policy attitudes after the election of an extreme political party

This paper studies how public attitudes towards reduced immigration, the signature policy of the far-right Sweden Democrats, respond once the party increases their political representation at the local level. To identify causal effects, we use panel data from 290 municipal election districts and compare otherwise similar elections where the Sweden Democrats either barely win or lose an additional seat. We estimate that a one seat increase for this far-right, anti-immigration party decreases negative attitudes towards immigration by 1.8 or 4.1 percentage points (depending on which national survey we use), contrary to the party’s policy position. Consistent with these attitudinal changes, we find suggestive evidence the Sweden Democrats lose the incumbency advantage experienced by other small parties in Sweden. Exploring possible mechanisms, we find evidence for higher politician turnover and a rise in negative newspaper coverage. These findings demonstrate that political representation can cause an attitudinal backlash as a fringe party and their ideas are placed under closer scrutiny.

Null effects of neighbourhood increases in visible minorities on radical right wing party mobilisation

In many European countries, a growing share of population with immigrant background coincides with the surge in support for radical right parties. In this paper we show how such increases affect radical right candidacy. We use Swedish register data which identifies political candidates. With geocoded data, we match individuals running for the Sweden Democrats to their local neighbourhood contexts, and measure changes in the share of visible minority residents at scales ranging from 100 meters to 2 kilometres. For those who stayed in the same neighbourhood between 2006 and 2010, the change in the share of visible minorities generally does not affect the decision to join the pool of party candidates. This result is robust when we introduce additional tests and select on the scale of the neighbourhood, unemployment terciles, change in share of visible minority groups terciles, and entry threshold into the pool of candidates. For those who stayed in the same neighbourhood, the only significant finding is a small mobilisation effect for a subsample of individuals who live in densely populated metropolitan neighbourhoods – here we also observe a halo effect, with negative association for small-scale changes and positive association for changes in the larger halo zone.

Imbrications of gender and religion in Nordic radical right populism

ABSTRACT We examine here how issues of gender and religion are employed for ideological purposes in the discourses of radical right populist parties in Sweden and Finland. We begin with the complexity of these societies as paragons of social welfare and gender equality, within which Lutheran Christianity discreetly underpins their largely secularised character. Employing a poststructuralist methodological approach, we analyse the key political speeches of the chairpersons of the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) and Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset/ Sannfinländarna). We unveil a complex interplay between gender and religion; gender equality is used strategically to strengthen and legitimise the separation between ‘the people’ and racialised Others, while references to religion are employed to rank the racialised Other as ‘less than’ the secular and modern ‘people’, and to oppose alleged inquisitorial attempts on the part of progressive left and liberal parties.

2018 Seçimlerinde İsveç Medyası, Temel Değerler ve Kanaat Koridoru

Sweden is usually ranking very highly in terms of global democracy and transparency indexes. The 2018 elections in Sweden were very divisive and bitterly fought, where there was an open conflict between the mainstream political establishment parties and the anti-political establishment Swedish Democrats. Mainstream Swedish media were not neutral bystanders in the election coverage, in the months before and after the September 2018 elections. The election coverage framing featured an idealised national myth that uses the notion of various acceptable fundamental values to define it, and an idealised Swedish society. Those actors whose values and norms that do not fit these ideals were subjected to attack and derision within a concept of consensus enforcement known as the opinion corridor, which is akin to the spiral of silence.

Regional hierarchies of discontent: an accessibility approach

Abstract We argue that so-called geographies of discontent work within regional hierarchies in a spatial continuum, whereas the previous literature has mainly invoked dichotomous divides, such as core-periphery or the North-South. A place’s relation to surrounding communities and regions remains an understudied topic. We analyse the municipal distribution of electoral support for Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna, SD) in the 2014 and 2018 Swedish national general elections. We show that higher accessibility to other large municipalities within the same region, as well as being surrounded by relatively larger neighbouring regions, is associated with further support for SD. The within-region associations are only reliably identified among the urban group.

A spatial analysis of parliamentary elections in Sweden 1985\u20132018

Understanding where and why political change is happening in a country is a fundamental issue in political geography. While electoral choice is individual, it is influenced by various sociological, cultural, and geographical factors postulated to create ‘cultural fields’ influencing individual decision-making. Here, we test the cultural field hypothesis on Sweden, an important democracy of Europe long regarded as an example by other European countries, by studying the middle-long-term evolution of the spatial structure of political choice over the last three decades. In testing the cultural field hypothesis, an analysis of spatial correlations is combined with groupings of Swedish municipalities into larger communities reflecting the similarity of their voting profiles. We show that spatial correlations decay logarithmically, which is a sign of long-ranged interactions, and also demonstrate that Sweden can be divided into three or four large and stable politico-cultural communities. More precisely, a transition from three to four main politico-cultural communities is observed. The fourth community, which emerged in the early 2000s is of particular interest as it is characterized by a large vote-share for the Sweden Democrats, while almost all other parties underperform. Moreover, the Swedish electoral landscape seems to be increasingly fragmenting even when the voting profiles of the municipalities over the country are slowly converging.

Attitudes towards globalization barriers and implications for voting: Evidence from Sweden

Using six waves of the Swedish National Election Studies (SNES) survey data, we investigate the determinants of attitudes towards globalization barriers (trade and immigration) and how important these attitudes are in how people vote. In line with the existing results in the literature, we find that more educated and richer voters support freer trade and more immigration. We also find that conservative voters in Sweden are more likely to prefer freer trade but higher immigration barriers. Once various economic and demographic determinants of globalization barrier preferences along with voters’ ideologies on a liberal-conservative spectrum are controlled for in the analysis of voting behavior, trade barrier preferences lose their statistical significance while attitudes towards immigration barriers remain significant. This suggests that immigration attitudes affect voting behavior through channels involving identity-driven factors that are different from the channels through which more traditional electoral issues, such as trade barriers, work. Focusing on the anti-globalization Swedish Democrats, we confirm that voters with a greater preference for barriers to immigration were more likely to switch their votes to this party from the 2014 to the 2018 election.

Culture wars? The (re)politicization of Swedish cultural policy

ABSTRACT Swedish cultural policy has long been characterized by broad political consensus, partially because it has only drawn very limited attention as an arena for political conflict. There are now indications that consensus around the Swedish model of cultural policy is breaking down. This article explores current criticism of cultural policy in Sweden from the established centre-right, and the populist right. As new political divisions are becoming increasingly important, cultural policy becomes a contested area, including a number of symbolically critical issues, e.g. multiculturalism, controversial modern art, and political influence on arts and culture. In current debates, the arm’s length principle is still widely supported in both, the centre-right, and the centre-left, but the centre-right is increasingly viewing current centre-left cultural policies as politicizing. The nationalist-populist Sweden Democrats stand out in their explicit focus on social cohesion based on Swedish cultural identity, and lower regard for the arm’s length principle.