The rise of populism is one of the most significant political phenomena of the last decade. Although populism has been studied from various perspectives, especially in recent years, there is still number of unresolved issues related to the phenomenon. One of them is a question of the relation between right-wing and left-wing populist policies. In this context, the thesis deals with the case of the 2017 French presidential election. In this vote, both right- wing populist Marine Le Pen and left-wing populist Jean-Luc Mélenchon achieved extraordinary political success. The thesis examines policy content of the selected thematic areas that the candidates were focusing on during the election campaign. It specifically examines electoral programs and media statements of the candidates as the sources of their policies. The thesis provides an analysis of the policy content of individual candidates, as well as a comparison of the policies in the selected thematic areas. Its main output is a description of the common and different features of the pre-election promises of the two selected populist politicians.

This thesis challenges the traditional interpretation of the history of Populism in America through the use of an intensive regional study. Using precinct-level returns, this thesis proves that, contrary to the conclusions of more general studies, voters from predominately Populist areas in North Texas did not support the poll tax amendment that passed in November 1902. The Populists within this region demonstrated their frustration and distrust of the political process by leaving the polls in higher percentages than other voters between 1896 and 1902. The Populists that did participate in 1902 reentered the Democratic Party but did not support the poll tax, which was a major plank within the Democratic platform. This thesis also proves that the poll tax had a significant effect in reducing the electorate in North Texas.

The political party Sweden democrats became Sweden’s third largest party in 2014 after entering the Swedish parliament back in 2010 for the first time. During this time discussions about the party background and ideology have increased both from other parties and in the society. The controversy surrounding the party can partly be traced back to its foundation and the period before the party entered the national parliament in 2010. Sweden democrats was founded in 1988 by the remains of two right wing extremist movements, today the party has distanced itself from Nazism and calls itself a social conservative party. According to studies Sweden democrat’s ideology is considered as right-wing radical populism. This difference of identification is a problem, because it creates questions why it exists. Are the Sweden democrats really a social conservative party or is the party rendering a false image, and why. In this essay I will use ideal types of the two ideologies social conservative and Right-wing radical populism to evaluate which ideal type can describe the ideology in the party materials of the Swedish democrats most adequate. Additionally this essay will compare the ideal types to see how different the two ideologies are. The analysis and conclusion shows that the two ideologies differs from each other, but they share a few aspects. The evaluation of Sweden democrats party material does show that the party shares the fundamental value of right-wing radical populism and contains attributes from that theory, including etno-nationalism and etno-pluralism. The essays conclusion is therefore that Sweden democrats appears to be a right-wing radical populist party. That creates a question for future research, why the party identify itself as a social conservative party.

<p>The purpose of this study is to present populism as a political phenomenon and to impose focus on the rightwing populist parties that are active in Scandinavia. This essay begins with a presentation of the three rightwing political parties in Scandinavia. The rightwing populist parties have successfully developed their rhetoric and effectively influenced the political establishment in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The parties that the essay focuses on are the</p><p>Swedish democrats (SD), the Norwegian Progress party (FRP) and the Danish People`s party (DF). These parties are interesting in the sense that they share many opinions and are active in comparable political atmospheres, but also that they use approximately the same rightwing populist rhetoric as a way of exerting leverage on political policy.</p><p>The theoretical segment is constructed on a descriptive historical background of populisms three different phases. It begins with the classic populism then the “dissatisfaction party” and in conclusion, today's rightwing populism. The theoretical segment also addresses populisms ideological foundations and its contents. This includes the country of birth, the people, welfare “chauvinism” on ethnic national grounds, targeted dissatisfaction, criticism against representative democracy, populisms dynamic structure, hostility to foreigners and stranger distrust. The empirical analysis of the political parties is based on seven starting points: basic values, views on peoples worth, most important unit in society, method for social change, political forms of managing, economic organization and utopia. To illustrate these points a comparison between the average parties is done, by examining their respective party agendas.</p><p>The conclusion is drawn that there are few resemblances between the political parties examined; the differences considered are clearly stronger than the resemblances. The</p><p>differences lie mostly in basis values, most important unit in society and political forms of managing. Furthermore are the resemblances only partial. The parties were most similar in</p><p>relation to the family’s position in the society. SD and DF can be said to have similar ideologies while FRP’s ideology differs somewhat. SD and DF can be described as conservative nationalist parties, while FRP is a mixture of neoliberalism and conservatism. After studying each party’s principle agendas it can be established that all three parties utilize</p><p>rightwing rhetoric.</p><p>Keywords: rightwing populist parties, Swedish democrats, Norwegian Progress party and Danish People`s party, theoretical and analytical structure, empirical analysis.</p>

Falupartiet anser sig själva att inte styras av någon av de klassiska ideologierna, de anser då att de styrs av något annat som har att göra med vad som är det bästa för Falu kommun, men vad betyder det och vad innebär det ideologiskt? Det bör innebära att Falupartiet är styrda av en lokal ideologi? Syftet med denna uppsats är att analysera fram Falupartiets lokala ideologi för att skapa en större förståelse för den. Uppsatsens frågeställningar vill besvara vilka av de klassiska ideologierna som styr de nationella partierna som även styr Falupartiet, även om Falupartiet förnekar sig styrda av dem. Frågeställningarna vill även undersöka om det kan finnas spår av lokalpopulistiska drag i att endast påstå sig styras av lokala intressen. Detta kommer att göras med en kvalitativ diskursanalytisk metod och med hjälp av teorier om ideologisk analys där ideologin delas upp i huvudpunkter för att analyseras separat. Analysen kommer att göras endast på Falupartiets textmaterial från deras hemsida. Analysresultaten visar att Falupartiets ideologi innehåller en stor blandning av flera olika ideologier vilket samtidigt kan ses som populistiskt. Falupartiet har ingen extrem ideologi men deras ideologiska kärna bör ses som högerkonservativ, med vissa populistiska drag. / The local Falun party is claiming not to be steered by any of the classical ideologies that the national parties have, they claim that they are steered by something else that has to do with what is the best for Falun community, but what does that mean and what kind of ideology is that about? It must be some kind of local ideology? The purpose of this paper is to analyse the Falunparty’s ideology to create a bigger understanding about it. It will do that thru the method of discourse analysis and with help of theories about ideological analysis where you separate the ideology into different headlines. And this analyse will only be done on the Faluparty’s text material from their website. The questionnaire’s in this paper wants to answer to what kind of ideology the local ideology is made of by comparing it to the national classical ideologies that the party is claiming not to be steered by. This paper is also questioning if this local ideology has populistic undertones. The results show that the Faluparty has a mix of all kinds of ideologies, which in itself can be seen as populistic. They do not have any extreme ideology, but their primary ideological nature is slightly right-wing conservative, thus with a populistic behaviour.

This study looks at the effects of different elements of economic well-being on populist voting in nine European countries, primarily comparing the effect of past and current economic well-being to the effect of economic well-being regarding the future. With an hypothesis that economic well-being regarding the future will have a larger effect on populist voting than past and current economic well-being, the results are inconclusive and suggest the opposite, although statistically significant effects can be found for both having an influence on populist voting; primarily regarding household income, individual economic fairness, wealth distribution fairness and actively improving knowledge/skills for work.

Den eviga debatten kring public service roll i svensk demokrati har under vintern blossat upp rejält på nytt i och med Sverigedemokraternas utspel om att kalla in bolagens chefer till Kulturutskottet och Linus Bylunds uttalanden om att straffa partiska och osakliga journalister. Denna studie syftar till att utröna vad Sverigedemokraternas vision för public service är och hur den förhåller sig till övriga politiska partier, det förvaltningsrättsliga systemet och normativa teorier om medier. Studien undersöker detta genom en kvalitativ textanalys som inledningsvis fokuserar på Sverigedemokraternas vision av public service för att därefter även gå vidare och undersöka public service ur de tre andra perspektiven i syfte att ta reda ta reda på hur Sverigedemokraternas vision förhåller sig till dessa. Analysen ger för handen att den Sverigedemokratiska visionen – i komprimerat format – handlar om ett public service-bolag som i grunden behövs för att fylla viktiga funktioner i termer av demokrati och samhällsnytta som marknaden inte kan tillhandahålla. Bolaget ska ha ett grundläggande samhällsuppdrag och ett brett kulturuppdrag med storslagna svenska dramaproduktioner. Bolaget ska ha ett högt förtroende bland allmänheten, vara underställd omfattande granskning och bedriva ett extensivt nordiskt samarbete. Till en av de mest intressanta kontrasterna som uppstår kan nämnas hur det hos Sverigedemokraternas ledamot i förvaltningsstiftelsen, Linus Bylund, går att se likheter med det normativa sovjet-kommunistiska perspektivet. Det framgår även att Bylund konsekvent ger uttryck för en mer radikal och kollektivistisk linje jämfört med partiet. Detta är något som väcker stora frågor kring huruvida detta är att anse som en mer oslipad version av partiets syn på public service eller om Bylund driver public service i en egen riktning. / The perpetual debate concerning the role of public service broadcasting in Sweden has once again resurfaced. This time as a result of the Sweden Democrat’s request to summon the directors of the public service companies to the Parliament’s Committee on Cultural Affairs and Linus Bylund’s comments about punishing biased and unobjective journalists. The aim of this study is to examine the Sweden Democrat’s vision for public service broadcasting and how it relates to other political parties, administrative law and normative theory. The study examines this by a qualitative analysis of a wide range of documents including parliamentary bills, broadcasting licenses and academic literature containing normative media theories. The analysis shows that the Sweden Democrat’s vision – in summary – is about a public service company needed for fulfilling important functions in terms of democracy and public welfare that the private market is not capable of providing. The company shall have a basic societal mission and a wide cultural mission with grand productions of Swedish drama. The company shall have high trust among the public, be under comprehensive scrutiny and conduct an extensive Nordic cooperation. One of the most interesting findings when comparing the different perspectives is the similarities between Linus Bylund, who is the Sweden Democrats commissioner in the foundation that owns the public service companies, and the normative Sovjet-communist perspective. It is also apparent that Bylund seems to be constituting a more radical and collectivistic view compared to the party. This raises questions as to whether this is a cruder version of the party’s view or if Bylund is moving Swedish public service broadcasting in a direction of his own.

In this study I search for the real understanding of the Lauclanian concept of ”populism” from both the viewpoint of William Connollys essentially contested concepts and the conceptual historian Reinhart Koselleck. My starting point for the analysis takes its inspiration from the more contemporary notion of ”constructing the social” but tries to focus on a result that can be free from the highly abstract discourse theory put forward by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. The result is a peculiar paradox in which the concept of populism reconstructed by Laclau not only is contested but contested in such way that even the meaning of the word could lose its contextual use in place of another – the political. At the same time, the concepts favorability through a more common usage (or in Koselleckian terminology, its more democratized meaning) must be acknowledged, and in relation to the leftist political parties that uses this theoretic, strategic and analytical conceptual category it instead becomes much clearer why its usage is applied but also favoured by Laclau. It could be said that it is the most effective concept in determining the strategic discursive landscape and to shape it in favour of a future left-wing populist movement. At the same time, the concepts claim of being more democratic is not entirely as convincing in regard to the signifier that must be as empty as possible to fulfill the populistic demands of its political subjects. This means that its value entirely comes from the political subjects meaningful projection, and in one way only can be said to engage with these subjects through the channeling of the already expected dissent and disaffection of the people behind the discursive and overdetermined identities.

1 The thesis Populist Movements in the Czech Republic considers people and political groups using populist appeals which refer to "well-behaved people" and go against unfriendly élites. The thesis describes main topics of these political subjects, and on the base of it it develops a few populist families. In the introductory part, a few theoretical approaches to populism in general and its relationship with democracy are discussed. The main purpose of the thesis is to describe the environment of populist subjects in the Czech Republic and to classify them according to their similarities and cleavage lines.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the phenomenon of populism in Sweden among the Sweden Democrats and the Left Party, as well as their youth unions young Swedes and young left. The study applies the tool VDP analysis in which it is used as an instrument on the parties and their youth unions to identify ideas that mainly constitute their policy. To define populism, one uses Cas Mudde's definition as well as the four subtypes of populism: Complete populism, Exclucionary populism, Anti-elitist populism and Empty populism. The criteria for the different subtypes are tested with the help of the information from the VDP analyzes in order to apply a subtype and to identify differences between moderators and youth associations. The study shows that the Sweden Democrats' survey criteria for complete populism are similar to their youth union. The Left Party and the Young Left result is in criteria for anti-elitist populism. The study also shows that parties and youth unions do not differ in populist subtypes, but youth unions tend to stand out more in their policies compared to their parent parties. / Studies syfte är att undersöka fenomenet populism i Sverige hos Sverigedemokraterna och Vänsterpartiet, samt deras ungdomsförbund Ungsvenskarna och Ung Vänster. Studien tillämpar verktyget VDP-analys som används som ett instrument på partierna och deras ungdomsförbund för att identifiera de idéer som huvudsakligen utgör deras politik. För att definiera populism använder sig studien av Cas Muddes definition samt de fyra subtyperna tunn-centrerad populism, anti-elitistisk populism, exkluderande populism och fullständig populism. Kriterierna för de olika subtyperna prövas med hjälp av informationen från VDP-analyserna för att dels applicera en subtyp, dels för att identifiera skillnader mellan moderparti och ungdomsförbund. Studien visar att Sverigedemokraterna uppfyller kriterierna för fullständig populism likt deras ungdomsförbund. Vänsterpartiet och Ung Vänster uppfyller kriterierna för anti-elitistisk populism. Studien visar också att partierna och ungdomsförbunden inte skiljer sig i populistisk subtyp men ungdomsförbunden tenderar att sticka ut mer i sin politik jämfört med deras moderpartier.