The inclusion-moderation thesis argues that, as radical parties become included in coalition governments, their positions and rhetoric will moderate as a consequence of compromising with, and adapting to the parties they are governing with. With lacking empirical evidence, however, the effects of inclusion on radical parties are still not clear. The Sweden Democrats (SD), a Swedish radical right-wing populist party, became the country’s second largest party after the election of 2022 and received considerable influence through the “Tidö-agreement” with the new coalition government. They are thus a recent example of a radical right populist party gaining influence in Europe. This paper examines the rhetoric of the SD’s party leader, Jimmie Åkesson, before and after the election of 2022 through qualitative content analysis. The findings indicate that no moderation has taken place in their radical right populist rhetoric after inclusion. Furthermore, the nativist aspect of their rhetoric seems to have become far more pronounced, and increasingly influences other aspects of their rhetoric as well.

The thesis deals with the relation of social policy and budget policy of the Czech Republic in the period of 2000 - 2010. In the theoretical part there are explored principles,characteristics, functions, subjects and instruments of implementation of social policy. The concept of welfare state, its potentiality and limitations, including contemporary critical reflections, are discussed. As a theoretical background, in context of public choice theory, there is treated the question of political cycle influence on social policy. Attention is also focused on public budget system, particularly on the role of state budget. In the empirical part, aimed to deeper assessment of social dimension of the budget policy, are analysed data from the three electoral periods when different governments of social or civic democrats were enforcing different social policy. For electoral periods were collected and evaluated data regarding the four parameters: results of elections and govenrment profile, legislation acts of social policy, macroeconomic limitations, and expenditures of the state budget on social policy. With the help of the SWOT method were compared separate periods and were presented answers to the hypotheses H1 and H2, validating that the government of social democrats did not prefer more strongly social...

This essay intends to discover how a qualitative discourse of right-wing populismcan be seen within the Swedish parliament, by exploring how politicians in theparliament are using the "us against them" and if a scapegoat is created by doing so.The essay's key questions are going to examine the differences and similaritiesbetween the Social democratic government from 2020-2022 and the current centerright government compared to the opposition parties, between social democrats andcenter-right government on right-wing populist discourse, and what the media isnotifying about the political debate within the government. By doing so, we can find out important explanatory factors on why the shift inpolitics in Sweden has gone to more right-wing populist rhetoric, to understand whythis has been occurring in the Swedish government. By looking at the factors of whya rise of right-wing populism has occurred within different types of governmentparties and the type of similarities and differences they have on different parties’discourse about the framing of anti-immigration rhetoric.

The topic of this thesis is the disputes between the teacher strikes 1966 and 1971 and how the labour movement perceived the teachers and the srikes throught the perspective of class. Various text sources from different agents within the labour movement has been examined. Interprations of two marxist theories and Bourdieus theory of habitus has been used to define various ”class perspectives”. The thesis argues that the labour movement percieved the teachers as a different class from the labourer and that the strikes were percieved as a threat to the labour movements interests.

There has been a growing interest in applying concepts and strategies of brand management in the political sphere. However, it has been argued that the phenomenon of political brand image has been given little attention. Therefore the purpose of this study is to explore the political brand image of the Sweden Democrats from voters’ perspective. The choice of exploring the Sweden Democrats opposed to other parties is that it has tried to rebrand itself from its previous racist ideologies and from being a single-party issue party. The study is based on different theories about brand image. Three dimensions will be used, brand awareness, perceived brand quality and brand associations, in order to cover the phenomenon political brand image. This study is conducted as a qualitative case study with a realistic approach. The analysis and findings show that participants still have perceptions related to the party’s history and that it still to a large extent is perceived as a single-issue party. However, it has also appeared that the Sweden Democrats to some extent are on the right way to stop being associated with racism. Limitations within this study are, time restriction and lack of knowledge whether participants sympathize with the Sweden Democrats or not. The practical implication is that this study could be of use both of the Sweden Democrats and other parties who seek to explore political brand image. The original value of the study is that it acknowledges the three dimensions when exploring political brand image.

The Pariah Party Influence on Local Government Formation in Swedish Municipalities 2002-2018 This paper studies the correlation between the rise of the radical right party The Sweden Democrats and the rise of minority governments and bloc transcending/cross-partisan coalitions in Swedish local governments; the role of the Sweden Democrats in this development is studied and further its impact in the relation between right/left-wing governments. Taking off in classical coalition- and government formation theory together with the concept of pariah parties, I also continue to discuss the setting of local government in Sweden and its implication on local government studies in general. Regression analysis of formed government in the 290 Swedish municipalities over the last five local elections, 2002-2018, is used to answer the question of how the pariah party that is the Sweden Democrats, have affected the types of local government in Sweden. The study finds that the rise of the Sweden Democrats in Swedish municipal parliaments to a large extent can explain both an increase of cross-partisan coalitions and of minority governments. This can however only be said when the party holds the balance of power; just the size or sheer presence of the party in local parliaments does not seem to have a significant impact on government type. When the party does hold the power of balance, one can observe a significant shift in favour of right-wing governments over left-wing governments. Albeit not participating in government and being considered a pariah party, or perhaps because of this fact, the rise of the Sweden Democrats has significantly affected the character of Swedish local governments.

This study has investigated how the Swedish Christian Democratic Party (KDS) argued for the right of private actors to operate tax-funded schools outside of the public sector – charter schools. The hypothesis of this study was that KDS were openly positive to such a reform and saw it as a chance to run state-funded confessional schools.The study examined political texts produced by the party during a ten-year period, ranging from 1984 to 1994. The study’s methodological approach was one of a qualitative textual analysis, aided by a theoretical framework adapted from Samuel Moyn’s thesis in his book Christian Human Rights.The study concluded that there is empirical support to the thesis, and that KDS were very positive to a reform of the public school system in order to enable publicly funded private schools. There is less evidence to conclude that KDS intended for these schools to be confessional, although this study proposes that there is evidence to suggest as much.

This thesis aims to examine if performative populism exists within the Sweden Democrats and if the level of populism has changed over time. By using a gradational approach when conceptualising populism, it seeks to address a case of ‘mixed bags’. Furthermore, this paper address questions regarding how to measure populism and how to operationalise populism into context. Populism is conceptualised as a political style, according to Benjamin Moffitt’s work on populism. Thus, the performative side of the leader is central. This includes content, rhetoric, gestures and the theatrical side of the leader’s performance. By using a twofold methodological approach, a quantitative content analysis, followed by a qualitative one, both frequency of populist indications and how they relate to each other can be accounted for. Results indicate that populism exists within the Sweden Democrats, and that the level of populism seems to be increasing over time. Moreover, while the methodological approach is sufficient for measuring the level in terms of less and more, it cannot account for degree in terms of index.

The aim of this essay is to show if and how group identities are being constructed in maindocuments from three political parties in the Swedish parliament, focusing on class, genderand ethnic identities. The three parties who’s documents are being analyzed are theModerate Party, the Sweden Democrats and the Left Party. The conclusion of the essay isthat the Moderate Party is so focused on the individual that they are not promoting groupidentity based on class, gender or ethnicity. The Sweden Democrats are mostly discussing,and therefore creating a discourse of, cultural identity, where Swedish, Nordic, Europeanand Western culture are being created as the ‘us’, and others are being created as ‘them’.They are also promoting difference between men and women, therefore dividing the sexesin groups. The Left Party are focused on class, and are dividing people in working class (themajority) and the elite (the minority). They are also creating a ‘us’ and ‘them’ whilediscussing the patriarchy, a system in which the man is superior and the woman is inferior.

Denna uppsats syftar till att undersöka Sverigedemokraternas kriskommunikativa försvar efter kritiken som uppkom mot partiet i samband med högerextremisten Anders Behring Breiviks massmord på Utöya 2011. I detta har jag ur ett narrativt perspektiv undersökt partiledaren Jimmie Åkessons förklaring till krisen och hur denna samspelar med partiets interna berättelse. Den första delen av resultaten visar att Åkesson strukturerar ett narrativ där uppkomsten av krisen för Sverigedemokraterna förklaras genom att det bedrivs en häxjakt på partiet. Den andra delen av resultaten visar att Åkesson genom dikotomisering använder den uppkomna krisen för att förstärka Sverigedemokraternas roll som antietablissemangsparti. I hans krisberättelse tillskrivs kritikerna och Breivik liknande egenskaper, vilket betyder att de står som en gemensam bov i narrativet. Detta i motsats till Sverigedemokraterna som i istället får rollen som en hjälte - demokratins beskyddare i Sverige. / This paper examines the communicative crisis defense of the Sweden democrats after the criticism that appeared after the mass murder by the right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik at Utöya in 2011. In this analysis a narrative examination is made of the party leader Åkessons explanation to why the crisis emerged and how his apology interacts with the party’s internal story. The first part of the results shows that Åkesson structures a narrative where the society’s witch hunt on the party stands as an explanation to why the crisis has emerged. The second part of the analysis shows that Åkesson uses the crisis to strengthen the role of the Sweden democrats as an anti-establishment party by using dichotomies. In his crisis narrative he attributes similar characteristics to his critics and Breivik. The consequence of this is that the two actors stand as a collective villain in the narrative. To the contrary, the Sweden democrats became a hero in the narrative - the protector of democracy in Sweden.