The aim of the essay was to analyse the speeches of the party leader in Almedalen 2012 and 2016 to see how much right-wing populism that could be identified. The Social Democratic Party, the Moderate Party, the Sweden Democrats and the Christian Democrats were the parties which were investigated. The question of the essay was: Are there more or less tendencies of right-wing populism in the speeches of the Social Democratic Party, the Moderate Party, the Sweden Democrats and the Christian Democrats when the speech of 2012 are compared to the speech of 2016? The analysis was based on four different aspects which characterize right-wing populism. These were anti-establishment, people´s representative, threat & dissociation and nationalism. The Sweden Democrats had tendencies of all the aspects in both speeches, although the tendencies were stronger for the anti-establishment in the speech of 2016. The other parties generally lacked indications of right-wing populism regarding most of the aspects in the speeches of 2012. While it in the speeches of 2016 were more tendencies of right-wing populism, although many aspects still were absent in the speeches of 2016. However, there were more tendencies of nationalism 2016.

Cette thèse vise à améliorer notre compréhension de deux phénomènes importants dans les démocraties contemporaines: l'inégale représentation électorale de la population et la montée du populisme. Pour ce faire, elle explore empiriquement plusieurs expériences naturelles dans différents pays et contextes.Le premier chapitre explore l'impact de l'élection d'un politicien dynastique sur les politiques publiques. Il montre que les politiciens dynastiques ont des caractéristiques différentes des autres politiciens, et qu’ils gèrent leur budget de façon plus opportuniste.Le deuxième chapitre met l'accent sur les discriminations de genre dues aux électeurs, en exploitant une expérience naturelle lors des élections départementales françaises de 2015, lors desquelles les candidats ont dû se présenter par binômes paritaires. En utilisant le fait que l'ordre d'apparition est déterminé de façon quasi-aléatoire, il montre que les bulletins de droite où la candidate était inscrite en premier ont reçu moins de voix et ont eu moins de chance d’accéder au second tour. Cette discrimination est essentiellement due aux bulletins sur lesquels aucune information n'est indiquée, ce qui suggère qu’elle est de nature statistique.Le troisième chapitre étudie le lien entre les flux d'immigration et la montée du populisme. En utilisant comme expérience naturelle le démantèlement du camp de migrants de Calais en France entre octobre 2015 et octobre 2016, il montre que les municipalités qui ont accueilli un petit nombre de migrants de façon temporaire suite à cet évènement ont eu un taux de croissance du vote Front National plus faible entre les élections présidentielles de 2012 et 2017. / This dissertation aims at improving our understanding of two important phenomena in contemporary democracies: imbalanced electoral representation and the rise of populism. To do so, it explores empirically several natural experiments in different countries and settings.The first chapter explores the consequences of electing a dynastic politician on subsequent public policies. It shows that dynastic politicians have different characteristics compared to other politicians and that they manage their budget in a more opportunistic way.The second chapter focuses on gender-discrimination from voters in politics, by exploiting a natural experiment in the French départementales elections of 2015, where candidates had to run by gender-balanced pairs. Using the fact that the order of appearance of candidates on the ballot is as-good-as-random, it shows that right-wing ballots where the female candidate was listed first received lower shares of votes and were less likely to make it to the second round. This discrimination is driven by ballots on which no information is reported, which suggests that it is statistical.The third chapter studies the link between migration inflows and the rise of populism. Using as a natural experiment the dismantling of the Calais migrant camp in France between October 2015 and October 2016, it shows that municipalities which temporarily received a small amount of migrants following this event had a lower growth rate of Front National vote between the presidential elections of 2012 and 2017.

With the rise of the right- and left-wing populism growing in Europe, it is important for political scientists to look into this trend and what might be causing it. Studying the rise of Populism throughout Europe is important because of its potential threats to democracy. In this research, I examine one trend that may attribute to this growth of these political parties. In my research, I examine whether Eurosceptic ideas on social media are correlated to electoral success in European Parliament elections. Many populist party leaders have turned to social media to reach out and to gain followers. Social media has been a great platform for misperception and false news. Social media is also relatively easy to use and is used by many to obtain political information. For this research, I analyze the Twitter accounts of right-winged populist political actors in Germany, Italy, and Hungary during the two years before the 2019 EU Parliament elections. The four leaders looked into were Alice Weidel for the Alternative for Germany, Matteo Salvini for Lega in Italy, Gabor Vona, and Tamas Sneider for Jobbik in Hungary. There are two leaders from Hungary due to the switch in power during the two years. By doing content analysis in this analytical paper and looking into the reactions of followers on these actor’s social media pages, there will be a better understanding of how social media can help spread the growth of Eurosceptic attitudes in citizens in the EU. The anticipated results from this research are that as time progresses towards EP elections, populist actors will increase their social media usage with a stronger emphasis on Eurosceptic ideologies in their posts. With an increase in postings and rhetoric, it is expected that citizens in the EU will be adopting similar views with these leaders and will then vote for these populist parties into the European Parliament. This research is important in helping the EU and its leaders obtain a better understanding of the growth and progression of populism in relation to Euroscepticism and its role in social media. Having a better understanding of the concept, it can aid in slowing the progression of populism and Euroscepticism, the one thing that is undermining its institutions.

This study examines the Sweden Democrats gender equality policy from a feminist and intersectional perspective. Through an analysis of ideas and ideology it is examined if the Sweden Democrats gender equality policy is a way of justifying an anti-immigration and anti-Muslim policy. The results show difficulties in identifying patterns within the Sweden Democrats adoption of gender equality, but also provide support for previous research demonstrating that the Sweden Democrats gender equality policy in the immigration issue is a way of justifying an otherwise controversial point of view.

There is no secret that Hungary is one of the many countries in Europe where right wing populism have taken hold. Fidesz, the leading party, with Victor Orbán as party leader got a majority vote in 2010 and have not let up their power since. Populism, as disputed as the concept is, have certain core parts that most scholars can agree on. Amongst them is the constant division of social groups into “us” and “them”, or “the people” versus “the elite”. This thesis looks at this division through a discourse analysis of Orbán’s speeches between the years of 2014 and 2023. The purpose is to understand the creation of these identities in populist discourse in Hungary. This thesis asks the question what the consequences are for these identity creations and if the polarization produced by populist rhetoric have a negative impact on democracy. The blatant neglect of pluralism and inclusivity that populist rhetoric displays lead to people being locked out of “the general will” and as such their voices are not seen as important. Moreover, because of the moralistic basis on which subjects’ identities are created, people that does not fit into the populistic definition of “the people” are instead demonized. Something that also shows itself in policy implementation.

This article aims to examine Jimmie Åkessons use of a populist communication style through the use of a quantitative and a qualitative content analysis. The article finds that a populist communication style is central in Åkessons political communication, and how its thin and thick concepts are often combined together to form synergic effects on its mobilisational ability. Over time, a small communicational shift can be seen where more focus is put towards an antagonistic construction of immigrants rather than the elite. The conceptualisation of the elite is also narrowed and less diffuse over time and more specified towards the political establishment. Overall, Åkesson uses a political communication style that can be characterised as complete populism.

Stormningen av Kapitolium år 2021 har satt spår långt utanför USA. Den sjätte januari håller den dåvarande presidenten Donald Trump ett tal endast ett stenkast från Kapitolium. I talet klargjorde presidenten att valet bestått av fusk och oegentligheter och därför ska inte valresultatet bekräftas. Ett narrativ av en president som kallas populist och där viktiga demokratiska kriterium ifrågasätts, gör det relevant att titta närmare på populism som teori och vad som identifierar en populistisk ledare. Denna idéanalys har till syfte att skapa förståelse för hur populism och demokrati framträder i president Trump tal. Följande frågeställning kommer vägleda studien. Vilka genomslag av populism kan urskiljas i president Trumps tal; (1) Valnatten den fjärde november år 2020? (2) Om valfusk den andra december år 2020?, (3) Den sjätte januari år 2021. För att besvara frågeställningen kommer populism definieras, vad som utmärker en populistisk ledare samt kopplingar mellan demokrati och populism. Dessa tre teoretiska infallsvinklar operationaliseras för att användas på valda tal av president Trump. Resultatet visar på att Trump kan kopplas till populismens grundtankar om eliten, folket och folkviljan. Det går också att konstatera att i de tre talen som analyserats visar Trump tydliga drag av att vara en populistisk ledare, där fler demokratiska utmaningar framträder.

Populism is widely understood to be a masculine style of politics due to its antagonistic and aggressive nature. Populism often centers a “strong leader” who is personable, tough, and willing to fight to protect “the people” from the threats posed by “the elite.” Gender politics literature tells us that people are less likely to see women as strong leaders, and generally want women to engage in a more civil version of politics. Literature on populism also tells us that populist politicians are predominantly male and will also use masculinity as political currency to show dominance over competitors. These facts would suggest that women cannot be successful using the populist style, but female politicians Kari Lake and Marjorie Taylor Greene have built formidable bases using a Trumpian populist style. This thesis intends to explain this apparent paradox by bridging the gap between gender politics literature and populist literature. I argue that female populist politicians make appeals to motherhood and religion in order to legitimize their roles as populist protectors and to connect to conservative feminine identity.

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