Sweden has in the past thirteen years seen an increased support for a rightwing populist party: The Sweden Democrats. Previous surveys and research show that the Sweden Democrats has taken a large part of their supporters from the Social Democrats, and that a large amount of their supporters are workers. The aim of this thesis is to use quantitative method to analyze which factors that explain which one of the two parties: the Sweden Democrats and the Social Democrats, that workers support. The two categories of explanatory factors that are mainly analyzed is materialistic and non-materialistic explanatory factors. The results show that the main factors that affect if workers support the Sweden Democrats rather than the Social Democrats is non-materialistic factors such as negative attitudes towards new liberal individualistic values such as religious freedom, increased gender equality and increased rights for LBTQ-people, but also negative attitudes towards multiculturalism and immigration.

<p>The purpose of the thesis is to identify relationships between economic factors and the probability to vote on populist parties. The results are in turn based on the populist parties’ outcome in the 2006 Swedish election to parliament. Parties below the 4 percent margin, prior to the election, which is the percentage point required to enter the parliament, are defined as populist parties. Furthermore, based on theoretical and previous empirical research, seven economic variables are chosen; disposable income, income distribution, municipal tax rate, unemployment and higher education. In addition to these five, are the number of crime incidents reported, and the share of people born outside of the European Union also included. Moreover, the study is conducted at a regional, or more explicitly, at a municipal level, implying that 290 observations are used for each variable, in a total of five regressions. These are performed to test the diversity of populist parties.</p><p>The findings confirm that there are obvious relationships between the chosen variables and the probability of voting on populist parties, as the majority of the regressions explain 25 to 35 percent of the variation in the voting decision. These figures seem consistent, since ideological and factual issues are more important to populist party sympathizers.</p><p>Nevertheless, the results show that when it comes to the economic variables - unemployment, education, disposable income and consequently the municipal tax rate are the ones which concerns people the most when voting on populist parties. Additionally, as the share of people born outside of the European Union increases, the probability of voting in favor of Sverigedemokraterna also increases.</p><p>Finally, the growth of populist parties or of Sverigedemokraterna in particular, forces the conventional parties to adopt similar political standpoints in order to gain votes. Implying that if the present economic and political situation persists, populist parties’, especially Sverigedemokraterna’s policies will thrive in Swedish politics.</p> / <p>Avsikten med denna studie är att identifiera samband mellan ekonomiska faktorer och sannolikheten att rösta på populistpartier. Genomförandet är i sin tur baserat på 2006 års riksdagsvalresultat. Partier som innan valet befann sig under 4 procentsmarginalen definieras som populistiska partier. Grundat i tidigare forskning och teori, har sju ekonomiska variabler valts; disponibel inkomst, inkomstfördelning, kommunskatt, arbetslöshet och högre utbildning. Förutom dessa fem, är även antalet anmälda brott och andelen människor födda utanför den Europiska Unionen inkluderade. Vidare utförs studien på regional, närmare bestämt kommunalnivå, där 290 observationer används för varje variabel, i totalt fem regressioner. Detta med syfte att testa populistpartiers mångfald.</p><p>De empiriska resultaten bekräftar att det finns uppenbara samband mellan de valda variablerna och sannolikheten att rösta på populistpartier, då en majoritet av regressionerna förklarar 25 till 35 procent av variationen i röstningsavgörandet. Dessa siffror verkar stämma överens med verkligheten, eftersom ideologi och sakfrågor är viktigare för populistpartianhängare.</p><p>Gällande de ekonomiska variablerna är det arbetslösheten, utbildningsnivån, disponibla inkomsten och kommunalskatten som påverkar människor mest när de röstar på populistpartier. Det visar sig även att när andelen människor födda utanför den Europiska Unionen ökar, ökar även sannolikheten att man röstar på Sverigedemokraterna.</p><p>Till sist, tillväxten av populistpartier, speciellt av Sverigedemokraterna, har på senare tid tilltagit, vilket leder till att de konventionella partierna måste anamma likartade politiska ståndpunkter för att kunna få fler röster. Innebärande att om den rådande ekonomiska och politiska situationen består, kommer populistpartiers och i synnerhet Sverigedemokraternas riktlinjer att i framtiden få ett mycket större utrymme i den svenska politiken.</p>

Right-wing populistic parties are gaining power in many parliaments around Europe. Two parties, the Swedish democrats (SD) and the Swiss people´s party (SVP) are being classified as such. The history of those two are not at all similar, although the parties after many years of intern development and evolution are meeting each other on the political scale. This awakes a lot of questions and therefore the purpose of this paper is to examine why they went in different directions but towards each other, in the way of studying their political program and to what extent they distance themselves from the right of the political spectra. In the conclusion, it will be confirmed that they indeed are right-wing populistic parties and that the biggest traction towards any side on the political scale, is the demand of a certain policy that the electors are asking for.

The purpose of the thesis is to identify relationships between economic factors and the probability to vote on populist parties. The results are in turn based on the populist parties’ outcome in the 2006 Swedish election to parliament. Parties below the 4 percent margin, prior to the election, which is the percentage point required to enter the parliament, are defined as populist parties. Furthermore, based on theoretical and previous empirical research, seven economic variables are chosen; disposable income, income distribution, municipal tax rate, unemployment and higher education. In addition to these five, are the number of crime incidents reported, and the share of people born outside of the European Union also included. Moreover, the study is conducted at a regional, or more explicitly, at a municipal level, implying that 290 observations are used for each variable, in a total of five regressions. These are performed to test the diversity of populist parties. The findings confirm that there are obvious relationships between the chosen variables and the probability of voting on populist parties, as the majority of the regressions explain 25 to 35 percent of the variation in the voting decision. These figures seem consistent, since ideological and factual issues are more important to populist party sympathizers. Nevertheless, the results show that when it comes to the economic variables - unemployment, education, disposable income and consequently the municipal tax rate are the ones which concerns people the most when voting on populist parties. Additionally, as the share of people born outside of the European Union increases, the probability of voting in favor of Sverigedemokraterna also increases. Finally, the growth of populist parties or of Sverigedemokraterna in particular, forces the conventional parties to adopt similar political standpoints in order to gain votes. Implying that if the present economic and political situation persists, populist parties’, especially Sverigedemokraterna’s policies will thrive in Swedish politics. / Avsikten med denna studie är att identifiera samband mellan ekonomiska faktorer och sannolikheten att rösta på populistpartier. Genomförandet är i sin tur baserat på 2006 års riksdagsvalresultat. Partier som innan valet befann sig under 4 procentsmarginalen definieras som populistiska partier. Grundat i tidigare forskning och teori, har sju ekonomiska variabler valts; disponibel inkomst, inkomstfördelning, kommunskatt, arbetslöshet och högre utbildning. Förutom dessa fem, är även antalet anmälda brott och andelen människor födda utanför den Europiska Unionen inkluderade. Vidare utförs studien på regional, närmare bestämt kommunalnivå, där 290 observationer används för varje variabel, i totalt fem regressioner. Detta med syfte att testa populistpartiers mångfald. De empiriska resultaten bekräftar att det finns uppenbara samband mellan de valda variablerna och sannolikheten att rösta på populistpartier, då en majoritet av regressionerna förklarar 25 till 35 procent av variationen i röstningsavgörandet. Dessa siffror verkar stämma överens med verkligheten, eftersom ideologi och sakfrågor är viktigare för populistpartianhängare. Gällande de ekonomiska variablerna är det arbetslösheten, utbildningsnivån, disponibla inkomsten och kommunalskatten som påverkar människor mest när de röstar på populistpartier. Det visar sig även att när andelen människor födda utanför den Europiska Unionen ökar, ökar även sannolikheten att man röstar på Sverigedemokraterna. Till sist, tillväxten av populistpartier, speciellt av Sverigedemokraterna, har på senare tid tilltagit, vilket leder till att de konventionella partierna måste anamma likartade politiska ståndpunkter för att kunna få fler röster. Innebärande att om den rådande ekonomiska och politiska situationen består, kommer populistpartiers och i synnerhet Sverigedemokraternas riktlinjer att i framtiden få ett mycket större utrymme i den svenska politiken.

ABSTRACT THE POPULISM OF THE VILLAGE INSTITUTES: A CONTRADICTORY EXPRESSION OF KEMALIST POPULISM Aytemur, Nuran Ph.D., Department of Political Science and Public Administration Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mehmet Okyayuz March 2007, 217 pages This thesis analyzes the populism of the Village Institutes by comparing it with Kemalist populism. In this context it is worth to say that throughout the thesis populism is defined as government by the people and discussed in relation to democracy. In order to do so &ndash / as a first step - the democratic structure and function(ing) of the Village Institutes are discussed with reference to their fundamental principles, organizational structure, and educational program. Secondly, the contradictory conceptualization of the &ldquo / people&rdquo / and the separation between the &ldquo / intellectual&rdquo / and the &ldquo / people&rdquo / is tried to be analyzed with reference to the writings of ismail Hakki Tongu&ccedil / (who is called as the architect of the Village Institutes), the memoirs of the graduates of the Village Institutes, and indepth interviews made with their graduates. The question hereby is to what extent this understanding of populism involve in itself what can be called the &ldquo / paradoxical elitism&rdquo / of the populist ideology, which arises out of the tensive relation between &ldquo / social-egalitarian&rdquo / and &ldquo / administrative-institutional&rdquo / aspects of populism. It is claimed that despite the similarities with Kemalist populism, the Village Institutes shifted the emphasis from the &ldquo / administrative-institutional&rdquo / to the &ldquo / social-egalitarian&rdquo / aspect of populism and surpassed the boundaries of Kemalist populism by implementing democratic principles like &ldquo / equality&rdquo / and &ldquo / self-government&rdquo / , and encouraging participation and by attempting to create a new kind of intellectual through &ldquo / education within work&rdquo / . Keywords: The Village Institutes, Populism, Elitism, Kemalist Populism, Democracy

Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University, Dept. of Political Science.

Right-wing populism is experiencing a revival across a number of European states. To date, they have achieved remarkable results in several elections, leading to an increase in representation in local, national and european levels. Sweden and Germany are two of the European countries that have experienced this political evolution through the Sweden Democrats (SD) and the Alternative for Germany (AfD). The purpose of this thesis is to study the parties’ origins in order to examine whether the current versions of the parties are equivalent to the versions of the time of their founding. In order to address this question, I have used primary sources such as official party programmes, as well as secondary sources for a more impartial perspective. In conclusion, both of the parties have very different origins and have subsequently evolved in different directions towards their current forms, which indeed show significant similarities.

This thesis aims to explore the new concept of green populism and to explore if Extinction Rebellion can be seen as a new social movement. The concept of green populism is based on Cas Mudde’s ideational approach to populism and Dobson’s approach to green ideology. The theories will form a categorization of green populism to see if any of these elements are visible in Extinction Rebellion’s discourse. The combination of the two theories helps to define the elements or categories of green populism: Ecological Crisis of Cosmic Proportion, Victimizing “the People”, Identifying and/or blame the antagonist, Green Action, Scientific Evidencing, and Intergenerational Justice. The theories on new social movements is based on theories from scholars such as Alberto Melucci, Alain Touraine and Manuel Castells to help us understand what characterizes a new social movement. The four following characteristics of new social movements was highlighted: They focus on non-material issues, they tend to emphasize different protest tactics, they often have a horizontal organization, and they often use symbolic action. To answer the research questions in this thesis, a qualitative text analysis will be conducted. A qualitative text analysis focuses on certain selected aspects of the material which are determined by the aim and research questions. The qualitative text analysis is applied to the captions of eight selected Instagram-posts from Extinction Rebellion’s official account. The analysis leads to the conclusion that Extinction Rebellion can be seen as a new social movement, with a few exceptions regarding their focus on non-material issues. Another conclusion is that we were able to find elements of green populism in Extinction Rebellion’s discourse. The final conclusion is that green populism should be seen as a theoretical and analytical tool for analyzing communication rather than a label of environmental actors.

In recent years, populism has spread around the world like wildfire. In some places, populist parties are growing in strength and several countries currently have populist leaders. In this essay, we use a qualitative content analysis to investigate whether populist rhetoric has seeped into state power in Sweden through examination of the speeches presented by Swedish party leaders during party leader debates in the Swedish Parliament in 2019 and 2020. The analyses of the party leader debates showed that several components of populist rhetoric could be found in speeches made in the Swedish parliament in 2019 and 2020, especially when it comes to anti-elitist rhetoric. However, the use of populist rhetoric is not widespread, but is mainly used by one of the eight Swedish party leaders, with some tendencies to a spillover-effect.

A study on far-right populism voters and democratic attitudes in five countries, France, Hungary, India, Russia and Sweden. The purpose of the study is to create a deeper understanding on the far-right populist voters view on a selection of democratic values. It is a quantitative study using datafrom International social survey program (2016). The focus is on the voters of these political parties.We conducted an exposé of the right-wing populism, using the theory of Cas Mudde and others, and of the far-right populist voter. Presentations were also carried out on every country´s far-right populism background. Democratic values were operationalized in different indicators, freedom of assembly, limitations of civil rights, limitations of public information, corruption and trust for MP: sand civil servants. The study did not result in a clear correlation between far-right populism voters and non-democratic values. However, we did find some correlations and the strongest effects were in France, Hungary and Russia. The patterns we found were on limitations of civil rights and the result showed that far-right populist voters tend to have a more non-democratic view on these issues.