Extreme right-wing political parties and movements are growing in number and size all over Europe and in their tail, an increased political focus on immigration and its pros and cons. Sweden is no exception to the European trend and the Swedish extreme right-wing political party, Sverigedemokraterna, became the third largest political party in the latest elections for the Swedish parliament in 2014. The objective of this study is to contribute to the current debate on rising right-wing party affiliation through an analysis of the reasons for extreme right-wing voting behavior of immigrants in Sweden. Through a case-study based on six in-depth interviews with immigrants voting for Sverigedemokraterna, the study looks into issues regarding social group identification as the issue of identification with or repudiation of the ‘outgroup’ appears, from previously conducted research, to be a key issue. An analysis of policy documents of Sverigedemokraterna, previously conducted research and finally an interview conducted by a Swedish anti-racist organization is also included in the case-study. The study shows that the reasons behind immigrant extreme right-wing voting behavior present substantial similarities with other highly represented groups of extreme right-wing voters in that voting is, in line with Realistic Conflict Theory, encouraged by a perceived socio-economic threat emanating from an identified ‘outgroup’. Further, the study validates the assumption of ‘in-’ and ‘outgroup’ identification as being a key issue in determining motives behind extreme right-wing voting. The key explanatory factor of the voting behavior of the studied group indeed shows to be the rejection of an identification with a homogenous group of ‘immigrants’. Finally, the study shows that the rejection of an identification with a homogenous group of ‘immigrants’, removes the theoretical base for assuming that immigrants should be expected to show favorable attitudes towards the group of immigrants in general.

This study investigates the relationship between the current migration crisis in Europe and the escalation of far-right voting which has been witnessed since it's beginning. In order to do so this study utilized correlation experiments and detailed case studies to explore the relationship between legislative vote shares and asylum applications for the years 2009-2017 in the EU member states of Hungary, Germany, France, Greece and the UK. Control variables of GDP, unemployment and terrorist attacks have also been utilized to measure alternative causes of far-right voting. Results of these experiments vary quite a bit from state to state - finding differing potential causal factors in each case study. Germany, France and the UK show results which indicate that an increase in asylum applications potentially influence far-right voting habits. Greece does not show this type of result, but does show correlation with control variables. Hungarian experiments however do not produce correlation with any variables tested, but has the strongest presence of far-right activity which may indicate that Hungarian far-right success is attributed to their long history of far-right activity.