This thesis illuminates meaning(s) of religion in a Swedish radical nationalist context. The empirical study is based on a critical text analysis of author Jonas De Geer, key ideology producer of Swedish radical nationalism. The research questions concern how the publications of Jonas De Geer, during the period 1996-2016, address issues related to religion and Christian imagery. The primary aim of the thesis – to study how the concept of religion is understood, negotiated and used in a Swedish radical nationalist context – is enunciated through an examination of how identity and antagonists are construed through the notions of religion in the material, and how these concepts change over time. An applied text analysis, informed by critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics, constitutes the methodological framework of the study. The empirical analysis suggests that Christianity and national identity are construed as intertwined and natural, while Judaism is portrayed as the primary antagonist. Additionally, Islam and modernist ideals are depicted as weapons used by Jewish influence to dominate the West. Drawing on these empirical implications, the study concludes that religion functions as a racist configuration in De Geer's symbolic universe.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Robert K. Schaeffer / In a 2005 op-ed piece, Wall St. Journal columnist Peggy Noonan queried, "What does it mean that your first act on entering a country is breaking its laws?" Unauthorized noncitizen populations have increased rapidly, from 3 million in 1990 to over 11 million in 2009. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the Minuteman Project and the Tea Party generated renewed interest in restrictionist social movements (RSMs). Sociological social movement theories focused primarily on oppressed populations rather than privileged groups, leaving significant gaps in our understanding of right-wing movements. This dissertation‘s main question is: how did contemporary restrictionists frame their anti-immigrant principles, practices, and policies in the post-9/11 period? In turn, what comprise the social and political consequences of such strategies? This study argues that the "new" restrictionists successfully framed issues relating to unauthorized noncitizens concerning the cultural, economic, and security risks they posed to the United States. Fifty members from a diverse set of voluntary organizations were interviewed, including the Minuteman Project, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), and the American GI Forum (AGIF). Grounded theory methodology was used to create initial codes, which were then connected with themes derived from the literature. This study finds that grassroots, right-wing RSMs brought attention to contentious noncitizen issues that spurred debate and action within both Democratic and Republicans parties, public discourse, and social policy from after 9/11 to 2012. The success of the 2005 Minuteman Project border patrol demonstrated that the federal government lacked the political will to control the U.S.–Mexico border. This dissertation adds to the social movement literature demonstrating that both classical and solidarity theories of social movements help explain how restrictionists framed unauthorized noncitizen issues. Ultimately, this study finds RSMs represent a right-wing mobilization (rather than conservative) because of their singling out of Mexican unauthorized noncitizens, extra-institutional action on the border, the use of inflammatory rhetoric, and anti-Catholic sentiment, which contributed in pushing the Republican Party further to the right.

The Sweden democrats has for a long time been labelled as a racist party in swedish media. Due to the problems related to the members of the party in the 90s, where members were subject to criminal actions and racist scandals, the media had focus on the racist actions and labelled the party as a racist party therefore. How does the discourse present itself today? The purpose is to make a comparative study between the year 2014 and 2018/2019 and to research if the discourse surrounding the sweden democrats has changed during this time. Relevance for the study is how we discover, categorize and give the discourses names that helps us and also the reader to understand the process about how the media picture Sweden democrats. Our method is a comparative critical discourse analysis that we are going to use on articles published in the two largest newspapers in sweden, Aftonbladet and Expressen. We will locate the surrounding discourses from 2014 at first and then locate what kind of discourses is surrounding the party in 2018/2019. The main discourse from 2014 is the racist discourse, it´s present in nearly every article we analyse. With the racist discourse, the big difference is that the discourse is changing. When we look upon 2018/2019, new discourses take place, the new discourses we locate it’s the right populism-, scandal- and normalization discourse, the rasism discourse is still present but not so extensive as during 2014. During 2014 the racism discourse depends on the scandal discourse, this changes significant, the scandal discourse is no longer in 2018/2019 dependent on the racism discourse, but it acutally transforms into its own discourse. The focus on racism is almost gone and new scandals take place instead. In combination with the normalization discourse we can se that there has been a change, actually a big change in the media discourse surrounding the Sweden democrats.

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.

Föreliggande uppsats är en studie om ämneslärarstudenters potentiella böjelse för auktoritarianism vid ämneslärarprogrammet på Mälardalens högskola i syfte att undersöka hur auktoritarianismen kan te sig i skol- och utbildningssammanhang. En böjelse för auktoritarianism kännetecknas av tre egenskaper: viljan att lyda en auktoritets order, aggressivitet mot de som inte underkastar sig auktoriteten och uppfattningen om att alla ska följa den auktoritära ordningens normer och lagar. För att undersöka detta har ett beprövat mätinstrument (Right-Wing Authoritarianism scale) ämnat att mäta förekomsten av sådan böjelse bland olika grupper via ett frågeformulär. Studiens resultat visade att ämneslärarstudenterna inte skiljde sig från en kontrollgrupp bestående av andra studenter vid Mälardalens högskola i böjelse för auktoritarianism. Varken ämneslärarstudenternas ämneskombinationer, avklarade verksamhetsförlagda utbildningar eller terminer vid programmet hade en effekt på deras böjelse för auktoritarianism. Däremot hade åldern en signifikant effekt på sagd böjelse: De som var i åldrarna 19-25 hade en högre grad av böjelse jämfört med de som var 30 år eller äldre. Dessutom korrelerade högre grad av böjelse för auktoritarianism med en negativ attityd till genuspedagogik, positiv attityd till användandet av disciplinära åtgärder i skolan och en positiv attityd till betyg i ordning och uppförande. Resultatet diskuteras i relation till forskning och litteratur om skolans utveckling under 2000talet.

The aim of the paper is to do a quantitative comparison of the manifestos from a number of European parties that are being put in a mutual party family often referred to as “radical right-wing populist”. The main primary source is the Comparative Manifesto Project database from which the data was gathered for analysis. A number of variables which operationalise typical traits of the party family were picked from the codebook of the database and the parties’ values of these variables were compared and presented in diagrams. Through the analysis it was shown that the parties vary to a great extent in what they put the greatest focus on in their manifestos. It could also be concluded that even parties which had similar values in one category still brought it up from different angles. The essay also brings up suggestions for future research within the same area of research.

Social science scholars mainly regard dehumanization as a phenomenon of conflict and war. Concurrently, dehumanizing attitudes and behavior in democratic, non-conflict settings is a significant field within social psychology. Given the rise of right-wing populism and populist rhetoric, there is reason to believe that dehumanization has nestled its way into political discourse. With this background, the current study has investigated whether dehumanizing attitudes allegedly held by citizens are also expressed in their political arguments. Dehumanization can lead to support for aggression, discrimination, and violence even in democratic societies. Therefore, it is essential for political scientists to acknowledge its existence, as dehumanization can have a severe impact on equality and the defense of human rights. This paper is a cross-cutting study, which bridges the gap between political science and social psychology in the study of dehumanization by answering the question: Whether and how dehumanization is used in the debate on street begging in everyday politics? Discursive dehumanization on social media was mapped with the help of a novel analytical tool for content analysis. Social psychology has shown that people hold dehumanizing attitudes, and this study has shown that people are also willing to express these attitudes. This study finds that dehumanization is used in the debate on street begging to a significant degree. Dehumanization is mainly used in negative depictions of beggars, which undermine their moral capacity, civility, and refinement. The results of this study provide a foundation for studying both discursive dehumanization and dehumanization in political science.

Public opinions of climate change are not consistent with the reality that climate change is occurring. Effective persuasive messages must be created to ensure that irreparable damage to the environment is prevented. This study investigated the cognitive processes that occur when an individual is exposed to a persuasive message regarding environmental concerns that is matched to an individual’s personality characteristics like right wing authoritarianism and purity. Messages on two environmental topics (solar panels and the Environmental Protection Agency) were created. Each topic was framed in multiple ways to test hypotheses about personality-based message matching. Participants completed a thought listing task after reading about each of the topics, and then indicated their attitudes toward the message topics. Participants were also asked to complete several individual difference scales. Reported attitudes were regressed on individual differences and message frame type in order to determine the effects of message matching on attitudes. While the results do not support a matching effect for purity, an effect of right wing authoritarianism was found after controlling for environmental apathy. This suggests that individual difference matching effects do exist, although they may be more complex than initially hypothesized.

This thesis evaluates two theories purporting to explain the rise of right-wing extremism in the Midwest during the farm crisis of the 1980s. The pluralist argument suggests that Midwestern right-wing extremism was rooted in previous episodes of agrarian radicalism. The political tradition perspective, on the other hand, claims that right-wing extremism in the Midwest was rooted in traditional conservatism. To evaluate these theories, an analysis of ten counties was performed. Particular attention was paid to seven variables which theorists argue point agriculturally based communities down political paths of radicalism or conservatism. Regional analyses were also performed on those counties which resided in similar areas of the Midwest. The findings offer stronger support for the political tradition perspective than for the pluralist argument. These finding suggest that those counties in which right-wing extremist activity did not occur were ones which supported past agrarian radical movements while those counties which experienced right-wing extremism were for the most part opponents of past radical agrarian movements. The thesis suggests that future research on rightwing extremism should focus attention on the political traditions of the communities were such movements become established and that a number of alternative variables should be considered.

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