Essay 1 (with Mikael Elinder): We show that house prices in general did not respond to a large cut in the property tax in Sweden. Our estimates are based on rich register data covering more than 100,000 sales over a time period of two and a half years. Because the Swedish property tax is national and thus unrelated to local public goods, our setting is ideal for causal identification of the property tax on house prices. Our result that house prices did not respond to the tax cut at the time of implementation cannot be explained by early capitalization at the time of announcement. Two other stories appear to explain our results. First, it is possible that house buyers expect an offsetting increase in the supply of housing. Second, house buyers might simply not understand how the tax cut affects total future costs of owning a house. Unfortunately, it has proven difficult to disentangle the two mechanisms, and we must therefore conclude that both may be relevant. Essay 2:  I investigate government consumption smoothing (sensitivity) under a balanced budget rule in Swedish municipalities. In general, I find Swedish municipalities to be highly consumption sensitive. Municipalities consume 87.6% out of predicted current revenues in the time period leading up to the implementation of the balanced budget rule, and they consume 76.3% out of predicted current revenue in thetime period following the implementation. Fiscally weak municipalities are found to be more consumption sensitive than fiscally strong municipalities. Very weak municipalities have become more consumption sensitive compared with very strong municipalities since the implementation of the balanced budget rule. Thus, I find indicative evidence that both credit market constraints and formal budget rules such as balanced budget rules increase municipal consumption sensitivity Essay 3: Using the Swedish municipal sector as my political laboratory, I study the effect of a coalition partner on policy outcomes. I use a version of Regression-Discontinuity Design (RDD) specifically suited to proportional systems to define close elections, which can be used for identifying the effect of the Left Party as coalition partner to the Social Democrats. The Left Party is found to have a positive and medium sized effect on the municipal income tax rate. The positive effect is in line with what we expect given the policy preferences of Left Party representatives, but also given the predictions from political fragmentation theory. I find no effects on expenditures or debt, and the negative result for investments is not robust. Essay 4 (with Linuz Aggeborn): In a model where voters and politicians have different preferences for how much to spend on basic welfare services contra immigration, we conclude that established politicians that are challenged by right-wing populists will implement a policy with no spending on immigration if the cost of immigration is high enough. Additionally, adjustment to right-wing populist policy is more likely when the economy is in a recession. Voters differ in their level of private consumption in such a way that lower private consumption implies higher demand for basic welfare services at the expense of immigration, and thus stronger disposition to support right-wing populist policies. We propose that this within-budget-distributional conflict can arise as an electorally decisive conflict dimension if parties have converged to the median voter on the size-of-government issue. / <p>Felaktigt isbn: 978-91-85519-61-3</p>

Sverigedemokraterna är ett radikalt högerpopulistiskt parti som fortsätter att öka sedan valet år 2010. Vid en opinionsundersökning i april 2012 skulle partiet få 8 procent av medborgarnas röster. Syftet med vår uppsats är att förstå och förklara vilka orsaker som ligger till grund för att allt fler medborgare röstar på Sverigedemokraterna. För att kunna besvara syftet med uppsatsen har vi valt att göra en kvalitativ studie genom att med semistrukturerade intervjuer undersöka upplevelser och attityder till dagens samhällsförändringar bland Sverigedemokraternas väljare och relatera deras upplevelser till tidigare forskning inom ämnet. För att besvara vårt syfte blir frågeställningarna följande: På vilket sätt kan SD som parti locka allt fler väljare i dagens globaliserade Sverige? Vilka faktorer kan ligga till grund för att vissa medborgare röstar på SD? Samt vad tror de att SD kan bidra med och förändra i det svenska samhället och mer specifikt för deras egen situation? Vårt teoretiska ramverk är globalisering, representationen ”Vi och Dom”, nation/nationalism och välfärdschauvinism. Med dessa teorier kommer vi ur ett sociologiskt perspektiv förklara vilka samhällsprocesser som interagerar med väljarnas vardagssituation och därmed ligger till grund för deras politiska beslut. Det slutgiltiga resultatet visar att radikal högerpopulistisk retorik är genomgående i samtliga intervjuer. Invandring och välfärdsfrågor var det viktigaste faktorerna till varför intervjupersonerna röstade på Sverigedemokraterna. / The Sweden Democrats is a radical right wing party who continue to increase since the elections in 2010. At a poll in April 2012, the party would get 8 percent of the votes. The purpose of our paper is to understand and explain the reasons underlying that more and more citizens vote for the Sweden Democrats. To be able to respond to the purpose of the paper, we have chosen to make a qualitative study by using semi-structured interviews examine the experiences and attitudes of today's social changes among the Sweden Democrats ' voters and relate their experiences to the previous research on the subject. To answer our purpose becomes the following questions: In what way can the SD as an increasing number of voters in the party attract today's globalized Sweden? What factors can serve as the basis for that some citizens vote on SD? What do they think that SD can contribute and change in Swedish society and more specifically for their own situation? Our theoretical framework is globalization, representation "We and Them" nation/nationalism and welfare-chauvinism. With these theories we come from a sociological perspective to explain what social processes that interact with voters ' living situation and thus is the basis for their policy decisions. The final result shows that radical right wing rhetoric is consistently in all interviews. Immigration and welfare issues were the main factors why the respondents voted for the Sweden Democrats.

The aim of this study is to describe the characteristics of right-wing populist parties in Europe. The three parties included in the study are the Swedish Democrats (SD), the British National Party (BNP) and the National Front (NF) in France. The study includes a definition of right-wing populism based on previous research and from that an ideal type of a right-wing populist party has been created. The material used in the study to verify how well the parties were consistent to the ideal type and what similarities and differences the parties in the study have are the parties’ political programs and policies. The conclusion of the results is that the parties fit the ideal type even if they differ in a few certain aspects. The BNP is the party most similar to the ideal type, followed by the NF and then the SD.

The Sweden Democrats uses a term to describe a situation where “swedes” are being discriminated against by other ethnic groups and where the elite is promoting this. The term “svenskfientlighet” can be translated as “swedofobia” and in this thesis a speech by the party leader Jimmie Åkesson held during the election campaign that solely was dedicated to this term is being analyzed with the help of tools developed by the scholar Ruth Wodak. Ruth Wodak has previously analyzed the rhetoric by other European right-wing-populist parties like FPÖ in Austria and has asked for other researchers to analyze the speech used by right-wing-populist and extremist parties to get a better understanding for just how these parties construct their different enemies. This thesis show how the Sweden Democrats use a term that has been founded by more extreme parties, groups that they themselves claim they do not have much in common with. The rhetoric has though developed in a populist direction where the party members or even leaders put themselves in a position as victims of a widely spread hostility directed towards them, on the sole basis that they stand up for what is Swedish.

This thesis examines and explains how the three Scandinavian populist radical right parties, the Sweden Democrats, the Danish People’s Party and the Progress Party approaches the climate issue in their latest manifesto, and how it has changed over a period of ten years. By means of a content analysis and categorisations of climate scepticism, climate omission and climate measures, this thesis finds explicit evidence of climate scepticism in the Progress Party whereas there is no such evidence for the Sweden Democrats and the Danish People’s Party completely omits the issue. On the other hand, there is evidence of measures to fight climate change in the Progress Party, and the same goes for the Sweden Democrats. However, the only relevant difference when comparing the manifestos over a ten-year period is a decreased usage of statement connected to both climate scepticism and climate action in the Progress Party’s manifestos.

The issue of unaccompanied migrant children (UAM) in the European Union is one of the most acknowledged and one of the most under researched topics. Close to 100,000 minors arrived in Europe in 2015 alone, without parents or guardians. And more than 10,000 disappeared shortly after. These children have been and continue to be under high risk of human trafficking, child labour, sexual and physical abuse, and exploitation of some other kinds. It has been 6 years since the initial crisis, but the statistics are not getting better. Tendency remains as close to 19,000 UAMs have perished in the past 3 years, which accounts to 17 disappearances a day. Despite the European Union's commitment to protect the rights of UAMs, the conditions of these children are dire. In some member states the situation is so much poorer, that basic human rights are violated. This raises the following questions: Q1: Why does the EU struggle to adopt common policies on unaccompanied migrant children? Q2: How does the EU contribute to the disappearance of UAMs? Qualitative and quantitative data, as well as large amount of primary and secondary sources help navigate through the problem of UAMs. Content analysis of European media contributes to the illustration of perceptions towards migration and unaccompanied children. Social...

This is a case study aiming to clarify the potentially outdated focus on the populist features in modern populist parties. By analyzing the right-wing populist party of Fidesz and the left-wing populist party of Syriza the aim is to clarify whether populism as a feature is descriptive enough to illustrate these parties, regardless their ideological stance, or whether ideology should be taken more into account than it tends to do today. To do this, the policies of each party are mapped to distinguish populist similarities, despite their ideological disparity and their differences. The analysis is delimited by the three pillars of civil society: Freedom of Associations, Freedom of Peaceful Assemblies and Freedom of Expression, referred to as the three pillars of civil society. The study shows that the descriptiveness of Fidesz as a right-wing populist party is conformed. However, the policies of Syriza demonstrate a variation of partially right-wing and left-wing populism, but also tendencies of no populism at all in their foreign policies. The descriptiveness of contemporary left-wing populist parties in the case of Syriza is thereby questionable.

Cette thèse examine, depuis une perspective durkheimienne, le conflit politique en Allemagne sur le multiculturalisme, l’immigration, et l’identité nationale. L’analyse se fait dans la période entre le début de la crise des réfugiés en 2015 et l’élection fédérale allemande de septembre 2017. J’identifie quatre idéaux moraux, soit des visions idéales de la communauté allemande qui motivent les acteurs politique : l’idéal des Autonomen qui rejettent tout forme de pouvoir et de domination, l’idéal du Verfassungspatriotismus (le patriotisme constitutionnel) de la SPD (et une partie de la CDU), l’idéal de la nation (ethno)culturelle de la plupart de l’AfD (et la CSU et la WerteUnion), et l’idéal de la nation biologique de l’extrême droite. Au cœur de chaque idéal est un objet sacré qui sert d’autorité morale qui légitimant des prescriptions morales et qui amène à une série de vérités morales et de jugements moraux, la totalité duquel Émile Durkheim identifie comme un fait moral. Pour les Autonomen et les adhérents du Verfassungspatriotismus, l’objet sacré est l’individu conçu à travers le concept de la dignité humaine. Pour les autres, l’objet sacré est la nation allemande, conçue en termes (ethno)culturels ou en termes biologiques. Cette thèse argumente que ces idéaux moraux sont intrinsèquement profanatoires, dans le sens que les prescriptions morales d’un objet sacré (la dignité humaine) violent directement l’objet sacré de l’autre (la nation), et vice-versa. Ces idéaux sont tous en concurrence pour le pouvoir et l’influence, avec comme but d’avoir accès au pouvoir étatique allemand. Le résultat est un conflit politique qui traduit essentiellement un conflit moral. Ces conflits ont lieu dans le domaine légal, au sein des partis politique, et à travers la violence politique. Ces conflits touchent un nombre de sujets clés comme la liberté d’expression, le multiculturalisme, et l’extrémisme politique. La présente thèse cherche à comprendre ces conflits à travers le prisme du concept durkheimien du fait moral, et développe une sociologie du conflit moral durkheimien. Cette thèse s’inspire également de la théorie de conflit de Randall Collins, qui s’inspire elle aussi de l’œuvre de Durkheim. / This dissertation examines, from a Durkheimian perspective, political conflict in Germany around the issues of multiculturalism, immigration, and national identity within the context of the Refugee Crisis beginning in 2015 and ending roughly with the German Federal Election in September 2017. It identifies four moral ideals, or ideal visions of the German community, that motivated political actors during this period: the Autonomen ideal that rejects all forms of power and domination; the ideal of Verfassungspatriotismus (Constitutional Patriotism) of the SPD (and parts of the CDU); the ideal of the cultural or ethnocultural nation of much of the AfD (and the CSU and WerteUnion); and the ideal of the biological nation on the far-right. At the heart of each moral ideal is a sacred object that serves as a moral authority that legitimates certain moral prescriptions, and leads to a set of moral truths and moral judgments, the totality of which Émile Durkheim identifies as a moral fact. For the Autonomen and adherents of Verfassungspatriotismus the sacred object is the individual understood through the concept of human dignity. For others the sacred object is the German nation, understood either in an (ethno)cultural sense or a biological sense. As the dissertation argues, these different moral ideals are inherently profanatory to each other, such that the moral prescriptions inspired by one sacred object (human dignity) directly violate the sacred object of the other (the nation), and vice-versa. These ideals all compete with each other for power and influence within the German political sphere as a means to gain access to (or to dismantle) state power. The result is political conflict that takes place essentially within a moral framework. These conflicts occur in the legal domain, in battles over party leadership and membership, and through political violence; they touch on a number of key issues such as free speech, multiculturalism, and political extremism. This dissertation seeks to understand these conflicts through the prism of Durkheim’s concept of the moral fact and to develop a Durkheimian sociology of moral conflict. In this analysis, the dissertation draws on Randall Collins’ conflict theory, which Durkheim’s work also largely inspires.

The aim of this graduate thesis is to analyze if and how the extra-parliamentary subject Akce D.O.S.T. influence the society and if the subject can be described as radical right-wing populist. Case Mudd's concept of the populist radical right was applied in the Citizen Association Akce D.O.S.T. to answer to these questions. On the basis of the Piero Ignazi' s theory silent counterrevolution follows the evaluation if the current conditions for the growth of the extreme and radical right-wing parties and similar subjects are favourable in the Czech Republic and if their growth could be expected. Attention is also focused on whether the economic conditions that have an impact on voters, influence their support for right-wing parties.

The rise of populism is one of the most significant political phenomena of the last decade. Although populism has been studied from various perspectives, especially in recent years, there is still number of unresolved issues related to the phenomenon. One of them is a question of the relation between right-wing and left-wing populist policies. In this context, the thesis deals with the case of the 2017 French presidential election. In this vote, both right- wing populist Marine Le Pen and left-wing populist Jean-Luc Mélenchon achieved extraordinary political success. The thesis examines policy content of the selected thematic areas that the candidates were focusing on during the election campaign. It specifically examines electoral programs and media statements of the candidates as the sources of their policies. The thesis provides an analysis of the policy content of individual candidates, as well as a comparison of the policies in the selected thematic areas. Its main output is a description of the common and different features of the pre-election promises of the two selected populist politicians.