Populist radical right (PRR) political parties have become important players in many European countries. These parties generally have a core ideology of ethnic nationalism supported by antiestablishment populism and sociocultural authoritarianism. PRR parties have managed to find electoral success in many European countries over the last few decades, usually at the expense of more established mainstream parties. The success of PRR parties is dependent on both voters and the parties themselves. In other words, parties must frame issues in a way that appeals to at least some voters while voters must have some reason for supporting these parties. This thesis looks at Denmark and Sweden, two countries with relatively similar cultures, political systems, and economies that have had different experiences with PRR parties. An analysis of socioeconomic factors highlights certain traits that makes voters more likely to vote for PRR parties, namely education and unemployment. Additionally, PRR party rhetoric likely appeals to socioeconomically disadvantaged voters by promising improved welfare and shifting the blame for their troubles to immigrants. In sum, this thesis suggests that PRR parties will continue to find electoral success as long as immigration maintains a high level of political salience, as PRR parties can use anti-immigration rhetoric to attract the socioeconomically disadvantaged. / Master of Arts / Populist radical right (PRR) political parties have become important players in many European countries. These parties generally have a core ideology of ethnic nationalism, a form of nationalism defined by ethnicity and focusing on a shared heritage. PRR parties also generally espouse antiestablishment populism by trying to appeal to the masses through critques of the government and established political parties. These parties also tend to embrace sociocultural authoritarianism, the desire for strict obedience to authority as it pertains to society and culture. This thesis looks at Denmark and Sweden, two countries with relatively similar cultures, political systems, and economies that have had different experiences with PRR parties. However, PRR parties have been electorally successful in both countries over the last decade. This thesis examines socioeconomic factors that may affect the likelihood of voters to vote for PRR parties, and determines that education and unemployment can play a large role in voter attitudes. Additionally, this thesis analyzes PRR party rhetoric and ascertains that these parties likely appeal to socioeconomically disadvantaged voters. In sum, this thesis suggests that PRR parties will continue to find electoral success as long as immigration remains an important political issue, as PRR parties can use anti-immigration rhetoric to attract the socioeconomically disadvantaged.

The inclusion-moderation thesis argues that, as radical parties become included in coalition governments, their positions and rhetoric will moderate as a consequence of compromising with, and adapting to the parties they are governing with. With lacking empirical evidence, however, the effects of inclusion on radical parties are still not clear. The Sweden Democrats (SD), a Swedish radical right-wing populist party, became the country’s second largest party after the election of 2022 and received considerable influence through the “Tidö-agreement” with the new coalition government. They are thus a recent example of a radical right populist party gaining influence in Europe. This paper examines the rhetoric of the SD’s party leader, Jimmie Åkesson, before and after the election of 2022 through qualitative content analysis. The findings indicate that no moderation has taken place in their radical right populist rhetoric after inclusion. Furthermore, the nativist aspect of their rhetoric seems to have become far more pronounced, and increasingly influences other aspects of their rhetoric as well.

There has been a growing interest in applying concepts and strategies of brand management in the political sphere. However, it has been argued that the phenomenon of political brand image has been given little attention. Therefore the purpose of this study is to explore the political brand image of the Sweden Democrats from voters’ perspective. The choice of exploring the Sweden Democrats opposed to other parties is that it has tried to rebrand itself from its previous racist ideologies and from being a single-party issue party. The study is based on different theories about brand image. Three dimensions will be used, brand awareness, perceived brand quality and brand associations, in order to cover the phenomenon political brand image. This study is conducted as a qualitative case study with a realistic approach. The analysis and findings show that participants still have perceptions related to the party’s history and that it still to a large extent is perceived as a single-issue party. However, it has also appeared that the Sweden Democrats to some extent are on the right way to stop being associated with racism. Limitations within this study are, time restriction and lack of knowledge whether participants sympathize with the Sweden Democrats or not. The practical implication is that this study could be of use both of the Sweden Democrats and other parties who seek to explore political brand image. The original value of the study is that it acknowledges the three dimensions when exploring political brand image.

The Pariah Party Influence on Local Government Formation in Swedish Municipalities 2002-2018 This paper studies the correlation between the rise of the radical right party The Sweden Democrats and the rise of minority governments and bloc transcending/cross-partisan coalitions in Swedish local governments; the role of the Sweden Democrats in this development is studied and further its impact in the relation between right/left-wing governments. Taking off in classical coalition- and government formation theory together with the concept of pariah parties, I also continue to discuss the setting of local government in Sweden and its implication on local government studies in general. Regression analysis of formed government in the 290 Swedish municipalities over the last five local elections, 2002-2018, is used to answer the question of how the pariah party that is the Sweden Democrats, have affected the types of local government in Sweden. The study finds that the rise of the Sweden Democrats in Swedish municipal parliaments to a large extent can explain both an increase of cross-partisan coalitions and of minority governments. This can however only be said when the party holds the balance of power; just the size or sheer presence of the party in local parliaments does not seem to have a significant impact on government type. When the party does hold the power of balance, one can observe a significant shift in favour of right-wing governments over left-wing governments. Albeit not participating in government and being considered a pariah party, or perhaps because of this fact, the rise of the Sweden Democrats has significantly affected the character of Swedish local governments.

This thesis aims to examine if performative populism exists within the Sweden Democrats and if the level of populism has changed over time. By using a gradational approach when conceptualising populism, it seeks to address a case of ‘mixed bags’. Furthermore, this paper address questions regarding how to measure populism and how to operationalise populism into context. Populism is conceptualised as a political style, according to Benjamin Moffitt’s work on populism. Thus, the performative side of the leader is central. This includes content, rhetoric, gestures and the theatrical side of the leader’s performance. By using a twofold methodological approach, a quantitative content analysis, followed by a qualitative one, both frequency of populist indications and how they relate to each other can be accounted for. Results indicate that populism exists within the Sweden Democrats, and that the level of populism seems to be increasing over time. Moreover, while the methodological approach is sufficient for measuring the level in terms of less and more, it cannot account for degree in terms of index.

During much of the 20th century, the national party systems of Western Europe remained largely unchanged. However, beginning in the 1970s, these frozen party systems slowly started to melt. As the number of parties has increased, the question of what explains new party entrance has also attracted more scholarly interest. Despite this increased attention, the study of new political parties still suffers from a structuralist bias. The implication is that the fates of new parties are decided almost exclusively by external factors. Some scholars focus on the institutional environment; others emphasize sociological explanations, such as the formation of new cleavages in society. Yet such non-actor-centred perspectives risk being excessively deterministic. They also struggle to explain why some parties succeed in gaining entrance to legislatures while others, seemingly under the same external circumstances, fail. In this thesis, therefore, a new way to study parties and their path to parliament is proposed. Starting with the notion that external conditions alone cannot explain new party entrance, the thesis takes an agency-based perspective. Three sets of strategies are identified as being important means for a party to influence its chances of getting into parliament. They concern the party's resources, its political project and its external relations. In what ways can supply and management of resources, policies and relations with other parties affect the potential for becoming a parliamentary party? Through four in-depth case studies of new entrants into the Swedish national parliament, the Riksdag, the thesis concludes that there are some important commonalities in their paths to parliament. Especially with regard to their resources and their political project, the empirical evidence supports the initial premise: new party entrance is unthinkable without successful strategic behaviour.

During much of the 20th century, the national party systems of Western Europe remained largely unchanged. However, beginning in the 1970s, these frozen party systems slowly started to melt. As the number of parties has increased, the question of what explains new party entrance has also attracted more scholarly interest. Despite this increased attention, the study of new political parties still suffers from a structuralist bias. The implication is that the fates of new parties are decided almost exclusively by external factors. Some scholars focus on the institutional environment; others emphasize sociological explanations, such as the formation of new cleavages in society. Yet such non-actor-centred perspectives risk being excessively deterministic. They also struggle to explain why some parties succeed in gaining entrance to legislatures while others, seemingly under the same external circumstances, fail. In this thesis, therefore, a new way to study parties and their path to parliament is proposed. Starting with the notion that external conditions alone cannot explain new party entrance, the thesis takes an agency-based perspective. Three sets of strategies are identified as being important means for a party to influence its chances of getting into parliament. They concern the party's resources, its political project and its external relations. In what ways can supply and management of resources, policies and relations with other parties affect the potential for becoming a parliamentary party? Through four in-depth case studies of new entrants into the Swedish national parliament, the Riksdag, the thesis concludes that there are some important commonalities in their paths to parliament. Especially with regard to their resources and their political project, the empirical evidence supports the initial premise: new party entrance is unthinkable without successful strategic behaviour.

The aim of this essay is to show if and how group identities are being constructed in maindocuments from three political parties in the Swedish parliament, focusing on class, genderand ethnic identities. The three parties who’s documents are being analyzed are theModerate Party, the Sweden Democrats and the Left Party. The conclusion of the essay isthat the Moderate Party is so focused on the individual that they are not promoting groupidentity based on class, gender or ethnicity. The Sweden Democrats are mostly discussing,and therefore creating a discourse of, cultural identity, where Swedish, Nordic, Europeanand Western culture are being created as the ‘us’, and others are being created as ‘them’.They are also promoting difference between men and women, therefore dividing the sexesin groups. The Left Party are focused on class, and are dividing people in working class (themajority) and the elite (the minority). They are also creating a ‘us’ and ‘them’ whilediscussing the patriarchy, a system in which the man is superior and the woman is inferior.

Denna uppsats syftar till att undersöka Sverigedemokraternas kriskommunikativa försvar efter kritiken som uppkom mot partiet i samband med högerextremisten Anders Behring Breiviks massmord på Utöya 2011. I detta har jag ur ett narrativt perspektiv undersökt partiledaren Jimmie Åkessons förklaring till krisen och hur denna samspelar med partiets interna berättelse. Den första delen av resultaten visar att Åkesson strukturerar ett narrativ där uppkomsten av krisen för Sverigedemokraterna förklaras genom att det bedrivs en häxjakt på partiet. Den andra delen av resultaten visar att Åkesson genom dikotomisering använder den uppkomna krisen för att förstärka Sverigedemokraternas roll som antietablissemangsparti. I hans krisberättelse tillskrivs kritikerna och Breivik liknande egenskaper, vilket betyder att de står som en gemensam bov i narrativet. Detta i motsats till Sverigedemokraterna som i istället får rollen som en hjälte - demokratins beskyddare i Sverige. / This paper examines the communicative crisis defense of the Sweden democrats after the criticism that appeared after the mass murder by the right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik at Utöya in 2011. In this analysis a narrative examination is made of the party leader Åkessons explanation to why the crisis emerged and how his apology interacts with the party’s internal story. The first part of the results shows that Åkesson structures a narrative where the society’s witch hunt on the party stands as an explanation to why the crisis has emerged. The second part of the analysis shows that Åkesson uses the crisis to strengthen the role of the Sweden democrats as an anti-establishment party by using dichotomies. In his crisis narrative he attributes similar characteristics to his critics and Breivik. The consequence of this is that the two actors stand as a collective villain in the narrative. To the contrary, the Sweden democrats became a hero in the narrative - the protector of democracy in Sweden.

Abstract Title: Konstruktionen av sverigedemokraternas väljare Author: Magnus Persson & Max Lindberg Tutor: Leonor Camauër Course: Bachelor thesis, Media and communication.   The aim of this essay is to use a Critical Discourse Analytical (CDA) approach to analyse the construction of the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) voters in news articles to see if and how they are separated as a group from the Swedish democratic community. This aim is broken down into two questions. How are the Sweden Democrats (SD) voters constructed in news articles in Dagens Nyheter (DN) and Aftonbladet (AB) regarding the aftermath of the national elections? What differences are there between the portrayal of the Sweden Democrats voters and the agents that are used as opposition to them? To answer these questions we have used CDA. We have taken our approach from a modified version of Teun Van Dijks CDA model for analysing news articles. Theoretically we have a CDA approach, we also use theory regarding “the other”. The methodological tools we have used are primarily analysis for Global and Local Coherens, analysis of lexicalization and Faircloughs analysis of Framing. We have also analysed the thematic and schematic structures of the news articles. The analysis is based on a schema and from that schema we have analysed nine news articles selected from a time period of seven days after the Swedish national elections in 2010. Four of the articles come from AB and five from DN. From our analyses we have identified three themes. The first one is common for both DN and AB. It is a theme where the SD voters are consistently portrayed as being dissatisfied both on a political and a social level. AB has also had a tendency to enter articles from a position that expects to find that SD is dependent on a climate of conflict between different social groups to be able to grow regionally. In DN we have found a theme where SD voters are portrayed as less politically aware and generally less knowledgeable than those who vote for the other parties of the Swedish parliament. Keywords: Critical discourse analysis, Sweden Democrats, Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, the others, political, right wing, populism.