This essay intended to examine gender equality policies of four parliamentary parties in Sweden. The parties selected for this thesis were the Left Party, the Social Democrats, the Liberals and the Sweden Democrats. This thesis aim was to study the parties’ election manifestos, party programs and debates in order to compare the parties’ gender equality policies with each other through a qualitative idea analysis. The investigation is centered around three equality issues which are honour-related violence and oppression, economic inequality and men's violence against women. The results presented that the parties have different views on both what equality is and what measures need to be taken to achieve equality. The Left Party and the Social Democrats focused on demolishing patriarchal power structures and working preventively. The Liberals rather emphasized individual over the group and punishing crimes. The Sweden Democrats, in turn, argued that there were no widespread patriarchal power structures in society and that a large factor in violence against women came from excess immigration and increased punishments rather than preventing crime. The survey shows that the politics of all parties are not characterized by gender equality. Rather, the parties' gender equality policy is characterized by the party's other policies.

The purpose of this study is to examine the hypothesis that Moderaterna has developed its migration policy towards a more restrictive direction with the influence of the populist party Sverigedemokraterna, as a measure to prevent Sverigedemokraterna from winning the election. The international migration has in recent years grown significantly and has resulted in the increased numbers of populist parties. After the narrow victory in the 2022 election of the right-wing conservative party Moderaterna, the populist party Sverigedemokraterna has got its position as a cooperation party outside the government.  ​​The focus of this thesis is to use an idea analysis to investigate whether Sverigedemokraterna have influenced the migration policy of Moderaterna towards a more restrictive direction ahead of the 2022 election. The empirical material of the election manifesto has been analyzed based on the theory of party change where the selected questions have helped to fulfill the purpose.   The final results from the analysis shows that a slightly change in Moderaternas migration policy can be noticed, but that it can not be interpreted as having taken place under the influence of Sverigedemokraterna.

No one believes in Åkesson - a comparative study on the evening press and the public service reporting on the Swedish Democrats before the 2014 election. The purpose of this essay was to study how Aftonbladet and Ekot reports about the Swedish Democrats before the election 2014, as well as comparing the two medias and reasoning about their agendas towards the party. The tabloid, Aftonbladet, is one of the biggest newspapers in Sweden, which depends on counter sales and commercials. Ekot, which is a part of public service, is state-funded and regulated by certain guidelines. Using a quantitative method we studied 80 articles, and through a qualitative method, six of the articles were analyzed to reach a deeper understanding. The theories primary used in this study were agenda-setting and framing, to stress the power of media. As well as political communication, to examine whether the Swedish Democrats are portrayed according to the democratics ideals of what kind of information journalism should provide citizens before an election. The result showed that the politics of the Swedish Democrats was rarely applied in the news articles. It also showed that both Aftonbladet and Ekot tended to portray the political party with a primary negative agenda. The Swedish Democrats were often described as racists, ignorant and irresponsible. Although Ekot proved to be a bit more restrict in their reporting, there were little differences in how both media presented the politcal party. Although the Swedish Democrats has taken on costumes instead of bomber jackets, and has an office in the Swedish Parliament, they still in 2014 aren’t neutralised or portraid as a serious political alternative, in either Aftonbladet nor Ekot.

The aim of the research project “The menacing immigration and ideal Swedishness: A semiotic analysis of the Sweden Democrats campaign films” was to highlight how ethnicities are portrayed in five different campaign films produced by the Swedish party the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna). The applied theories are stereotypes, binary oppositions as well as the theory of whiteness and blackness. The method used to analyse the campaign films are semiotics, and the tools denotation, connotation, anchoring, relay, metonymy and myths.   The results show that a person’s skin colour is of minor importance. What does matter, is if you are Swedish or not and how Swedish you are. All of the campaign films concern questions about “Swedishness” and immigration. When immigration and non-Swedes are in focus, the films present a dark theme with a sinister undertone. In contrast, when the issue of Swedishness is presented the films portray harmonious and idyllic images of Sweden. Sweden, Swedes and Swedishness is habitually portrayed as being the ideal, the desirable, and the good. It is the norm for being socially acceptable. Immigration, immigrants and non-Swedes on the other hand are consistently portrayed in a negative light. These extraneous groups of people are labelled as the others; they are the bad, and are portrayed as a threat that we Swedes have to defend ourselves against. A third, but less prominent theme that could be deduced from the films is that the Sweden Democrats are portrayed as martyrs. By presenting themselves as being misunderstood and as being the voice of the people, it can be interpreted that they attempt to detract the stamp they acquired as a racist party.   Although the Sweden Democrats seem to have refined the ways in which they express their opinions of Swedishness and immigration, it’s still a significant part of the message in their commercials. They glorify Swedes and reproduce coarse stereotypes of non-Swedes. With the portrayal and contrasting comparison there is an inherent consequence that immigrants are to be seen as less worthy, and that the Swedes in turn are indirectly attributed to a higher value and as such, being Swedish is set as the norm.

The key question of this essay concerns the outcome of Sweden’s latest election. When all the votes where counted, the county of Skåne showed an exceptionally high support for the right wing nationalist party Sverigedemokraterna. Why then, did Sverigedemokraterna have a higher support among voters in Skåne (as part of the larger and transnational Öresund region), than among other Swedish voters? My hypothesis is the following: the regional interaction within Öresund has not only had positive effects concerning the values that the people of Skåne hold. In other words, Danish experience has changed the way in which the people of Skåne view immigrants and radical right wing parties. Before I go on any further I will explain what is meant by the Öresund region. This region encompasses both parts of Sweden and Denmark (most notably Skåne and Själland), and the interaction between the two countries have increased considerably since a physical bridge between the two border regions was opened in July 2000. Now, let us go on to the purpose of this essay, which is to answer the key question, and also to determine if the regional cooperation in the Öresund region has led to changes in the way the people of Skåne view right wing nationalist parties. Therefore, I explored the effects of the interaction between the Swedish region Skåne and the Danish region Själland, in order to discern if the Danes negative views towards immigrants and their strong feelings of nationalism, have effected Swedes and their values. In other words, was it possible that the Danish hostility towards immigrants and their unproblematic view of right wing nationalist parties, had been transmitted to the people of Skåne? Last but not least, it has also been the purpose of this essay to prove that traditional variables, concerning the question of why people vote for right wing nationalist parties, do no longer explain this phenomenon. By traditional variables I mean unemployment and a high density of immigrants of the population in a specific area. In order to research the above mentioned issues, I have gone through letters to the editor, sent to the newspaper Sydsvenskan, and analysed the material using qualitative text analysis. I have also studied literature within the field of cross-border studies. After ten weeks of research, I came to the conclusion that the traditional variables do not explain why Sverigedemokraterna received such a high proportion of the votes in Skåne. However, this essay also sheds light on the possibility of Danish experience as a plausible variable when it comes to explaining the outcome of the last election, but based on my limited study I can neither confirm nor dismiss the hypothesis. However, my study does provide some evidence that supports the hypothesis. In order to draw any conclusions however, it would have to be broadened in itself and replicated in other sections of Sweden or nationally. The results of my study might leave the key question unanswered, but in itself can be viewed as an important step towards obtaining a clearer overview of what has driven the increased vote share for Sverigedemokraterna.

Denna forskning är en systematiserande, mest lika design och idécentrala undersökning, som siktarpå att studera hur multikulturalismen representeras inom Jimmie Åkesson diskurs över tid. Analysen görs på fyra av Åkessons almedalenstal 2011, 2016, 2017 och 2018 av anledningen att ett allmänval ska finnas mellan vissa av valda tal. Den grundläggande teorin som undersökningen utgår ifrån är multikulturalism samt postkolonialism och symbolisk rasism. Syftet med forskningen är att genom en kvalitativ textanalys av valda tal, lifta fram idéstrukturen i hur Åkesson presenterar multikulturalismen till sina åhörare, för att besvara frågeställningen kommer forskningen attavkoda för läsaren innehållet som bedöms har postkolonial och symbolisk rasistisk latent budskap.Materialet som används under forskningen är officiella manus för Åkesson almedalenstal från fyra olika år. Slutsatsen som forskningen har uppnått är att, i respektive Åkessons tal finns stark koppling mellan hur Åkesson ser på multikulturalismen, och mönster som förknippas med postkolonialism och symbolisk rasism. / <p>G betyg</p>

Den här studien för samman Karen Stenners politisk-psykologiska teori om den "auktoritära dynamiken" med Robert Putnams teorier om social tillit. I Sverige är forskning inom politisk psykologi eftersatt, vilket mycket väl kan vara en anledning till att vi fortfarande har så svårt att dechiffrera vissa aspekter av SD:s framgångar. Flera nyligen publicerade undersökningar har i samband med det amerikanska presidentvalet uppmärksammat ett starkt samband mellan auktoritära väljare och stöd för Donald Trump. En auktoritär person definieras av en preferens för hierarkier, ordning och konventionalism, vilket under särskilda omständigheter kan resultera i en aggressiv attityd och intolerans gentemot avvikare. Den här kvantitativa studien undersöker om kopplingen mellan en auktoritär psykologisk läggning och stöd för SD är signifikant även i det svenska sammanhanget. Med hjälp av en serie regressionsanalyser finner den här undersökningen tydligt stöd för teorin om den auktoritära dynamiken - väljare med auktoritära böjelser är en potentiellt viktig delförklaring till SD:s fortsatt starka väljarstöd. Resultaten kopplas sen ihop med existentiella och sociologiska diskussioner om mänsklig gemenskap och social isolering. Undersökningen visar att väljare som inte är föreningsaktiva eller religiösa i mycket hög utsträckning röstar på Sverigedemokraterna. För den som känner sig frånkopplad kan SD erbjuda en annan sorts gemenskap och tillhörighet – nationalismen. Studien finner att det här i synnerhet gäller väljare som har en auktoritär böjelse, och därmed ofta fäster vikt vid gruppidentiteter snarare än vid individen. Undersökningen bidrar därmed med en ny förståelse av SD:s framgångar i opinionen. / This study tests Karen Stenner's theory of "The Authoritarian Dynamic" on voters of Swedish populist radical right party. It finds that the theory is highly applicable in the Swedish context; authoritarian voters turn out in large numbers for the Sweden Democrats. Voters with an authoritarian predisposition, meaning they value order and hierarchy in society, have to a large extent become activated in Sweden, rendering intolerant and aggressive behaviour. For authoritarians with low trust in the Swedish parliament this effect was particularly evident. Furthermore, the study finds that religious voters are far less likely to vote for the radical right. Lastly, an investigation into free time organisational activities of the Swedes is conducted. The result of this last study is that voters who are not active in any kind of organisation (sport clubs, choirs, religious communities) are more receptive to the message of the Sweden Democrats. The author's theory, with reference to the aforementioned, holds that a lacking sense of belonging and purpose are key factors driving support for the Sweden Democrats. This is particularly true for the authoritarian voters, who are often more prone to think in collective identities rather than in individual ones. The study attempts to fuse the political psychological theories of Karen Stenner with Robert Putnam's theory of social trust. Based on data from World Values Survey it finds robust statistical evidence for this connection.

The purpose of this essay was to analyse the way two Swedish parties, The Swedish Democrats and the Nordic Resistance Movement, represent women in articles written for members of their parties. The qualitative analysis was done on a small number of articles using Norman Faircloughs Critical Discourse Analysis and with the theoretical framework of mainly Frank Ankersmits aesthetic representation, but also metapolitics and red and blue pill. The main questions that has been answered are how women are represented in the articles, i.e. what roles they are given, and how this is motivated, including also how women can be attracted to these discourses. The result of this essay has shown that the discourses uses by the two parties are connected in a way, to support each other, instead of putting forth other arguments. The role of the woman as mother and wife works because as a part of it, her role is also to support men. Without that he cannot be the man he is supposed to be, and the woman cannot either, because feminism is destroying that possibility.

Sverigedemokraterna är det enda partiet i Sverige som ökat antalet röster på alla nivåer sedan bildandet. Syftet med denna uppsats är att försöka identifiera vilka orsaker som kan förklara Sverigedemokraternas framgångar. För att göra detta har historie-institutionalismen, nedfrysningsteorin och diffusionsteorin använts. Vidare analyseras framgångarna även genom de olika – såväl endogena som exogena – faktorer sociologiprofessor Jens Rydgren tar upp. Resultatet visar att Sverigedemokraterna ända sedan bildandet 1988 haft en tydligt planerad strategi som hela tiden anpassats utifrån partiets storlek. / Since the inceptions of the democratic election system in Sweden the Sweden Democrats is the only party which has shown a continuously increasing numbers of voters. The aim of this essay is to try to identify the causes of the success of the Sweden Democrats.  In doing so, the thesis will apply historical-institutionalism, refrigeration theory and diffusion theory to this historical event. It will also analyze both endogenous and exogenous factors outlined by Professor Jens Rydgren with reference to the party's precedent history. The result shows that the Sweden Democrats since its foundation in 1988 has had a clear and planned strategy which has been constantly adjusted to the size of the party. / <p>2011-06-03</p>

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.