The aim of this thesis is to analyse the extent to which European electorates have opinions that are in agreement with the three cornerstones of right-wing populist ideology. In today’s research, it’s indicated that there’s a contradiction in current findings. Whereas voting for radical right-wing populists almost is perceived of as pathological deviancy, support for these parties is rising all over Europe. The thesis uses Cas Mudde’s theory to operationalize three key features of populist radical right ideology – nativism, populism and authoritarianism to explore the magnitude of this support. The study is based on a statistical analysis with mean value analysis of 20 European countries and regression analysis, which utilizes data from the European Social Survey from 2014. In the regression analysis, eleven control variables are added with the aim of investigating whether personal qualities affect the result or if it’s only differences between countries that contribute to the result of the thesis. The regression analysis show that a combination of the control variables together with the country variables have the biggest affect on the populist right ideology in Europe. The findings of the thesis show that support for all three key features of the right-wing populist ideology are wide-spread in Europe. However, some countries distinguish themselves more than others. Among the countries where support is most widespread are the Eastern European countries Hungary, Slovenia, Poland and Portugal. On the other hand, although levels of support are still high, opinions that are in agreement with right-wing populism are much less widespread in economically developed countries in North Western Europe, like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland and Germany.

Since the political party Law and justice's access to power in 2015, laws have been implemented that restrict the freedom of institutions such as the media and the court. The Church has also increased involvement in decision-making, including in the abortion issue and LGBTQ issues. These events among many have led to ideas that Poland, like Ukraine, will return to autocracy, a process known as democratic backsliding.The thesis aims to investigate in what way Poland meets the requirements for democratic backsliding. This by answering the question: In what way does Poland's political situation meet the criterias for democratic backsliding? In order to answer the question, two theories have been used, Nancy Bermeo's categorizations of democratic backsliding and Ozan O. Varol's theory of stealth authoritarianism. The method that will be used in the thesis is a qualitative case study method, where the period 2008-2014 is compared with the period 2015-2020. The study will be based on a selection of texts and reports. The results show that Poland met one of the criterias for democratic backsliding during the period 2008-2014 and all criteria except one during the period 2015-2020. This leads to the conclusion that the occurrence of democratic backsliding has increased during the party "Law and Justice" reign.

Title: School in Change : Good Grades = Good Democrat?   Level: Final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Political Science   Author: Marcos Castro Allende   Supervisor: Per Strömblad   Date: 2013 – May   Aim: The background to this study is a book published by Staffan. I Lindberg & Richard Svensson where they presented a hypothesis that the decline in trusting democracy within Swedish youth is a result of the deregulation of the education in Sweden. The aim of this study is to test this hypothesis and see if the declinne in democracy can be seen already before graduating from elementary school.   Method: The method used in this study consist of a survey distributed to students at two elementary schools that differentiates in question of grades and social status. By comparing and analyzing the results of this survey with the claims of the hypothesis, former studies and Lipsets theory of the working-class authoritarism a conclusion is made of the hypothesis credibility.   Result & Conclusions: The results showed that there may be a a difference trusting democracy between students with higher grades and those with lower grades. The result also showed that there is a difference in trusting politicans, a claim that was of great importance for the hypothesis. Therefore further research must be done to address this anti-hypothesis factor.   Contribution of the thesis: This study can, inspite its minor scale, contribute with a little more specific material for proving Lindberg & Svenssons hypothesis and also be used as a help to further research in the issues between school quality and trust in democracy.

As our world globalizes and grows smaller, there is increasing concern about questions related to the future of liberal democracy. Following the breakdown of communism on the European continent and the ensuing emphasis on the universalization of liberal democratic values as ‘the end of history’, much research has been centered on understanding the crafting of stable democratic systems in East-Central Europe. Recently, the widely observed phenomenon of ‘illiberal backsliding’ has evoked considerable scholarly attention. However, the research community lacks a deeper understanding of the factors determining the prospects of sustainable democratic consolidation in a post-authoritarian environment. This case study therefore relates the problems associated with anchoring democratic governance in the post-communist states of East-Central Europe to a broader framework of democratization theories. It is argued that consolidating democracies is a far more complex task than has earlier been acknowledged, as it depends on a multitude of interrelated socio-cultural and political determinants. As is further proposed, the post-communist countries have largely been entrapped in an unsustainable state of incomplete democratic consolidation, evident specifically in the prevalent lack of civic culture and a deficient process of citizenship formation, entailing a serious risk of authoritarian backlash. A somewhat paradoxical hypothesis is suggested: that periods of illiberal government actually could be instrumental to generate the kind of social community needed for a long-term sustainable democratic society. In a concluding discussion on the prospects of consolidating democracy on a global scale, it is stated that the liberal democratic endeavor may be facing two future trajectories: while the first one is that of a global democratic decline in the face of authoritarian reaction, the opposite trajectory implies that liberal democracy may well have a universal future, although to accelerate to that point, it needs to overcome an initial state of instability requiring some setbacks.