Can individuals support for radical right parties in European countries be explained as a consequence of globalization? This quantitative study proceeds from the cleavage theory and examines the theory of winners and losers of globalization by studying the importance of three mechanisms on a micro level. It compares the importance of the economic, cultural and political mechanisms effect on individual support for radical right parties in countries within the European Union.  The study finds evidence that supports the theory of winners and losers of globalization and evidence that indicates that the cultural mechanism is the most important of the three to explain individual support for radically right parties.

The aim of this study is to examine two cleavages in a Swedish political context and how the political debate of parentel leave among the parliamental parties relates to the cleavages. The cleavages examined are the right-left-scale and the new cleavage GAL-TAN. To do so, the study examines party platforms and debate articles to see if the proposals and arguments used are mainly related to the right-left-scale or to GAL-TAN. The result shows that the debate mostly relates to GAL-TAN due to the fact that most parties use proposals and arguments that are connected to social and cultural values, such as equality and freedom of choice, rather than economic values. Even though the proposals and arguments for the most part relate more to GAL-TAN, the economic arguments are not insignificant. Almost all parties discuss economic values in some way but not in the same amount as social and cultural values. This is the case for all parties except for two who focuses on both sides equally much. The main conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that GAL-TAN is a cleavage that is able to organize Swedish party politics in some political areas and can therefore be seen as a complement to the rightleft-scale.

The Islamist movements operate in all the countries of the Middle East and North Africa region. The mother organization, which is also best-known among the movements, is the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, whose ideas spread quickly into other countries in the region. Although the Islamist movements are ideologically different, they have one similar attribute - focus on various social issues as well as the fact that they originally profiled as charity organizations and they have only recently entered the political scene. The main goal of this diploma thesis is to analyze and compare the activities and achievements of the Muslim Brotherhood (The Freedom and Justice party) and The Movement of Islamic Tendency (The Ennadhda party) within the political systems in Egypt and Tunisia. The thesis also aims at verifying explanatory cleavage of Islamist electorate based on the cleavage theory within Egypt and Tunisia. The biggest success of the Islamist movements so far meant the changes after the Arab Spring. Following this event the Islamist movements won the first free parliamentary election in both countries. However, the political activities of the Muslim Brotherhood did not last so long in Egypt - nowadays the movement exists only illegally and it has been in a difficult position. On the contrary, the...

Recent political developments, with the outcome of the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States, have revitalized the discussion about so called political cleavages. Drawing upon the work of Lipset and Rokkan, some see the urban-rural cleavage as an explanation to the election outcomes. In a Swedish context it is primarily the increase in electoral support for the Sweden Democrats that has brought up the question. The overarching purpose with this master’s thesis is to explain the role of Lipset and Rokkans theoretical cleavages in Swedish rural politics. Rural politics is considered a most likely-case for finding ideas related to the urban-rural cleavage, a cleavage which is said to have gained a greater importance over the past couple of years. Political cleavages exist when political actors demonstrate cohesive ideas and in a structured matter relate to them. For this reason, the thesis’ subordinate purpose is to describe what ideas parliamentary parties have in the rural political debate. This is done through an idea analysis where problems and solutions presented by the political parties are described and interpreted. The conclusion is that the worker-owner-cleavage is the dominant cleavage in Swedish rural politics. Political parties tend to problematize issues that are a part of the cleavage, with issues such as welfare, regional redistribution, entrepreneurship and taxation. The urban-rural and center-periphery cleavage can only be regarded as secondary and subordinate to the worker-owner-cleavage. However, there are ideas in the debate relating to these two cleavages. Ideas relating to the state-church cleavage is absent in the chosen material.