The purpose of this thesis is, through both a quantitative and qualitative study, to map out how the interaction appears between the established parties and the radical right-wing party, the Sweden Democrat’s (SD) and their core issue – immigration in the Swedish parliament. By applying analytical dimensions on the parliamentary protocols regarding the immigration issue between the years of 2010-2012 this study will get an insight on how the argumentation concerning immigration has developed since their entrance into the Swedish parliament in 2010. The result shows that SD, through the rejection treatment of the established parties, fulfilled the three conditions which accordingly to the study's theoretical framework are crucial for the party's future success. In the established parties’ reception of SD regarding immigration, SD is, to a large extent, left unchallenged as the established parties rather focus on integration instead of challenge SD in the immigration issue. Furthermore, the result reinforce the previous studies stating that a radical right-wing party gains greater success if the established parties refuses to treat them as equals in the parliament.

The purpose of this study is to examine the strategic choice of mainstream parties in relation to the competition of voters posed by a niche party and their most important issue, in this case radicalist rightwing populists and the migration issue. The study uses a comparative approach to examine the mainstream parties Social Democrats and Moderates reaction to the niche parties New Democracy 1991-1994 and Sweden Democrats 2010-2015. Using Meguid´s PSO-theory and by performing an qualitative analyse of the parties rhetoric and political suggestions in the parliamentary debates as well as in government bills and reservations in committee reports, the study aims to describe mainstream parties position on the issue and if and how they change position and strategy. The results of the study shows that both mainstream parties over all applies an adversarial strategy, aiming to maintain distance to the niche party and its position but with time and due to changes in the political environment, changes in position and strategy takes place and the mainstream parties applies a slightly more accommodative strategy.

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.

Populism as a phenomenon is increasing in Europe. This study is therefore centred on howpopulist parties affect mainstream parties when entering the parliament. Moreover this studyresearches how party behaviour theories such as the median voter theorem and cartel partytheory explains mainstream parties' transition on the political and ideological scale when apopulist party is included in the parliament. This study aims to identify populistic discourse in Swedish parties election manifestos. Additionally, examine if the degree of populisticdiscourse differs from the year 2010 when the populist party entered the parliament, the yearof 2018 and the year of 2022 when the populist party entered an alliance with the government.The methodical approach for this research has been a qualitative content analysis. The categories for populist communication strategy attempts to contribute with an operationalization, a measuring instrument of populism in the empirical material. Moreoverthe categories is based on Jan Jagers and Steffan Walgraves theory surrounding populism as a political communication-style. The eight units of analysis are the election manifestos of the Swedish parties: The christ democratic party, the moderate party and the sweden democrats. The empirical research shows that populism as a communication style appears within the election manifestos and that the degree of populist rhetoric differs within the mainstream parties from when the populist party entered the parliament in 2010 and government alliancein 2022.