This thesis focuses on attitudes of the majority population against immigrants on the national level. In selected countries of the European Union, these attitudes are analysed with the goal of confirming causality between heterogeneous make-up of the population (in terms of proportion of foreign-born residents in the population) and the degree of xenophobia of the majority population. The work is based on the concept of contact hypothesis and assumes that the larger the relative size of the population of foreign-born residents is, the more positive the attitudes of the majority population are. Attitudes of the majority populations are studied on two levels. First, through the opinions of the European Social Survey 2014 respondents, and second, by the election results of populist radical right-wing parties, which are typically associated with firm anti-immigrant policies. While the levels of xenophobia expressed by the ESS respondents partially fits the expected model, the connection between results of relevant political parties and the percentage of foreign-born residents in the population was not proven. The contradictory results of both analyses are attributed to a so-called "modern racism". Keywords: xenophobia, immigration, radical right, contact hypothesis, Europe

The Sweden democrats has for a long time been labelled as a racist party in swedish media. Due to the problems related to the members of the party in the 90s, where members were subject to criminal actions and racist scandals, the media had focus on the racist actions and labelled the party as a racist party therefore. How does the discourse present itself today? The purpose is to make a comparative study between the year 2014 and 2018/2019 and to research if the discourse surrounding the sweden democrats has changed during this time. Relevance for the study is how we discover, categorize and give the discourses names that helps us and also the reader to understand the process about how the media picture Sweden democrats. Our method is a comparative critical discourse analysis that we are going to use on articles published in the two largest newspapers in sweden, Aftonbladet and Expressen. We will locate the surrounding discourses from 2014 at first and then locate what kind of discourses is surrounding the party in 2018/2019. The main discourse from 2014 is the racist discourse, it´s present in nearly every article we analyse. With the racist discourse, the big difference is that the discourse is changing. When we look upon 2018/2019, new discourses take place, the new discourses we locate it’s the right populism-, scandal- and normalization discourse, the rasism discourse is still present but not so extensive as during 2014. During 2014 the racism discourse depends on the scandal discourse, this changes significant, the scandal discourse is no longer in 2018/2019 dependent on the racism discourse, but it acutally transforms into its own discourse. The focus on racism is almost gone and new scandals take place instead. In combination with the normalization discourse we can se that there has been a change, actually a big change in the media discourse surrounding the Sweden democrats.

I analyse whether coalitions consisting of one or several parties from both political blocs have a causal effect on the following election results of the Sweden Democrats using election data. I find that, when the largest bloc is unable to reach a seat majority in a municipal assembly and forms a coalition with one or several parties from the other bloc, the Sweden Democrats increase their municipal vote share by on average 11.71 percentage points the following election. I interpret the result as support for the view that Swedish voters punish the established parties when they are perceived as becoming more similar in terms of policy and ideology. Moreover, my results show that the effect is only significant in municipalities where no small and/or local parties exist, indicating that the largest bloc in many municipalities prefer to form a coalition with these parties when the opportunity exists.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the internal and external supply in relation to citizens’ demand for radical populist parties. To explore how the Sweden Democrats between 2010 and 2018 has developed its party organisation and how this has changed over time. The essay is based on the theory of Cas Mudde which claims demand and supply as a reason and understanding for the increasing growth of radical right parties in Western democracies. The theory divides Sweden Democrats into three different aspects; demand, internal and external supply which explain the stability and increased support for the party. Socio-economic factors such as unemployment, education and level of immigration are significant explanation factors for radical right parties to establish on long term. However, the essay concludes that the internal aspects of the party organisation, in relation to lack of trust for the traditional parties and low party identification, are crucial explanations. The importance of these factors have gradually increased during the years 2010-2018, while the level of significance for socioeconomic factors have decreased.

The aim of the paper is to do a quantitative comparison of the manifestos from a number of European parties that are being put in a mutual party family often referred to as “radical right-wing populist”. The main primary source is the Comparative Manifesto Project database from which the data was gathered for analysis. A number of variables which operationalise typical traits of the party family were picked from the codebook of the database and the parties’ values of these variables were compared and presented in diagrams. Through the analysis it was shown that the parties vary to a great extent in what they put the greatest focus on in their manifestos. It could also be concluded that even parties which had similar values in one category still brought it up from different angles. The essay also brings up suggestions for future research within the same area of research.

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This bachelor’s thesis examines the causes behind the support of radical right and anti-immigration parties by those with a non-native background. Building on findings of previous research and the funnel of causality, a set of variables consisting of anti-immigration views and socio-economic factors are examined to determine their causal effect on the support for the Sweden Democrats among the non-native swedish population. Utilising data from Syd-SOM 2015 and Väst-SOM 2015, no support were found for the hypothesis that those with a non-native background support the Sweden Democrats on the basis of socio-economic factors. Support were found however for the hypothesis that anti-immigration views among non-natives are an important cause for their support of the Sweden Democrats.

This article asks how the internet has been contributing to the trans-national networking of the radical right and whether the radical right has the capacity to act as a trans-national movement. <br>Taking into account language difficulties, the ideological background of ultra- nationalism and internal disputes, the analysis shows that the radical right-wing transnational networking has hardly developed. Additionally, its internet users’ potential is too low to contribute to a stronger trans-national alignment. The obstacles remain despite improved technological possibilities. This is proven by empirical examples of virtual trans-national networks.

A relatively well established literature already proffers explanations for the persistence of Euroskeptic Radical Right Parties (ERRPs) in Western Europe and for their emergence in the new democracies of the East. The purpose of this study is not to replicate those existing studies; instead, the argument advanced here is that there may be an important intervening factor as yet unexplored in the extant literature. Drawing upon aggregate survey data from select Western European EU member states and a focused case study of Slovakia, this paper seeks to assess the impact of information, in this case information about the European Union, on voting for ERRPs. The argument presented here is that EU information mitigates the support for ERRPs, more so in the East than in the West.

The majority of studies on terrorist groups in the past have been conducted from the perspectives of political science, sociology, or psychology. This historical comparative study examines two terrorist organizations through a human resource development (HRD) lens. The study's goal is to provide a fresh perspective on terrorism to the current discussion of the subject within the public and private sectors. A comprehensive literature review is used to examine religiously based terrorist groups. The following HRD models and theories are used to frame this research: the Basic Systems Model of Swanson and Holton (2001), Daft's definition of an organization (2001), the work of Watkins and Marsick (1992 & 1993) on learning organizations, and group theory as discussed by Johnson and Johnson (2000). Crenshaw's (2001) work on terrorist group theory also helps provide a foundation to the discussion. The study begins with a short review of terrorism during the twentieth, and the first years of the twenty-first centuries. Next, the histories, cultures, and beliefs of the fundamentalist Islamic or Islamist movement and the Christian Identity movement are traced. The focus is then narrowed and an in-depth study of al-Qaeda and the Phinehas Priesthood, from the Islamist and Christian Identity movements, respectively, is conducted. The context of HRD organizational traits is used to portray the similarities and differences between these terrorist groups. There were eight major findings from this study. 1. Al-Qaeda and the Phinehas Priesthood possess structure and demonstrate input, output, process, and interaction with, and feedback from their external environment (Swanson & Holton, 2001) as do conventional organizations. 2. Both groups demonstrate structure and group dynamics similar to conventional organizations. 3. Members of both groups profess beliefs similar to those in mainstream Islam and Christianity, respectively. 4. The belief that God's law is superior to that of man in held in common by al-Qaeda and the Priesthood. This belief is based on the revealed word of God, the Koran and Bible, respectively. 5. Members of both groups believe they have been chosen by God to right the wrongs of society and/or the world. Violent acts in support of this mission are fully justified. 6. A common goal of these groups is to establish racially and culturally pure societies on some scale. 7. Al-Qaeda and the Phinehas Priesthood are both anti-Semitic. 8. Members of these groups are culturally isolated from mainstream society. The study makes four recommendations to HRD practitioners, government policy makers, and educators in pursuit of the goal of providing a fresh perspective on terrorism.