This thesis examines and explains how the three Scandinavian populist radical right parties, the Sweden Democrats, the Danish People’s Party and the Progress Party approaches the climate issue in their latest manifesto, and how it has changed over a period of ten years. By means of a content analysis and categorisations of climate scepticism, climate omission and climate measures, this thesis finds explicit evidence of climate scepticism in the Progress Party whereas there is no such evidence for the Sweden Democrats and the Danish People’s Party completely omits the issue. On the other hand, there is evidence of measures to fight climate change in the Progress Party, and the same goes for the Sweden Democrats. However, the only relevant difference when comparing the manifestos over a ten-year period is a decreased usage of statement connected to both climate scepticism and climate action in the Progress Party’s manifestos.

Denna uppsats undersöker Sverigedemokraternas kvinnoförbund SD-Kvinnor och hur förbundet ser på jämställdhet. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur ett kvinnoförbund på högerkanten formeras och att analysera denna formering utifrån ett genusperspektiv. Utgångspunkten har varit att svara på huruvida SD-Kvinnor representerades i SD-Kuriren under 2010–2012, vilka föreställningar som genomsyrar SD-Kvinnor och deras idéer om jämställdhet samt vilka politiska ämnen som diskuteras i kvinnoförbundets podcast ”Snedsteg” och vilka idéer och föreställningar dessa ämnen laddas med. Det teoretiska förhållningssättet är genusbaserad. Metoden utgörs av en kvalitativ textanalys där såväl fysiskt som digitalt material används. SD-Kvinnors idéer om jämställdhet bygger på konservativa grunddrag. De föreställningar som genomsyrar SD-Kvinnors idéer om jämställdhet är att de vill att den enskilda familjen har rätt till självbestämmande och att detta skall respekteras. Kvoteringsfrågan är SD-Kvinnor starkt kritiska till då de menar att jämställdhetspolitik handlar om att lösa problem som är ojämna hellre än att fördela lika mellan könen. Den övervägande politiska människosyn som kvinnoförbundet har handlar i hög grad om att bejaka de biologiska skillnaderna mellan könen. I SD-Kuriren är det tydligt att kvinnor är underrepresenterade i medlemstidningen under den period som undersöks. SD-Kvinnor presenteras på ett visst sätt i medlemstidningen,och gärna separat från det övriga innehållet i medlemstidningen. En slags idealbild av SD-Kvinnan skrivs fram där den socialkonservativa idén om idealkvinnan konstrueras. De politiska ämnen som diskuteras i podcasten Snedsteg är hämtade direkt från Sverigedemokraternas politik där endast sverigedemokrater är inbjudna. De ämnen som diskuteras är breda samhällsfrågor i form av brottslighet, invandring, hedersfrågor, den egna utanförskapen samt vårdfrågor. Dessa laddas med idén om Sverige som ett otryggt samhälle i förfall. Den här uppsatsen visar även att SD-Kvinnor inte nämns i SD-Kuriren förrän i juni 2011 trots att kvinnoförbundet funnits sedan oktober 2010. / This paper explores the women’s union called SD-Women of the political party Sweden Democrats and where they stand in terms of gender equality. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how a women’s union in the far right is formed and analyze this from a gender perspective. The basis has been to find out whether SD-Women are represented in their newspaper SD-Kuriren during 2010-2012, which type of concepts are raised by SD-Women and their ideas regarding gender equality, and lastly also which political topics are discussed in SD-Women’s podcast “Snedsteg” and the notions and concepts these topics are saturated by. The theoretical approach is based on gender and the method constitutes of a qualitative textual analysis where both physical and digital material is used.SD-Women’s ideas in terms of gender equality are based on a conservative essence. The concept that saturates SD-Women’s ideas regarding gender equality is that every individual family should be allowed to govern itself without outside influence and this is something that should be respected. The subject of electoral quotas is strongly criticized by SD-Women as they imply that gender equality politics should revolve around solving inequality problems rather than dividing equally amongst the genders. The predominant political views of SD-Women in terms of mankind is to affirm the biological differences between genders. In SD-Kuriren it’s clear that women are less represented during the period that is analyzed. SD-Women is presented in a very specific way in SD-Kuriren, and often separated from the other contents of the newspaper. A type of ideal image of a Sweden Democrat women is offered where the social conservative idea of an ideal woman is constructed.The political topics that are discussed in the podcast Snedsteg are directly imported from the politics of Sweden Democrats themselves where only other Sweden Democrats are invited to the podcast. The discussed topics are often the larger societal issues like crime, immigration, family honor, health care and also the Sweden Democrats own alienation. These topics are saturated with the idea of Sweden being an insecure society under decay. This paper will also shed a light on the fact that SD-Women is not mentioned at all in SD-Kuriren until June 2011, even though they were in existence since October 2010.

During the last decades, culturally racist parties, like the Sweden Democrats (SD) and the Alterna-tive for Germany (AfD), have seen a rapid growth in popularity and are now represented in parliaments in almost all European countries. Although the majority of their voters are considered white, male, and working class, a growing number of people with a migration background started sup-porting parties of said political stream that frame migration as the biggest threat to society. This thesis aims at understanding the alleged contradiction of individuals that are to different degrees racialized as immigrants becoming members in the SD and AfD. Located within discourses of racial neoliberalism, the study examines how national belonging and subject positions are constructed and contested, and how racist migrant respectability serves as a strategy of overcoming a struggle for belonging to the host society.

The purpose of this thesis aimed at trying to find out why the Sweden Democrats have increased their support, to become the second largest party in the Swedish parliament, while, the Danish People’s Party, has lost the majority of their support after being the second largest party in the Danish parliament to almost falling out a few years later. Is it possible for the Sweden Democrats to share the same fate? To find this out, we’ve decided to conduct this study using a qualitative comparative method, with a Most Similar System Design. The analysis mainly consists of two concepts to explain this phenomenon which are “Cordon Sanitaire” and “Normalization”.  The results of the analysis show that in Denmark, the Danish People’s Party’s views and policies on migration, have gotten normalized across the political spectrum. As such, they can no longer argue that they are anti-establishment, but instead, they have become a part of the establishment themselves. In Sweden, the Sweden Democrats have been kept out of power, with a “cordon sanitaire”, and thus their view and policies have not gotten normalized and adopted by other parties, and therefore they have continued to grow. An interesting aspect of this is that recently, the Sweden Democrats have gotten normalized and they are now a support party for a right-wing government, which we argue might lead to a similar situation as in Denmark, meaning that the Sweden Democrats might lose support in the future.

This essay intends to discover how a qualitative discourse of right-wing populismcan be seen within the Swedish parliament, by exploring how politicians in theparliament are using the "us against them" and if a scapegoat is created by doing so.The essay's key questions are going to examine the differences and similaritiesbetween the Social democratic government from 2020-2022 and the current centerright government compared to the opposition parties, between social democrats andcenter-right government on right-wing populist discourse, and what the media isnotifying about the political debate within the government. By doing so, we can find out important explanatory factors on why the shift inpolitics in Sweden has gone to more right-wing populist rhetoric, to understand whythis has been occurring in the Swedish government. By looking at the factors of whya rise of right-wing populism has occurred within different types of governmentparties and the type of similarities and differences they have on different parties’discourse about the framing of anti-immigration rhetoric.

Populism has been an integral part of the Finnish political system since the late 1950's. At that time the Agrarian Populist Party, better known as The Rural Party, emerged and thrived for decades until the party financially broke down in the 1990's. Reemerging on the political scene as the True Finns, the party is more radical and more influential than ever, gaining enough support to be the third largest party of the 2011 parliamentary election. Sweden, Finland’s neighbor, in contrast has a history with very little populist presence or radical right populist parties (RRP-parties). However, during the 2010 parliamentary election the Sweden Democrats attained seats in the parliament for the first time in history. In this thesis, these cases, with their different historical backgrounds, are analyzed to explain the rise and growth of RRP-parties. Many political scientists have tried to answer this question before, focusing on system-oriented and contextual factors, but often neglecting factors that incorporate the political actors themselves. What this thesis adds to the previous research is a perspective on the rise and growth of RRP-parties based on the dynamism between system-oriented factors and actor-oriented factors. The theoretical discussion indicates that some system-oriented and contextual factors are significant when explaining the rise and growth of RRP-parties. At the same time, actor oriented factors such as the legacy of the RRP-party and the mainstream party strategies prove to be influential on the electoral strength of the RRP-party. These theoretical approaches are then used and combined in a comparative analysis, which imply two important things. First, the legitimacy of the RRP-party itself is an aspect that does explain the rise and growth of RRP-parties. Second, in the case of Sweden, the system-oriented and contextual factors alone were not able to explain the rise and growth of the Sweden Democrats. Together these findings stress that the dynamic perspective between system-oriented and actor-oriented factors truly is meaningful when trying to explain rise and growth of RRP-parties.

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.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka innehållet i Sverigedemokraternas principprogram för att skapa en förståelse för inslag av radikal högerpopulism i partiets politiska ideologi, så som den kommer till uttryck i dessa texter. Forskningsfrågans relevans grundar sig i den splittring som identifierats bland forskare som sysslar med Sverigedemokraternas politiska ideologi och hur den bör definieras. Trots att Sverigedemokraterna är Sveriges näst största parti, vilket medför ett stort politiskt inflytande, finns alltså en osäkerhet bland forskare om partiets ideologi och intentioner. Det är vanligt förekommande att Sverigedemokraterna beskrivs baserat på deras ställningstagande i enskilda politiska frågor, exempelvis frågor om invandring, men i den här uppsatsen presenteras en analys av Sverigedemokraternas beskrivningar av Sverige, världen och politik i allmänhet. Mitt syfte ska besvaras genom en riktad kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Det material som analyseras är Sverigedemokraternas partiprogram/principprogram från åren 1996, 1999, 2003, 2011 och 2019. I analysen utgår jag från ett teoretiskt ramverk baserat på Jens Rydgrens beskrivningar av radikal högerpopulism. En idealtyp för radikal högerpopulism formuleras med syftet att förenkla och förtydliga ideologins olika grundbultar. Resultatet visar att Sverigedemokraternas principprogram innehåller radikala högerpopulistiska tendenser under alla år, men det identifieras också skillnader som indikerar att principprogrammens primära fokus varierar under åren. Partiets invandringspolitiska ståndpunkter är centrala delar som går i linje med ideologin i samtliga program, där en intolerans inför olikheter och stark etnopluralistisk nationalism identifierats. De radikala högerpopulistiska tendenser som identifieras förekommer i en sådan utsträckning, även 2019, att studiens resultat kan tolkas som stöd till påståenden om att radikal högerpopulism kan användas för att beskriva Sverigedemokraternas ideologi. / The purpose of this study is to examine the content of the Sweden Democrats' party program in order to create an understanding of potential elements of radical right-wing populism in the party's ideology, as expressed in these texts. The relevance of the research question is based on the division identified among researchers of the Sweden Democrats' political ideology and how it should be defined. Even though the Sweden Democrats are Sweden's second largest party, which entails a large political influence, there is still a great deal of uncertainty among the public as well as experts about the party's ideology and intentions. It is common for the Sweden Democrats to be described based on their stance on individual political issues, for example issues of immigration, but this essay presents an analysis of the Sweden Democrats' descriptions of Sweden, the world and politics in general. My purpose is to be answered through a targeted qualitative content analysis. The material that is analyzed is the Sweden Democrats' party programs from the years 1996, 1999, 2003, 2011 and 2019. In the analysis, I use a theoretical framework based on Jens Rydgren's descriptions of radical right-wing populism. An ideal type for radical right-wing populism is formulated with the aim of simplifying and clarifying the core of the ideology. The results show that the Sweden Democrats' party programs contain radical right-wing populist tendencies between the years 1996-2019, but differences are also identified which indicate that the primary focus in the party programs vary over the years. The party’s immigration policies align particularly well with the ideology in all programs, where an intolerance towards differences and a strong ethnopluralist nationalism have been identified. The radical right-wing populist tendencies that are identified occur to such an extent, even in 2019, that the study's results can be interpreted as support for claims that radical right-wing populism can be used to describe the ideology of the Sweden Democrats.

Is religion a vaccine against radical right populism? The opposite has often been taken for granted in many debates. This study tests the theory of religious immunity by examining three Swedish evangelical newspapers: Dagen, Världen idag and Sändaren. By performing an analysis of ideas on evangelical contribution to public debate in the years of 2010 and 2021, the degree of radical right populism is estimated. Differences between the newspapers and change over time are the investigation’s comparative elements. By utilizing theological variation among the cases and the development over time, the strength and endurance of the immunity is examined.  Results show an evangelical opinion making in change. From a starting point in 2010, where all cases proved a solid immunity, to a more complex picture in 2021. Two parallel trends where observed: the immunity found in Dagen and Sändaren endured the test of time. At the same time, Världen idag developed a radical right tendency, harmonizing with the Christian Democratic party. Being a least likely case, the turn in Världen idag does not write off the theory of immunity, but challenges the idea of evangelical homogeneity in regard to radical right populism. Theological ideas about the nation is suggested being a possible division. In whole, this study has deepened our knowledge in how theological motives are used to affect the connection between religion and radical right populism, and given a more nuanced understanding of evangelical politics in Sweden.

The aim of this study was to analyze the salience of issue dimensions in the Swedish parliament debates by the established parties during the rise of the Sweden Democrats Party (SD). Structural topic modeling was used to construct a measurement of the salience of issues, examining the full body of speeches in the Swedish parliament between September 2006 and December 2019. Trend analysis revealed a realignment from a focus on socio-economic to socio-cultural issues in Swedish politics. Cross-correlation analyses had conflicting results, indicating a weak positive relationship between the salience of issues and the support of SD – but low predictive ability; it also showed that changes in the support of SD did lead (precede) changes in the salience of issues in the parliament. The ramifications of socio-cultural issues being the most salient are that so-called radical right-wing populist parties (RRPs), or neo-nationalist parties, has a greater opportunity to gain support. It can make voters more inclined to base their voting decision on socio-cultural issues, which favors parties who fight for and are trustworthy in those issues – giving them more valence in the eyes of the voters.