Populism in a Democratic sense undermines the representative aspect of any democracy’s public interest, which plays a key role in the legitimacy, also known as credibility, of any democratic representation. In both Greece and Sweden during an extensive amount of time, populists have gained a seemingly steady increase in support. In this sense this essay will also pursue an attempt to find out if factors like crisis could be an underlying explanation to as of why established power is losing their previously assumingly secured mass loyalty within these societies. The purpose of this essay is to investigate the health of two European democracies, namely Greece and Sweden, to potentially find out to which extent established parties succeed to maintain a healthy political organization within society. Europe’s free democracy is affected by the even more so present populism we see today. In theory this means we are investigating the representation of the citizens and the popularity towards populist parties, through voting support. This should give us an idea of how these democracies are faring, in favor of populists one could also assume there is a detoriating support for established parties. Depending on how these similarities or differences play out, the actual populist support could potentially undermine the legitimacy of any given democratic representation, if populist tendencies are widely present during times of crisis. Therefore, this essay will pursue the investigation of the questionable growth of populism within Sweden’s and the Greece democracy to find out if established parties have addressed day to day political topics in a credible way, or if they might have a potential inability to handle crisis could be the underlying factor, as of why and how populists have increased in both popularity and support over distinguishable periods of times in crisis. During a crisis, the state apparatus is faced with new challenges. If these developing challenges are not tended to or subdued, it will of course in theory make the democratic voter seek an alternative solution, hence also resulting in a mass loyalty loss for established parties.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-98116 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Petersson, Carl |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för statsvetenskap (ST) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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