MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF SOCIAL STUDIES

Department of International Relations and European Studies

European Studies

The Rise of Right-wing Populist Sverigedemokraterna: The Possible Factors Explaining the Electoral Success in 2014

B. A. Major Thesis

Sára Nožková

Supervisor: PhDr. Petr Kaniok, Ph.D. UČO: 427296 Field of Study: EVS Matriculation year: 2013 Brno, Stockholm, 2015

I declare that I have worked on this thesis „The Rise of Right - wing Populist Sverigedemokraterna: The Possible Factors Explaining the Electoral Success in 2014“ independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

In Brno, 1st of December, 2015

...... (Sára Nožková)

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my very great appreciation to my supervisor PhDr. Petr Kaniok, Ph.D. for helpful guidance, constructive suggestions and valuable advice. I would also like to thank my family for their unconditional encouragement and for making my studies possible.

Table of Contents

1 INTRODUCTION ...... 1 1.1 AIM AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS ...... 3 2 METHOD OF APPROACH ...... 3 2.1 NOMINAL DEFINITIONS...... 3 2.2 PREVIOUS RESEARCH AND OPERATIONAL VARIABLES ...... 4 2.2.1 IMMIGRATION ...... 7 2.2.2 CRIMINALITY ...... 7 2.2.3 UNEMPLOYMENT ...... 7 2.2.4 LOW EDUCATION ...... 8 2.2.5 EURO-SCEPTICISM ...... 8 2.3 METHOD FORMULATION ...... 9 2.4 DELIMITATIONS ...... 10 2.5 MATERIALS, VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY ...... 11 3 SVERIGEDEMOKRATERNA’S BACKGROUND ...... 12 3.1 HISTORY OF THE PARTY ...... 12 3.1.1 1988 – 2005: THE ORIGINS AND EARLY ACTIVITIES ...... 13 3.1.2 2006 – 2009: THE FIRST ELECTORAL SUCCESSES ...... 16 3.1.3 2010 – 2015: SVERIGEDEMOKRATERNA IN THE RIKSDAG ...... 18 3.2 IDEOLOGY, GENERAL ATTITUDES AND OBJECTIVES ...... 20 4 ANALYSIS ...... 27 4.1 UNIVARIATE DESCRIPTION OF THE VARIABLES ...... 27 4.2 MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSIS' RESULTS ...... 29 4.3 POSITIVELY TESTED VARIABLE: LOW EDUCATION ...... 31 4.4 DISCUSSION OF THE RESULTS ...... 33 4.4.1 MUNICIPAL POLITICS ...... 34 4.4.2 VOTERS' DISCONTENT WITH SWEDEN'S CURRENT POLITICS: SD AS THE ONLY PARTY AGAINST THE SYSTEM ...... 36 4.4.3 SD AS THE ONLY PARTY THAT OPPOSES IMMIGRATION ...... 37 4.4.4 CHARISMATIC LEADER AND WELL-PLANNED CAMPAIGN ...... 38 4.4.5 MEDIA INFLUENCE ...... 39 5 CONCLUSIONS ...... 40 6 REFERENCES ...... 42 7 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ...... 53 8 LIST OF FIGURES, GRAPHS AND TABLES ...... 54 9 ANNEXES ...... 55

Abstract A right-wing populist wave has spread to several countries in Europe during the recent years and in Sweden this wave has also been slowly revealed. Therefore, the thesis examines the recent electoral success of the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) in the Swedish municipal elections in 2014. By using primarily statistical methods it aims to determine if any of the included factors can explain how a populist radical right party could penetrate one of the most stable party systems in the world. The purpose of this study is to investigate if any of the included factors exhibit strong correlations with the Swedish municipalities where SD received a strong electoral support in 2014, in comparison to 2002. The study is primarily of quantitative nature, where all 290 municipalities are studied by using the multiple regression analysis.

Abstrakt Pravicová populistická vlna se v průběhu posledních let rozšířila v mnoha evropských zemích, Švédsko nevyjímaje. Tato práce proto zkoumá nedávný volební úspěch Švédských demokratů (Sverigedemokraterna) v komunálních volbách v roce 2014. S použitím primárně statistických metod si práce dává za cíl určit, zda některý ze zahrnutých faktorů může vysvětlit, jak radikální populistická pravicová strana mohla proniknout do jednoho z nejstabilnějších stranických systémů světa. Účelem studie je determinovat, zda některý ze zahrnutých faktorů vykazuje silnou korelaci s komunami, ve kterých Švédští demkraté získali silnou volební podporu v roce 2014, ve srovnání s rokem 2002. Studie je především kvantitativní povahy, kdy je za použití vícenásobné regresní analýzy studováno všech 290 švédských komun.

Key words Sweden, radical right politics, populism, euro-scepticism, The Sweden Democrats, Sverigedemokraterna, municipal elections 2014, kommunalvalet 2014

Klíčová slova Švédsko, radikální pravicová politika, populismus, euroskepticismus, Švédští demokraté, Sverigedemokraterna, volby do obecních zastupitelstev 2014, kommunalvalet 2014

1 INTRODUCTION

During the past two decades, the radical right party family has re-emerged as an electoral force all over the world, including the stable democracies such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand (Rydgren 2008, 737). The right-wing populist parties are on the march across Europe as well, being the fastest growing party family in Europe (Lubbers et al. 2002, 345). Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, some of the West European countries experienced a great shift in their policy due to the radical right-wing populist parties’ major breakthrough (Betz 1994, 3) and this party family has grown in importance ever since (Art 2011, 737; Arzheimer 2009, 262; Ivarsflaten 2008, 10; Kitschelt 2007, 1183, The Economist 2014, 14). A clear indication of this is the fact that these parties have managed to establish themselves in several European countries' national parliaments and even in the European Parliament. This party family is also represented in the Nordic countries, for instance by the Danish People's Party (Danske Folkeparti) in Denmark, the Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet) in Norway and the Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset) in Finland.

In Sweden, this phenomenon is represented by the rise of the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna), abbreviated SD. Since the mid-1980s, about a third of the Swedish population stated sympathies for the right. Since only a few years back, these sympathies increased slightly to around 40 percent (Höjer, 2013) as Sweden has been transformed from a country of emigration to a country of immigration (Petterson 1998, 188). SD was established in 1988 as a party that was dissatisfied with the way the Swedish immigration policy was conducted. During its first years of its existence, SD received rather low electoral support. The first success came with the 2002 elections when the Party was assigned seats in 29 of Sweden's 290 municipalities (kommuner). However, the most significant change came first in the 2006 election when SD was only about one percent from the Parliamentary Party barrier1 while obtaining 280 seats in 144 municipalities. The Party's influence continued to grow and in the 2010 elections SD gained 5.7 percent in the Parliamentary elections and thereby took a seat in the Riksdag2 for the first time in the Party's history. As a result, SD held a privileged position balancing power between the blue right-wing government and the red-green opposition. The

1 The Parliamentary Party barrier in Sweden is 4 percent. 2 The Swedish parliament.

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Party also received strong electoral support in the Elections to Kommunfullmäktige3, gaining 609 seats in 245 Swedish municipalities. The year 2014 implied yet another considerable success in the history of SD as the party gained 12.8 percent of the votes in the Parliamentary elections and thereby became the third biggest party represented in the Riksdag. The SD's electoral support in the elections to Kommunfullmäktige increased drastically in 2014 as well.

Number of publications that tries to explain current success of the right wing populist parties is rapidly increasing. Some academics have argued that there are so-called “fertile breeding grounds” for populist radical right parties of SD's type, such as areas with high level of unemployment, high percentage of immigrants amongst the population and high criminality rate (Golder 2003, 433). Global social changes have also caused that some individuals are discontent with the national politics and therefore choose to cast their votes at a party that they believe is capable of making a significant change, unlike the traditional parties (Ignazi 2003, 201-04). However, the Swedish case deserves closer attention, since Sweden is known for its open immigration policy as well as for being the third main receptor of the refugees within the European Union (UNCHR 2015). Further evidence may lie in the fact that during the 1990s Sweden experienced a tough economic crisis and simultaneously received a large number of immigrants without noticing any populist right-wing party success (Rydgren 2002 a, 48). Moreover, the rise of the right-wing populism in the case of Sweden is, compared to other European countries, a recent phenomenon. Until recently, studies have focused on explaining why the ring-wing populist parties have failed in Sweden (see Rydgren 2002 a; Rydgren 2002 b), which nowadays seems to be no longer relevant topic as we are facing a new, opposite situation. The question now should therefore be: why has a member of the right-wing populist political party-family succeeded in Sweden? This study is an attempt to address the up-to-date issue of the electoral success of SD by examining the possible factors that could explain the party’s electoral success in the elections to Kommunfullmäktige in 2014.

The thesis consists of three main parts. In the first part, the method of approach, previous research, theory and the method of formulation is explained. The second chapter describes the background of SD in order to address the phenomenon of the growth of this right-wing Populist Party and to understand its contemporary success in its entirety. In this chapter, the SD’s history, ideology, general attitudes and objectives are presented. The extra space is dedicated to the

3 The municipal elections.

2 selected issues of the party’s program that correspond with the examined factors. Last but not least, the third chapter is dedicated to the analysis of the variables and the following discussion about the research's results.

1.1 AIM AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The main aim of this thesis is to detect if any of the five examined factors (immigration, criminality, unemployment, low education and euro-scepticism) can explain the increase of the electoral support for SD between 2002 and 2014 by examining if the factors behave the same way in both periods and if they indicate high association with the municipalities in which SD received a strong electoral support in the elections to Kommunfullmäktige in 2014. In order to detect how the examined factors behave and to see the connection between the factors and the electoral support for SD, the data from the year 2014 will be compared to the elections held in 2002. Nevertheless, this thesis does not aim to explain the overall increase of support for SD since the space for the Bachelor thesis is limited and more variables would need to be taken into account to assure reliable results.

The thesis therefore aims to answer the following questions: 1. Do the examined independent variables behave the same way in 2002 and 2014? 2. If not, which of the independent variables show statistically significant evidence that explains the increase of the electoral support for SD?

On the basis of existing research, we expect that municipalities with high level of unemployment and criminality as well as high percentage of individuals with low education, immigrants and individuals with critical attitude towards the EU (as called euro-sceptics) report high electoral support for SD.

2 METHOD OF APPROACH

2.1 NOMINAL DEFINITIONS

Populism. Populism is defined as a movement based on a widespread political discontent without the overall program (Svenska Akademiens ordlista 1997, 428). The idea of intolerance is often central to analyses of populism together with a strong element of the negative (Taggart

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199, 32). Populism opposes to the system and to those that run the system. Recently, there has been portrayed a new form of populism, so called “The New Populism” (Hofstadter 1995, 61), that is, in ideological terms, on the right, against the system, and yet defines itself as is the 'mainstream'. It is right-wing, anti-system and populist. When it comes to extreme right-wing populism, it often shares an aversion to change with the moderate right. But it also tends to envision the past in unrealistic ways, a social world without conflict over class exploitation, gender and environmental issues and racial discrimination (Merkl 1997, 20).

Radical right-wing populist parties. Parties that blend elements from the parliamentary right- wing extremism of populism while highlighting its migration resistance as the most important social issue (Rydgren 2005, 36), including for instance the Sweden Democrats, Danish People's Party, the Progress Party, the Finns Party, National Front, the Freedom Party of Austria, The Pim Fortuyn List and the Northern League Piedmon (Rydgren 2004, 18).

Municipalities with high support for SD4. Municipalities where the electoral support for SD in elections to Kommunfullmäktige in 2014 was higher than 18 %. Namely Landskrona, Borlänge, Eslöv, Östra Göinge, Flen, Höör, Nässjö, Trelleborg, Skurup, Svedala, Osby, Sjöbo, Klippan, Hörby, Falköping, Tomelilla, Sölvesborg, Åstorp, Hässleholm, Burlöv, Bromölla, Svalöv, Ljusnarsberg and Örkelljunga.

2.2 PREVIOUS RESEARCH AND OPERATIONAL VARIABLES

According to Pettersson and Esmer (2005, 10), globalization is the main reason for the increase of the interest in cultural issues. The reason for this increased interest is according to them the fact that globalization has influenced the culture, for instance by increasing migration and the number of religious/ethnic conflicts. Petterson (2009, 61) also highlights the importance of economic situation and lack of belief in the future, which according to him leads to the situation where immigrants are accused of causing unemployment, lack of housing and criminality. Basically the same argumentation is used by Card, Dustman and Preston (2005, 6), who emphasize that low educated employees tend to see competition in high educated immigrants, which leads to anxiety, fear and even anger among such groups. Moreover, the accusations of immigrants of being responsible for high criminality are being mentioned as well by Bentz

4 For further information see Annex I.

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(1994, 4), who additionally highlights that the voters who are generally disappointed in the current political system are most likely to end up voting for extreme right parties (ERPs).

In the case of SD, firstly, Bengtsson writes (Bengtsson et al. 2009, 56) that the majority of the voters of SD are from middle-class. Secondly, the previous research by Holmberg and Lennart (2007, 162) has proved the connection between high electoral support for SD and working-class employees, individuals living on the countryside, individuals employed in the private sector, atheists and pensioners. Moreover, Holmberg and Lennart write about the so called “new social cleavage thesis” based on the social vulnerability, which means that certain social groups feel threatened by changes in the society and as a result vote for ERPs. Thirdly, in literature one can often meet the conception of the “U-curve”, according to which it would be the elderly and youngsters in particular who vote for right-wing parties (Arzheimer and Carter 2006, 421). There has already been a number of researches that proved this conception to be true when it comes to SD (see Holmberg 2007, 161; Johansson 2010, 86; Sannerstedt 2010, 98; Widfeldt 2000, 488). Finally, Risberg (2012, 12) gives a mention to the theory that seeks to explain the recent increase of the overall electoral support for ERPs and which serves as a platform for this study’s research design (see Figure I below).

Figure I. Theory of the recent increase of the electoral support for ERPs. Source: Risberg 2012, 12.

All in all, we can state there seems to be sufficient evidence for the conclusion that the electorates of the ERPs do have specific features. However, the evidence from the different parties and periods is not always pointing in the same direction. Therefore the factors which

5 have been chosen to be analysed in this thesis have the common fact that there have been researches that statistically showed the positive correlation between these factors and support for ERPs while, at the same time, there have been cases that showed completely different results. Additionally, the factors were selected while having in mind that there has not been sufficient research on the connection between the electoral support for SD and the factors in order to make reliable conclusions, which is what makes the study innovative.

The examined independent variables used in this study are: 1, Immigration. Proportion of people born abroad according to the percentage of the population in each municipality. Age + 0-65 (Sources: SCB 2013 a, SCB 2015 a).

2, Criminality. Number of reported crimes according to the percent of the population in each municipality. As a crime serve deeds defined in Brottsförebyggande Rådet (BRÅ 2015), for instance murder, manslaughter, attempted murder or manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, different kinds of assault, rape, sexual abuse, child sexual abuse, theft, burglary, robbery, tax evasion and violation of the law (Sources: BRÅ 2001, BRÅ 2013).

3, Unemployment. Percentage of registered unemployed according to the percent of the population in each municipality. Age 16-64 (Source: Arbetsförmedlingen 2015).

4, Low education. People with low education according to the percentage of the population in each municipality. Low education in this case is calculated as basic education less than 9 years. Age 16-74 (Source: SCB 2015 b).

5, Euro-scepticism. Negative attitude towards the EU according to the percent of the population in each region5 (Sources: SCB 2001 b, SCB 2013 b).

As the dependent operational variable has been chosen votes for SD in elections to Kommunfullmäktige6 in percent (Sources: Valmyndigheten 2014 b, Valmyndigheten 2015).

5 Since neither SCB nor any other source dispose with data concerning the municipal level, the only accessible distribution (into regions) will be used for this variable particularly. 6 In Sweden, there are two levels of local authorities - local (kommun), whose highest authority is Komunfullm- äktige, and regional/county (län), whose highest authority is Landsting. Sweden's territory is divided into 290 kommuner and 21 län.

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2.2.1 IMMIGRATION

Immigration is a very important issue for the electorate of ERPs. Given its centrality for these parties, many observers have turned to immigration-related factors to explain their re- emergence and electoral mobilization. This research has convincingly shown that immigration scepticism is one of the principal factors for predicting who will vote for a radical right-wing party (Rydgren 2008, 738). In addition, there have been various studies that related the number of immigrants in different local communities and regions to the electoral success of ERPs in these areas (Mudde 1999, 185) as well as studies that have shown that a large proportion of the electorate of ERPs are hostile to immigrants and immigration (Mayer and Perrineau 1992, 139; Billiet and de Witte 1995, 193).

2.2.2 CRIMINALITY

When it comes to the issue of criminality, there have been studies that focused on the link between local crime rate and electoral support for ERPs. Results of one of the latest and most significant studies that covered eighteen Western European countries between 1970 and 2005 indicate that populist right parties benefit from higher levels of crime. These results also linked crime to higher levels of immigration (Smith 2010, 1471). Nevertheless, Sweden was not covered in this research.

2.2.3 UNEMPLOYMENT

Some researches which focused particularly on unemployment and its connection to the votes for ERPs indicate that higher rates of unemployment provide a favourable environment for these political movements (Jackman and Volpert 1996, 519; Bloom 2013, 804). Nonetheless, at the same time there have been analyses indicating that unemployment is negatively associated with electoral support for ERPs, namely the regions with better labour markets have proven to actually be more likely to experience higher vote shares for ERPs than those in which unemployment is higher (Goldner 2003; Jesuit et al. 2009, 279).

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2.2.4 LOW EDUCATION

As for education, there has traditionally been a strong effect on the Swedish voters' party choice (Johansson 2010, 3). In Sweden, study after study has documented that people with lower level of education than the average have lower electoral participation and less influence than highly educated individuals (Petterson 1998, 185). In addition, previous research has revealed that, in particular, lower social strata are more likely to vote for extreme right-wing parties. Repeatedly, it has been shown that low-educated people are more likely to vote for anti-immigrant parties. Furthermore, manual workers and unemployed are more likely to do so. There are, however, some differences reported between the countries as well (Lubbers et al. 2002, 347). Finally, Holmberg and Oscarsson (2004, 77) analysed the electoral behaviour of the Swedish voters in the past 50 years and came to the conclusion that, simply put, the votes for the Social Democrats and the Conservatives (Moderaterna) show negative correlation with the higher level of education, whereas that is not the case when it comes to the Liberals (Folkpartiet). Since SD has not been concluded in the study, it would be interesting to see how the party correlates with these hypotheses.

2.2.5 EURO-SCEPTICISM

Europeanization as well as general internationalization has affected the Swedish policies, both directly and indirectly (Bryder et al. 2004, 217). Since the transformation of the EC into the EU, most radical right-wing parties have turned against the EU integration, since the political and cultural European integration goes against the core ideology of the radical right-wing party family which claims that Europe is composed of unique nations with differences that have to be preserved (Rydgren 2007, 260). Euro-scepticism has played an especially remarkable role in the Scandinavian party politics in comparison to other West European states (Sitter 2001, 22) and there have been conducted researches that found evidence on the contribution of euro- scepticism to the explanation of voting for the radical right (see Graph I). Moreover, as Werts highlights, the influence of euro-scepticism on voting for the radical right has demonstrably increased since 2002 (Werts et al. 2013, 187).

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Graph I. Probability of voting for a RRP by level of euro-scepticism. Data from: European Social Survey 2002-2008 (as cited in Werts et al. 2013: 196).

2.3 METHOD FORMULATION

In order to perform this study, the potential link between high electoral support for SD in the Sweden's municipalities and the examined factors will be analysed. Based on the previous research and the theory of Risberg (2012, 12) previously presented in Figure I, the following model (see Figure II) was designed in order to apply the theory on the case of SD.

Figure II. Model formulation. The five factors on the left represent the variables whose influence on the support for SD is going to be analysed in this study.

First of all, analysis and comparison of the variables regarding the municipal elections in 2014 will be conducted. For this purpose, the qualitative method is of suitable character. Thus a profound multiple regression analysis, where all the included variables are analysed, will be

9 conducted. Afterwards, the results will be compared to data from the municipal elections held in 2002, in which SD did not receive such a high electoral support. The five examined factors are going to be examined on the exact same principle in order to see if they behave the same way in both periods.

2.4 DELIMITATIONS

The analysis is going to be subjected to all the 290 municipalities, precisely to the proportion of votes for SD in each municipality in the municipal elections in 2002 and 2014. The statistical data on the five selected factors are from the years 2013 and 2001. These factors were chosen deliberately, on the basis of earlier research on the right-wing populist parties and their relevance to the theory, and last but not least on the basis of their measurability. The motivation to deciding whether the elections in 2014 shall be compared to the elections in 2002 is essentially the fact that in these elections the electoral support for the SD was still relatively low at that time. The possible correlations between the variables should therefore be more evident and distinct.

Another problem was to determine the statistical data to operate with. After careful consideration, when it comes to the dependent variables it has been decided to work with data from the previous year to the particular municipal elections, i.e. data from the years 2001 and 2013. The central motivation for this choice is the fact that the most voters might begin to think about who they will vote for approximately a year in advance.

The research is also limited in the sense that it only works with the results of the municipal elections, not the elections to Riksdagen nor Landstingen7 as the elections to the National Assembly (Riksdagsvalet) are often seen by both the voters and the media as the most crucial elections and therefore are naturally of greatest interest. A quarter of Swedes believe that municipal policy is more interesting than national politics and more than 50 percent think that municipal politics and national politics are equally interesting and nearly one third often discuss public policy issues (Svenska Kommunförbundet 2003, 4). On the other hand, other elections (local/regional/to the European Parliament) are seen as a second-rate choice. Normally these second-tier choices own room during different time period than the national elections but, as

7 County councils of Sweden.

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Johansson (2010, 57) highlights, Sweden is one of the few countries that have elections for both central and local political bodies during the same day. Overall, less interest in the local and regional elections may leave room for positions on other grounds than those reflected in the national elections. Nonetheless, the differences in outcome between national and municipal level has mainly been similar over a longer period. Morlan (1984, 463) emphasizes that the municipal elections in Sweden traditionally have been highly politicized as contests between the national parties. Yet the main motivation for this selection is the fact that, as Bäck (2008, 77-78) emphasizes, from a methodological perspective the analysis should not face any difficulties since all the municipalities have the same electoral system and all other relevant aspects look alike. Furthermore, the Swedish municipalities are homogeneous in relevant aspects which means that some institutional, cultural and party system characteristics are held constant.

2.5 MATERIALS, VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY

To secure high credibility of the results, a great part of the materials used to perform this study consists of official statistics, partly the municipal elections’ results (independent variable) and partly the statistics of the selected factors (dependent variables). The statistics will be obtained from the Central Statistical Office (SCB), Crime Prevention Council (BRÅ), the Employment Service and the Election authority's website.

When conducting research in social sciences, the problem that often arises is that the examined phenomenon is usually abstract and therefore must be studied indirectly, by creating indicators that make the abstract phenomenon measurable. The risk of validity problems can be reduced by accurate operationalization of the variables. However, one should be aware that these indicators do not take into account other factors that can possibly stand behind the phenomenon. On the contrary, one of the advantages of the quantitative studies is that it is operated with numbers, which means the validity can be easier to achieve compared to operating with, for instance, opinions that are relatively hard to measure.

It is though essential to mention some of the validity problems with the examined variables that the study might face to. When it comes to the definition of the variable unemployment, the data used for this research do not separate long-term unemployed and short-term unemployed which

11 could mean a significant difference in how the voters choose to vote in the elections. There is also a potential problem regarding the variable immigration. Since SCB disposes with statistics concerning people born abroad (utländskfödda), this definition was used in the study. Some might thus claim that one should further differentiate the foreign-born according to their country of birth etc. Furthermore, when it comes to low education, there has been a debate because some might claim that even those with secondary education should be included in this definition. Nevertheless, this study works with the probably most common definition according to which those with completed secondary education are not classified as low educated.

3 SVERIGEDEMOKRATERNA’S BACKGROUND

3.1 HISTORY OF THE PARTY

Sverigedemokraterna is the only representative of the extreme right party family in the Swedish political history that succeeded to retain its position in the Riksdag two times in a row. However, at the same time it is the most criticized party in Sweden as well, especially from the part of the electorate and the media (see Holender 2012; Lagerwall 2013; Sverigedemokraterna 2015 a). Opponents of SD often refer to the party as being Nazi and extremist, which is one of the most common arguments that is used during the numerous protests against the participation of SD in Swedish politics. The roots of SD are quite controversial, which also adds to the intolerance of a huge part of the electorate against the party, even though there is not much left from the original structure and programmes of SD. As Lodenius (2009) emphasizes, the party has a certain soul and it is retained to some extent, but the SD's party platform has been processed many times, which implies that some pieces have been added and others have been taken away. She even mentions the fact that some of the most controversial conceptions simply disappeared from the SD's official website8. What remains is the peculiarity that almost any question of the party programme can be traced to immigration and multicultural society in one way or another, which means that there is barely an issue that arouses SD and stands completely on its own.

8 Among the most controversial beliefs that disappeared from the party programme through the years is the stipulation that those who came to Sweden after the year 1970 should be sent home, the banning of children adoptions overseas and the reintroduction of the death penalty for serious crimes. Even formulations against the "glorification of a gay lifestyle" are history (Lodenius 2009).

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The main aim of this chapter is to briefly introduce the history of the party, focusing mainly on the circumstances of its origin and evolution. At the same time, the objective is to give a description of the gradual evolution of SD, particularly in order to notice the changes in its ideology and political terms, as well as the process of widening its electorate. The chapter consists of three parts bordered by years which are significant in the context of the successfulness of SD, namely when it comes to the election results and the associated growing media interest in the activity of the party. The first period is delimited by the years 1988 and 2005 and presents the roots and origins of the activities of SD while mentioning the fundamental changes in the attitudes of the party during these first years of its political involvement. The second part of the chapter focuses on the party's activity between the years 2006 and 2009. This is because the year 2006 is important with regard to the success of the party in elections to Kommunfullmäktige, which brings first certain changes in the preferences of the Swedish voters. Last but not least, the third part deals with the period from 2010 up to 2014. The year 2010 has been chosen as a borderline because the Parliamentary election were held and SD obtained historically the best voting results, securing the first seats in the Riksdag.

3.1.1 1988 – 2005: THE ORIGINS AND EARLY ACTIVITIES

During the beginnings of its activity as well as during the first almost 20 years, SD's impact on the Sweden's political scene was represented by a strong social criticism and criticism from the part of the media. This public's negative attitude towards SD was based mainly on the controversial circumstances of the origins of the party, its ideology and its early activities. However, the publicity during this period was quite limited and the party was portrayed mainly as an extremist neo-Nazi movement (Hellström et al. 2012, 187). On the contrary, for a long time there has been a little incentive to place SD on the political map because the party got few votes and rarely appeared in public debates. Instead, the party continued to gather those politicians from other political parties who no longer agreed with the other parties' refugee policies (Lodenius 2009).

Sverigedemokraterna itself was founded in 1988. Its roots, however, go a little deeper into the Sweden's political history. In 1979, a political party called Bevara Sverige Svenskt9 (BSS) was founded. BSS was formed in order to openly promote cultural nationalism and share the intense

9In English: "Keep Sweden Swedish".

13 criticism of the immigration to Sweden. Therefore, BSS focused mainly on one question: immigration, which is clearly seen on their flyer:

Each year the Swedes become fewer. Four years from now there will be no Swedes' Sweden. Immigrants and their descendants have totally occupied Sweden. With perhaps a Turk as dictator and a Negro as Foreign Minister. People then become a chocolate brown mixture who do not speak Swedish, but different languages (BSS, flygblad 1979.)

The BSS' ideology was even too radical to succeed on the municipal level10, since the Swedish society considered the party to be extremist and racist and a received huge wave of criticism as a result. The BSS has therefore never been more than a kind of underground movement. This criticism culminated when some of the BSS's leaders were dismissed. In response to these events, numerous small nationalist parties were founded in the 80's. In 1986, BSS combined with Framstegsparitet forming Sverigepartiet, whose programme was based on the original BSS's ideology. Nonetheless, one of the main differences was the fact that this new party no longer focused on the immigration issue only. Abolition of social contributions to immigrant organizations and religious communities are some other examples of their concerns. Sverigepartiet was, however, poorly organized and fragmented into many disparate groups and opinions. After many disputes, the party split and in 1988 two independently functioning parties were created as a result. The first party continued under the same name (Sverigepartiet), but soon after the division it extinguished. On the other hand, the second grounded party - Sverigedemokraterna (the former of BSS), has become more and more successful over the years (Lööv 2006, 1-2).

One year later, in 1989, SD held its first annual meeting and elected Anders Klarström as its president. Prior to this, Klarström had been a member of the neo-Nazi party Nordiska Rikspartiet and had a criminal record that includes stealing of ammunition, vandalism and making illegal threats (Larsson and Ekman 2001, 126). Even other representatives of the party executive had similar backgrounds - some were members of violent extreme right movements such as the Vitt Ariskt Motstånd (White Arian Resistance) and BSS. In its members’ bulletin of 1989, SD published a list of addresses of its allies outside Sweden, i.e. pro-apartheid

10 In one of the Swedish newspapers a member of BSS openly said: “We do not want Sweden to become any kind of multi-national conglomerates. We want to preserve the land that our fathers built up with their sweat and defended with their blood. We want a Sweden for the Swedes” (Svensk Tidning 1987, 1-2).

14 newspapers in South Africa, the Front National in France, a Ku Klux Klan affiliated journal in the USA and the journal Spearhead, published by the notorious neo-Nazist John Tydall in England (Hellström and Nillson 2010, 57).

The success was not immediate, though. One reason for this was the popularity of the nationalist-populist party Ny Demokrati11 (NyD) which gained 6.7 percent of the votes in the general elections of 1991 with its anti-establishment/immigration/taxes/bureaucracy political rhetoric. In the same year, SD obtained mandates in the municipalities Dals-Långed and Höör. Three years later, in the elections of 1994, SD repeatedly gained a few seats at the municipal level, although the result was rather disappointing because the expectations were much higher (Integrationsverket 2006, 74). In the context of the election results, SD's members were becoming increasingly aware of the fact that the only way to widen its electorate was distancing themselves from their radical roots. As a result, SD was actively trying to change its original ideological profile and soon began the process of transformation to become a democratically legitimate party12 (Erlingsson et al. 2012, 4) and openly disclaimed any links with Nazism in 1999 (Rydgren and Ruth 2011, 205). Some of the more radical members, however, disagreed with the departure from the original ideology and therefore decided to leave, creating their own party Nationaldemokraterna13 in 2001 (Erlingsson et al. 2012, 4).

After these changes in the internal functioning of the party and the moderation of support requirements, the number of SD's members raised, as well as the votes gained in the next elections in 2002, climbing to 1.4% of the total number of votes. This implies that SD obtained the strongest result as a non-parliamentary political party in Sweden. On the municipal level, in these elections the number of seats raised to 49 mandates in 29 municipalities (Hellström and Nillson 2010, 58; Lindström 2003, 33), which is a significant increase. However, as Graph II below indicates, if we take a closer look at the mandates gained in the next three elections, the number was still relatively low back in 2002.

11In English: New Democracy. NyD was a political party founded in 1991 and elected into the Riksdag during its first election. Following its exit from the Riksdag, NyD however continued to decline which culminated in 2000 when it was finally declared bankrupt. 12 In 1995, the newly elected party president Mikael Jansson decided to bar extremists from the party and prohibited wearing of uniforms during manifestations. 13In English: National Democrats. The party disbanded in April 2014.

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Graph II. Development of SD's mandates in elections to Kommunfullmäktige 1998-2014. Data from: SD's official website, Valmyndigheten 2010 b and Valmyndigheten 2014 b. SD's mandates in elections to Kommunfullmäktige 1998-2014

1,500 1,324 1,000

500 612 281 0 0 2 5 8 49 1988 1991 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014

During the last years of this period, SD focused mainly on the campaign directed against the adoption of the euro currency, which was the subject of the referendum in 200314. In the elections to the European Parliament held in 2004, SD gained 1.13% votes, which is quite a considerable increase since in the last European elections in 1999 SD gained only 0.3% of the votes. Last but not least, the year 2005 was crucial for the history of SD in the sense that Jimmie Åkesson, who continues representing SD until now, was elected as the head of the party (Sverigedemokraterna 2008).

3.1.2 2006 – 2009: THE FIRST ELECTORAL SUCCESSES

The big breakthrough came in 2006, one year after the current party leader Jimmie Åkesson had taken up his post. In the parliamentary elections SD received 2.9% of the votes, gaining 281 mandates in 144 municipalities (Poohl 2010). This result was not enough to enter the Riksdag, however it implied a remarkable increase in the voter support since the last elections. With this first enormous success, SD became increasingly seen and heard in the media (Hellström et al. 2012, 188) and the immigration issue became one of the main issues in Sweden. The ever-increasing number of SD's active members (see Kinnunen 2013), who almost doubled from 2006 to 2010 (as shown in Graph III below) is also noteworthy.

14 The voter turnout was 82.6%, and the referendum failed with 55.9% against and 42.0% in favor (Folkomröstningar 2007).

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Graph III. Development of SD's active members 2006-2010. Data from: Mynewsdesk 2013.

SD's active members 2006-2010

7 000 5 846 6 000 5 000 4 094 3 343 4 000 2 913 2 523 3 000 2 000 1 000 0 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Another change that can be seen during this period is the increase of women voters for SD. However, as Lodius (2007) highlights, SD continues being considerably more male-dominated than any other party represented in the Riksdag at the time. One of the studies from 2007 even shows that 5.2 percent of men support SD, while only 1.5 percent of women do so. Additionally, according to Åkerlund (Lodius 2007), the support for SD is rather incoherent depending on each kommun. While the party was growing fastest in Värmland, but also in Stockholm, Gothenburg and in southern Sweden, in Norrland SD was still far from a breakthrough after the elections in 2006.

The elections to the European Parliament held in 2009 reaffirmed SD's growing support, since the party received a total of 103,584 votes, i.e. 3.27 % (Valmyndigheten 2009). This support meant an important step for SD, especially in the context of the upcoming elections to the Riksdag held in 2010. During the year of 2009, SD managed to stir up a debate about its attitudes, opinions and the overall influence on the Swedish politics, partly due to the controversy of its electoral film, whose main slogan was "Vi ska hjälpa våra egna först, svenska pensionärer går före utlänningar", in English "Above all, we should help ours, Swedish pensioners have priority over foreigners". Since the film was banned by the station TV4, it became sure-enough popular on the internet, gaining an overall attention across Sweden (Ljunggren and Nordstrand 2010, 5-6). Inclusive an article written by Jimmy Åkesson tittled "Muslimerna är vår största utländska hot", in English "Muslims are our biggest foreign threat"

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(Aftonbladet 2009) awoke a wave of scepticism from the majority of Swedes who began to question the presence of a party with such a radical attitude towards the Muslim immigrants in the Swedish media. Nonetheless, despite a number of active protests against SD and open criticism of its ideology, partly caused by the attention of media, SD managed to acquire more and more supporters which undoubtedly contributed to its electoral success in 2010.

3.1.3 2010 – 2015: SVERIGEDEMOKRATERNA IN THE RIKSDAG

The results of the elections to the Riksdag held in 2010 implied a crucial milestone in the context of the history of the party, since SD gained 339,610 votes, i.e. 5. 7% of the votes. The party gained namely 20 seats in the Riksdag and 612 seats in 246 kommuner (Sverigedemokraterna 2015 b), beating traditional parties such as Vänsterpartiet and Kristdemokraterna. This result meant a historical maximum as for the electoral turn-out and, what is more, as a result SD got over the 4% party barrier and entered the Riksdag for the first time. Additionally, the results were important as well because since the elections in 1991, when the first representatives of the family of the far right parties (the party Ny Demokrati) managed to enter the parliament, it was only the second nationwide success of the extreme right in the Swedish political history.

SD, in comparison with other parliamentary parties, noted the second highest increase in the number of received votes, while gaining about 177,147 more votes than in the elections in 2006 (Valmyndigheten 2010 a). The increasing tendency of support for SD was confirmed by the election results, which meant that SD became a relevant opponent to the traditional parliamentary parties in the upcoming elections. In 2010, the party reacted to the criticism by publishing a document titled Sverigedemokraternas principprogram 2011, in which SD officially declared itself to be "socially conservative" (Erlingsson et al. 2012, 5; Sverigedemokraterna 2011).

Both elections to the Riksdag as well as to the Kommunfullmäktige meant yet another success in the history of the party. In the elections to the Riksdag, SD gained 12, 86 %, which is a rapid increase compared to the 5, 7% gained in 2010 (Valmyndigheten 2014 a). As for the elections to Kommunfullmäktige, SD almost doubled its support, namely from 4, 91% to 9, 33%. However, the support for SD differed considerably across the municipalities. While the highest support for SD was in Örkelljunga in Southern Sweden (with 23, 89%), Dorotea in Northern

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Sweden showed the lowest support with the poor 0, 7%. The Stockholm kommun showed also a rather negative support for SD with its 5, 16% (Valmyndigheten 2014 b).

Graph IV below shows a comparison of the development of the electoral support for the most important parties on the Swedish political scene in which the elections to the Kommunfullmäktige in the years 2002, 2010 and 2014 are compared in order to show how the support for SD has increased over the years while support for the majority of other traditional parties has rather remained stable or decreased.

Graph IV. Electoral support for selected parties in elections to the Kommunfullmäktige in 2002, 2010 and 2014. The values represent the number of received votes in percent. The parties are ordered in a row according to the percent of votes received in 2014. Data from: Valmyndigheten 2002, Valmyndigheten 2010 and Valmyndigheten 2014 b. Electoral support in elections to the Kommunfullmäktige

40%

30%

20% 2014 10% 2010 0% 2002 S M SD C MP FP V KD

If we have a closer look at the development of the number of municipalities where SD has taken seats in elections to the Kommunullmäktige (as shown in Figure III), it is obvious that SD has come a long way since its rather negative voter turn-out in the elections 2002, gaining seats in almost all the municipalities in 2014. We are going to analyse the percent gained in each municipality more precisely in the analytical part of this study.

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Figure III. Development of the number of municipalities where SD has taken seats in elections to the Kommunfullmäktige 2002-2014. Source: Öhrvall 2014.

3.2 IDEOLOGY, GENERAL ATTITUDES AND OBJECTIVES

Until recently, comparative research on nationalist or populist parties have paid very little attention to SD, for instance Ignazi (2006, 159) makes a brief mention of SD in his overview of ERPs in Western Europe. For a long time, SD was described as an immature and aggressive organization with neo-Nazi tinges (Larsson and Ekman 2001, 56) and based on the ideology, Sverigedemokraterna was commonly ranked to the extreme right party family. This trend is already evident from the opinions and attitudes towards various social factors as well as the objectives that SD aims to achieve through its political programme. The party describes itself as socially conservative and nationalist, on which it build its ideology and programme. The most important concepts are for instance national identity, law and order, responsibility, tradition, welfare state, immigration, crime and multiculturalism (Sverigedemokraterna 2011, 3).

The SD members think about themselves as a "Sweden-friendly" party and stress togetherness as a precondition for functioning welfare policies, low crime and a functioning labour market. As Lundqvist (2015) claims, the party "pushes a little extra on the Swedish" and is often said to be very adverse to "the multicultural experiment" (Höjer 2013). SD argues that the

20 migration and integration policy conducted over the past few decades is not working and they do not believe in a multicultural society. Moreover, they accused it to be the reason of fragmentation, exclusion and segregation instead of a homogeneous Sweden, Swedish culture and national heritage. SD does not believe in integration but in assimilation15 and argues that Sweden should return to the assimilation policy of "the immigrants who came to Sweden to adapt to Sweden and not so that Sweden must adapt to the immigrants" (Sverigedemokraterna 2015 c). Sverigedemokraterna do not put themselves in any traditional right-left scale and collaborate with both blocks while representing themselves as a social conservative party that believes in a strong welfare society while strongly inspired by traditional values and conservative ideas (Sverigedemokraterna 2015c). When studying SD, there is not a consensus on which party family it belongs to - some may argue that SD is a right-wing populist party while others argue that it belongs to the new radical right parties.

SD is presented as anti-elitist and as representing the views and interests of the ordinary men from the street (Hellström and Nillson 2010, 59). Sannerstedt and Holmberg highlight (as cited in Hellström and Nillson 2010, 59) that according to survey data, SD voters tend to articulate rather mainstream opinions with regard to taxation, welfare policy and so forth. Furthermore, the SD voters are over-represented among middle-aged people, thereby contradicting the common view that voters of so-called Radical Right Populist parties (RRPs) are mostly in their youth. According to the official party doctrine (Sverigedemokraterna, 2015 c), Swedishness16 nowadays is constituted by culture and not by race. In this case, SD has switched its focus from ethnicity to an emphasis on culture and impermeable cultural differences. Nonetheless, in the SD’s rhetoric, culture connotes abstract assumptions about a mythical core of Swedishness with roots stretching way back in history, while on the other hand culture appeals to deep emotional attachments experienced by Swedes on a regular basis (Hellström and Nillson 2010, 59). The basic requirements that SD seeks are law and order, maintenance of traditions, respect for social institutions and the maintenance of well-functioning communities in the form of family and

15The process of adapting or adjusting to the culture of a group/nation/state. In this case, it is the process when an immigrant in Sweden completely abandons its own culture so that cultural differences disappear. According to SD (Sverigedemokraternas principprogram 2011, 11) one is assimilated to the Swedish nation if he/she speaks fluent Swedish, perceives himself/herself as Swedish, lives in accordance with the Swedish culture, sees Swedish history as his/her own and feels greater loyalty to the Swedish nation than to any other nation. 16The quality or state of being Swedish. Swedishness is usually classified by researchers in five different ways: country of birth (i.e. Sweden), citizenship, consanguinity (i.e. perceived kinship), culture or language and appearance. Jimmy Åkersson, current leader of SD, defines Swedishness as being able to sing the National anthem (Arega, 2013).

21 nation in particular. Through these requirements the party intends to achieve its general objective - the restoration of the welfare state (folkhemmet) characterized by security, prosperity, democracy and a strong internal solidarity (Sverigedemokraterna 201, 3).

Although Sweden in the international perspective is still a relatively homogeneous country as for its population, the problem with minorities is recently particularly relevant with the increasing number of immigrants (Petterson 1998, 187). Immigration is a question of erosion of the Swedish culture and identity. In the SD’s immigration policy programme adapted in 2007, it is stated that “an all too great immigration has come to threaten the Swedish national identity and the cohesion in the country in a serious way” (Sverigedemokraterna 2007). Integration and multiculturalism are thoroughly negative words, since SD promotes assimilation of immigrants and stresses the centrality of Swedish traditions, values, and laws (Sverigedemokraterna 2007). “Let Sweden remain Sweden”, a version of the more fascist slogan from the previous BSS “Keep Sweden Swedish”, was also one of the demands of the election manifesto of 2006 (Sverigedemokraterna 2006) and the political guidelines of 2010 (Sverigedemokraterna 2010).

Special treatment in form of affirmative action to integrate immigrants on the labour market is also rejected by SD, being framed as discrimination and as “Swede-hostility” (Jansson 2010, 159). An example of this is a part of the party leader Åkesson’s speech: “The evidence that the new anti-semitism as well as the growing Swede-hostility is intimately connected to the Muslim immigration is overwhelming” (Jansson 2010, 160). The principprogram (Sverigedemokraterna 2011, 13) mentions that even though there are examples of individuals who have positively adapted and contributed to the Swedish society in recent years, SD believes that there is still the strongly negative overall impact of mass immigration from distant countries, both economic and social. To be precise, SD does not oppose immigration but believes that immigration must be kept at a certain level and be of such a character that it does not pose a threat to the national identity or the country's welfare and security. The programme basically consists of three main points. Firstly, SD argues that the refugee immigration should be limited to a small number of refugees who meet the requirements of the UN Refugee Convention and have only granted temporary residence permits during the period that fatal consequences of a conflict or a natural disaster are lasting. Perhaps one of the most controversial beliefs of SD is that the refugee policy must be primarily focused on helping refugees in their countries of origin. Secondly, the party insist on the necessity of rules for family immigration being designed in such a way that they

22 do not contribute to creating increased segregation nor other social and economic problems. Thirdly, SD believes that an active and generous support should be given to the immigrants who wish to return to their home countries, arguing that if one is forced to stay in a country where one do not feel comfortable and do not want to live, it is destructive for both the country and the individual. As a first step in this regard, SD aims to, first of all, increase the value of the Swedish citizenship through the introduction of language and knowledge tests and by extending the obligatory period of residency in Sweden needed to be impeccable repute before an application for citizenship can be made. In addition, SD aims to abolish the general labour migration for the benefit of the so-called "blue-card model" that is exclusively addressed to qualified workers with skills that are missing on the Swedish labour market (Sverigedemokraterna 2015 c).

As a consequence of the excessive influx of immigrants to Sweden and the creation of segregated groups which are difficult to assimilate, SD sees connection between these groups and increased level of criminality and see this area as very important in their political demands. However, the party focuses on criminality in general, not only on the crime associated with immigrant groups. SD define themselves as “trygghetsparti”, i.e. a party oriented on safety and security that aims to take vigorous action against crime and greatly strengthen penalties for serious and repeated crime. SD insists on introducing significant changes in order to achieve increased safety for the Swedish citizens, such as stricter penalties for serious and repeated offenses and re-introduction of life sentences for the most serious crimes. One of the problems that the party sees in this area is also the low efficiency of police activity. To remedy the widespread inefficiency within the police, SD wants to invest money in an efficiency of reform that would enable the police to fight crime more effectively (Sverigedemokraterna 2015 d). Apart from preservation of the nation's sovereignty, another important task of SD is to ensure citizens' security and safety, which is according to the party a precondition for freedom. SD emphasizes that victims and potential victims' interests must at all times be prioritized before interests of the criminals. Penalties should be in proportion to the crime and the victims shall be redressed for the harm they suffered, since each individual has a free will and therefore bears the primary responsibility for own actions. SD insists that citizens should be equal before the law and police, border protection and law enforcement authorities must be assigned adequate resources and authority to do their job and protect the citizens (Sverigedemokraterna 2011, 29). What is more, SD highlights that crime prevention and security-building perspective should be an integral part of community planning, since the environments that are likely to create feelings

23 of insecurity or that facilitate criminal activities should be countered and changed. Similarly, the child and family perspective shall be consistent and green spaces should be a natural and integral part of the cityscape (Sverigedemokraterna 2011, 23). In 2014, SD published second edition of its Sweden Democratic Programme Oriented on Crime Policy (Sverigedemokratiskt Inriktningsprogram för Kriminalpolitik) where the party on 20 pages develops its above mentioned ideas and attitudes on criminality, which demonstrates a continuous and substantial political involvement. Certain space is dedicated to the issue of video surveillance, state guarantee for damages to crime victims and expulsion of foreign citizens that have committed a serious crime (Sverigedemokraterna 2014 a).

Careful management of financial resources is an important part of the SD's stewardship. Sound public finances and respect for the objective of a surplus in the state budget are prerequisite for the long-term ability to keep a high level of welfare. Responsible and regulated market economy built on long-term thinking is self-evident for SD. Additionally, the party believes that growth is essential to sustain prosperity but must be balanced against important social values such as public health, heritage, environment, social equity and national sovereignty. Moreover, SD sees major economic and political benefits in preserving Sweden's independence and keeping national currency and believes that monetary policy should be handled by an independent central bank (Sverigedemokraterna 2011, 24). SD sees labour immigration mainly as a way to temporarily compensate for poorly functioning matching on the Swedish labour market but also a method to take when the number of temporary jobs is greater than the workforce in the country. Therefore, SD advocates a model with guest workers where foreign workers can obtain a temporary residence permit tied to the Swedish labour market's needs (Sverigedemokraterna 2015 e). Lastly, SD believes it is financially responsible to lower the tax for common people and that a reform of the Employment Protection Act is needed. Also, the strong need for safe transition insurance for the unemployed is mentioned as well as the will to bring pragmatic policies to the labour market while focusing on rationality and efficiency without ideological blinkers (Sverigedemokraterna 2015 f). To sum up, SD is working for a Sweden with full employment and a Sweden with decreased thresholds in the labour market where employees can feel secure in the knowledge that they are protected by strong adjustment insurance in case of unemployment. As the first step in this regard, SD aims to make the following changes: to make the unemployment insurance (A-kassan) compulsory and without fees, to enhance the commitment to establish traineeship as a new form of employment and finally to improve

24 support for transition and skills enhancement by increasing the number of places in adult education (Sverigedemokraterna 2015 g).

In the party programme oriented to education (Sverigedemokraternas inriktningsprogram för skola), SD mentions the will to set higher requirements when starting a free school (friskola) and the belief that Sweden should work for a system similar to the one that prevails in Finland, where there must be a demonstrable need for starting a new private school so that independent schools can get permission to start up their business. Also, SD is convinced that as long as the schools in Sweden are under the authority of municipalities, these should be given the opportunity to veto the starting of new private schools (Sverigedemokraterna 2014 b, 9). Additionally, SD believes that Sweden should follow the line that applies in other Nordic countries where schools do not charge any gains from their activity and that the preschool class should be a mandatory part of elementary school, which thus becomes ten-year (Sverigedemokraterna 2014 b, 13-17). According to SD, it is no exaggeration to say that the education system in Sweden is currently in a serious crisis. Although student grades are rising, the students' knowledge decreases as a result of the grade inflation. An irresponsible immigration policy has led to great stresses that, in combination with the freedom of establishment of private schools, has created a fragmented school where the quality varies greatly from school to school and school has become a frightening example of what a split society can cause, emphasises SD and therefore insists on raising the status of teachers (Sverigedemokraterna 2015 h). As the first step in this regard, SD aims to make the following changes: to give every child in the country the right to equal and quality education no matter where they live, to establish an improved work environment at school through the introduction of a state incentive grants to municipalities and to increase the number of teachers (Sverigedemokraterna 2015 ch).

Even though SD's critique is related to the fundamentals of Swedish politics in terms of policy, it is nevertheless limited to the questions of immigration, integration and the European Union (EU). For instance, the Party’s programme states that Sweden should be a sovereign and an independent state (Sverigedemokraterna 2008). It suggests that decentralization and participatory democratic institutions may foster a sense of belonging and moral meaning. According to the SD’s own rhetoric, the feeling of belonging to a community is centred on the nation state as the prime unit of identification. SD thus advocates (Sverigedemokraterna 2008) that the nation state is the most viable entity for democratic progression, since it provides a

25 community of core values that neutralize disputes concerning the rules and common procedures for political problem solving. In the participprogram (Sverigedemokraterna 2011, 10-13), the party claims that the nation is, by the side of the family, the most important community. SD believes that the Swedish nation should be free and sovereign in relation to other nations and states and sees the nation as the most important, oldest and most natural human community for the family. Empires, political groupings and other supranational communities, according to SD, have come and gone over the past millennium but the nations that form the human community have persisted. In addition to that, SD draws conclusion that vital societal functions such as justice, defence and the essential elements of infrastructure should be under state control, as well as the preservation of cultural heritage, education and healthcare should be financed publically. Also, SD opines that the national or local government should handle a particular, whether it is private or public, ownership or a combination of the two, as in a given sector or situation benefits the citizens' best interests. The central point is that decisions should be taken at the lowest appropriate level. The Sweden Democrats are open to the possibility of creating a Nordic defence alliance. Should that goal prove impossible to realize the starting point for the Swedish defence and security policy to be to seek alliances in peacetime aiming at neutrality in war and that the whole of Sweden must be defended. SD believes that Sweden should participate in international peacekeeping operations, but only under the condition that the project is sanctioned by the United Nations (Sverigedemokraterna 2011, 29).

Last but not least, SD believes that intergovernmental cooperation, i.e. cooperation among sovereign nation-states, is quite sufficient and looks with strong scepticism on collaborations that take over governmental forms, which is the case of the EU. SD argues that it is no longer the individual nations that ultimately determine the policy in their own country but the international body where countries' differences often lead to unbalanced power relations. Therefore, according to SD, the Swedish foreign policy should be independent and primarily focused on safeguarding Swedish interests and democratic rights and freedoms in the world (Sverigedemokraterna 2011, 32). As the first step in this regard, SD aims for a new referendum on Swedish membership in the EU with the objective that Sweden abandons its structures. In addition, SD aims for Sweden to keep being outside the European and Monetary Union (EMU) as well as to re-establish the border protection (Sverigedemokraterna 2015 i).

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4 ANALYSIS

This chapter is devoted to analyse the selected variables by using the method of multiple regression to verify the hypothesis stated in the introduction, i.e. that municipalities with high level of unemployment and criminality as well as high percentage of individuals with low education, immigrants and individuals with critical attitude towards the EU report high electoral support for SD. To fulfil this, we are going to conduct an analysis of the variables while studying all the municipalities in order to see how the overall values of the variables have changed between the examined periods and if they are connected in any way.

In order to make this multiple regression more concrete and most importantly more understandable, the results are firstly illustrated in a general table in order to see the most significant tendencies. Secondly, the statistically significant results of the analysis are illustrated in the form of separate graphs concerning the variable in each examined period. Through these graphs we can observe any outlier values which can greatly affect the quality of the created model. The chapter is therefore composed of one subchapter dedicated to the univariate description of the variables, a subchapter containing the analysis results of the selected statistically significant variable and a subchapter dedicated to the discussion of the results of the multiple regression analysis.

4.1 UNIVARIATE DESCRIPTION OF THE VARIABLES

This section is dedicated to the brief descriptive analysis whose interest lies in examining the most typical characteristics of the variables. The first value is called average, which is the average value of a variable. The second value is median, which is the middle value of a variable. Finally, the third value is called mode, which is the most common value of a variable (Teorell and Svensson 2007, 114). Additional values are the minimum and maximum values, telling us which values of a variable are the lowest and the highest. Last but not least, range stands for the difference between the lowest and the highest number of a value (Esaisson 2010, 67, 402). Table I. below presents all the measurements regarding all the municipalities without further differentiation.

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Table I. Univariate description of the variables in percent while including all the municipalities. Variable Average Median Mode Minimum Maximum Range Votes for SD 201417 10,0 9,2 8,6 0,7 23,9 23,2 Votes for SD 2002 0,3 0,5 0 0 11,6 11,6 Immigration 2013 20,7 12,9 12,7 4,9 55,8 50,9 Immigration 200218 15,1 9,3 9,1 2,0 39,0 37,0 Criminality 2013 1,3 0,1 0,3 0,009 14,3 14,3 Criminality 2001 0,5 0,1 0,2 0,01 14,3 14,3 Unemployment 2013 3,4 3,4 3,7 1,4 6,1 4,7 Unemployment 2001 3,4 3,2 3,0 0,9 8,5 7,6 Low education 2013 12,0 12,2 12,1 4,0 26,0 22,0 Low education 2001 15,7 15,9 15,9 3,9 21,9 18,0 Euro-scepticism 2013 20,6 23,3 18,3 16,2 32,4 16,2 Euro-scepticism 2001 35,4 32,7 41,1 23,5 49,4 25,9

If we take a closer look at the differences in the average values between the two periods, it is obvious that the value of votes for SD has experienced the most significant increase, i.e. from the average value of the poor 0, 3% to the average value of 10, 0%. An indicative increase can as well be seen in the case of immigration, while increasing from 15, 1% to 20, 7%, and criminality with the average increase from 0, 5% to 1, 3%. While the average value of unemployment has not changed (3, 4%), there has been a decrease when it comes to the variable low education, namely from 15, 7% in 2002 to 12, 0% in 2013. The most radical decrease can then be seen when looking at euro-scepticism, specifically from 35, 5% to 20, 6%.

The value average is most commonly used when working with statistical analyses. It is nevertheless obvious that it does not differentiate between very high values and very low values efficiently. Therefore it is interesting to compare its results with median since a significant difference between these two values means the variable is considerably imbalanced between the examined regions (Esaisson 2006, 68). As Figure IX indicates, that is the case when it comes to immigration and euro-scepticism in both periods as well as criminality in 2013. As for immigration, the results could be explained by the increased population with foreign background concentrated around the biggest cities such as Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö,

17 For detailed information see Annex I. 18 In this case, the data from May 2002 were used as there were no corresponding data avaiable from the year 2001.

28 as well as in the south of Sweden. Between the ten municipalities with the highest rates of people with foreign background in 2013 were also Uppsala, Södertälje, Lund, Botkyrka, Helsingborg, Huddinge and Lindköping (SCB 2014). On the contrary, the northern municipalities, where support for SD has traditionally been lower than the average, show rather low immigration rate. Haparanda with it’s about 40 percent of foreign born (predominantly from Finland) is an exception, being traditionally the municipality with the most foreign born in the both periods. The municipality with less than three persons with foreign background per 1000 inhabitants was Lekerborg, situated near Örebro (SCB 2003, 22, SCB 2014). As for the imbalance in criminality in 2013, the highest levels were registered in big cities as well as in Sigtuna (international airport) and Helsingborg (ferry traffic) (BRÅ 2014, 17). When it comes to euro-scepticism, there has been a significant decrease in 2013 compared to the other variables. Nonetheless, there is a certain imbalance between municipalities in the both periods as well. Firstly, the biggest cities and the northern municipalities were proven to be generally less euro-sceptic than rural regions and southern municipalities.

4.2 MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSIS' RESULTS

Regression analysis is an efficient and flexible analysis technique that makes it possible to use almost all types of data as well as simultaneously include multiple variables. Multiple regression analysis is an analysis of several independent variables (Esaisson 2010, 429) that is commonly used when there is an interest in examining how a dependent variable is influenced by other independent variables (Djurfeldt and Barmark 2009, 53). In other words, the equation formula includes various variables, i. e. b1x1 stands for the first independent variable, b2x2 stands for the second independent variable, etc.:

y = a + b1x1 + b2x2 …

The quality of the model is reflected by the coefficient of determination, which is usually labelled R2. This coefficient tells us what percent of the variability of the dependent variable is explained by the model variability of the independent variables. Another thing we need to assess is the statistical significance (referred to as Sig. 2 tailed). It does not determine how much the variables are dependent on each other (this tells us the correlation coefficient), but how much we can rely on the result obtained. Generally speaking, the lower the number, the more certain we can be that the coefficient is significant, i.e. reliable (Sundell, Anders 2009).

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Table II. Multiple regression analysis. ** is significant on a 95 percent level, * is significant on a 90 percent level. SD municipality results 2002 and 2014 2002 2014 B-coefficient Beta coefficient B-coefficient Beta coefficient Independent variables (unstandardized) (standardized) (unstandardized) (standardized) (Std. Error) (Std. Error) Percentage unemployment 0.705 0.381 1.033 0.207 (0.447) (1.598) Percentage euro-scepticism -0.054 -0.376 0.08 0.185 (0.036) (0.138) Percentage criminality 0.084 -0.230 -0,287* -0.478 (0.085) (0.161) Percentage immigration 0.082 0.323 0.063 0.174 (0.059) (0.097) Percentage low education -0,327** -0.486 0,738* 0.423 (0.115) (0.408)

Constant 2.461 7.609 (1.885) (7.383)

Adjusted R2 0.419 0.056 Number of municipalities 290 290

As Table II shows, the only statistically significant results are concerning the variable “low education” in both 2002 and 2014 and the variable “criminality” in 2014. As for low education, this variable has also proved the most differentiating behaviour throughout the examined periods as well as the most positive association with votes for SD in comparison with the rest of the variables. Therefore, this variable has been concluded to be the only one positively tested.

Furthermore, it is important to mention that while in the year 2002 about 42% of the variation was explained while using the examined variables, during the year 2014 it decreased to poor 5, 6% (see the coefficient R2). This is a vital information that clearly indicates a shift in the voters’ behaviour (and their motivations) compared to 2002. We will examine this phenomenon more precisely in the subchapter dedicated to the discussion of the results.

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4.3 POSITIVELY TESTED VARIABLE: LOW EDUCATION

As the multiple regression analysis indicated, only one of the five independent variables showed different behaviour in 2002 and 2014, namely the variable “low education”. In order to clearly and definitely verify the hypothesis, this variable is presented graphically. This variable showed completely opposite and statistically significant tendencies depending on the examined period. Meanwhile in 2001 (see Graph V), the municipalities with highest proportion of low-educated individuals proved an association with low electoral support for SD, the results of 2013 are pointing in the opposite direction (see Graph V). From the results of the analysis it is clear that the highest the proportion of low-educated individuals there was in a municipality in 2013, the highest was the electoral support for SD in 2014, which complies with the hypothesis.

Graph V. Low education 2001. The Y-axis shows the dependent variable „votes for SD” in percent. The X- axis shows the independent variable „low education” in percent.

15.0

10.0

5.0

0.0

SD SD votes 2002 (%) 0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0 14.0 16.0 18.0 20.0 -5.0 Low education 2001 (%)

Graph VI. Low education 2013. The Y-axis shows the dependent variable „votes for SD” in percent. The X- axis shows the independent variable „low education” in percent.

30.0

20.0

10.0

0.0 SD SD votes2014 (%) 0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0 Low education 2013 (%)

In the subchapter dedicated to previous research on the relevance of education when voting for ERPs (see page 7), we named some of the studies that mention “the traditionally strong effect

31 of education on Swedish voters' party choice” (Johansson 2010, 3) and the revelations like “lower social strata are more likely to vote for extreme right-wing parties” or “poorer educated people are more likely to vote for anti-immigrant parties, and manual workers and unemployed people are more likely to do so” (Petterson 1998, 185). The results of this analysis have proved that these findings have relevancy when studying SD's electoral success in 2014, which means that in this particular case one would rather decline from the findings of Lubbers (Lubbers et al. 2002, 347), whose findings show opposite results when studying other countries. Finally, this outcome is particularly interesting to compare with the modern analyses conducted on the Swedish field, namely the analysis of Holmberg and Oscarsson (2004, 77), who came to a conclusion that votes for some political parties show negative correlation with higher level of education, meanwhile that is not the case when it comes to other parties. Since SD was not concluded in the study, our findings can serve as an addition to their analysis. This finding is also important in a sense that in 2001, even though the overall electoral support for SD was extremely low, the results of the analysis were still opposite.

The question therefore is: what could explain the shift in the voting tendencies between the low- educated electorate? In relation to the opposite direction of the coefficients in 2002 and 2014, the most reasonable interpretation of the effect of low education would be an increased ability of SD to mobilize less-educated voters in particular. During the campaign, SD was very proactive and well-managed public debates before the elections 2014, through which Jimmie Åkesson and other representatives of SD tried to turn to "ordinary people", promising to provide necessary protection against the negative effects appearing in today's Swedish society, which could lead to a positive outcome in the municipal elections in 2014.

As a supplementary factor, there have been many signs of the recent electoral rise of populism in the Nordic countries and the high electoral support of low-educated electorate for such parties has been proven by many studies (see EU Observer 2010; Norden 2010; Fryklund 2013; Policy Network 2013; Reuters 2013; The Guardian 2015). That implies that this phenomenon could also contribute to the high support for SD among the low-educated electorate.

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4.4 DISCUSSION OF THE RESULTS

Based on the multiple regression analysis' results, it is striking that the examined variables are not, with the exception of “low education” and “criminality” in 2014, statistically significant, even at the very liberal level of 0.1 (commonly the variables are tested at a level of 0.05 or even below - 0.01 or 0.001). This would require further explanation as for why the majority of the examined variables (chosen based on the previous research concerning ERPs) did not prove their statistical significance when voting for a right-wing populist party.

Apart from low education, the variable “criminality” statistically proved to play a certain role when voting for SD, even though the tendency found in this study was surprisingly opposite to the previous research on ERPs i.e. that with lower criminality rate, there is higher support for SD in the municipalities. This proved, one could see the contemporary case of SD in Sweden as a contradictory case to the eighteen West European countries studied by Smith (2010, 1471), where he has found that “populist right parties benefit from higher levels of crime”. But why is this not the case when studying SD? Smith (2010, 1472), as well as Bentz (1994, 4), mention the accusations of immigrants of being responsible for high criminality as the essential factor for benefiting from higher levels of crime, which could be questionable when studying Sweden and SD in particular. A subsequent factor could also be the strong determination of SD to fight the crime (as mentioned in the subchapter 3.2).

Another interesting outcome was in the case of the variable “euro-scepticism”, where there was found no statistical influence on voting for SD. The results of the analysis are rather surprising, since there has so far been a great amount of analyses connecting high level of euro- scepticism to the high electoral support for ERPs and at the same time there have been hardly any proven theories claiming the opposite. All in all, the conducted analysis indicates that the statement of Werts (Werts et al. 2013, 187) on the influence of the euro-scepticism on voting for the radical right could be questioned in the case of Sweden and SD. The explanation to this unexpected outcome could be the fact that even though Sweden is said to be one of the thirteen EU nations where Eurosceptic parties are gaining ground according to recent studies (Luxemburger Wort 2014), SD's agenda concerning EU issues has recently not been as predominant as in the case of other Eurosceptic parties whose main objective in most of the cases is to abandon the EU's structures. Recently, SD has also mostly been spoken of in connection with the issue of immigration, pushing the issue of the EU to the background.

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Moreover, generally speaking the issue of European Union was not central in the elections of 2014 since the parties rather focused on national affairs, therefore the attitude of the electorate towards the European integration was not decisive when choosing a party to vote for.

Generally, the question would therefore be: What is behind the surprising results? 1. Is the result caused by the dependent variable, i.e. municipal politics? 2. Is it the case that SD has become mainstream and as a result the classical characterization of the populist/extreme right voter does not apply? 3. Or are there any other possible explanations?

Here are the main possible explanations of why SD in 2014 also attracted voters who normally would not decide to cast a vote at a populist and extreme right party.

4.4.1 MUNICIPAL POLITICS

As for the dependent variable “votes for SD”, on the basis of the analysis results one could claim that within the past twelve years the position of SD in the Swedish party system has changed and therefore the traditional characteristics of the voters of the extreme right do not apply since nowadays a much more diverse group of people proceeding from rather varied environments choose to cast their votes at SD. As a result, it is no longer the case that the support for SD would be higher in the municipalities where there is high unemployment, immigration and criminality rate, as well as high level of euro-scepticism. The key explanation to this result could also have its origins in the change of SD’s municipal politics.

Municipal politics and its election results are specific and different from the voters’ behaviour in the national elections. All the assumptions and knowledge about extreme/populist/radical right parties based on previous research are, nonetheless, derived from national competition. This implies that these assumptions and previous knowledge might not by accurate at the local level since at such level the voters might decide according to other criteria and on the basis of other knowledge. Even though we cannot take this aspect into consideration when conducting analytical research, it is vital to at least mention it in the discussion of the results.

The Sweden’s municipalities address a lot of important issues and are responsible for a broad range of facilities and services including housing, roads, water supply and waste-water processing, schools, public welfare, elderly care and childcare. The municipalities are entitled

34 to levy income taxes on individuals. They also charge for various services. As a result, municipalities have significant latitude in deciding what services they should offer, even though they are legally obliged to provide certain basic services (Sweden, 2015). The SD’s political program nowadays includes many topics related to local politics in particular, which could have an impact on the voting behavior in the municipal elections. Additionally, SD gets involved in a higher number of areas that are in the competence of the municipalities. Compared to 2002, in 2014 the focus is not only on unemployment, crime policy and immigration but also on education system, health and housing, which at the same time happen to be the most discussed issues among the Swedes (Sverigedemokraterna 2014 c). Thanks to responding the voters’ suggestions or getting inspired by other parties (Quensel, Poohl 2011, 14) SD has significantly broaden its municipal policy.

It was not before 2012 that SD presented its new program for municipal politics in which the party for the first time developed a comprehensive policy program for its representatives elected in each municipality. The central topic of SD’s municipal policy became school system, social services and law enforcement (Quensel, Poohl 2011, 11). Also, this new extra effort to illuminate the situation of young people, youth psychiatry, lack of hospital beds and establishment of private schools could lie behind the success of SD in the municipality elections in 2014 as the party succeeded to attract many voters who would usually vote for traditional parties but were attracted by these topics of SD’s “new” municipal policy. Additionally, SD has over the years, according to some sources, become known for having skilled and competent municipal leaders that dispose with a long experience in local politics (LT 2015, Svenska Dagbladet 2015). Consequently, for many voters the sympathy for some politicians in particular could be a relevant factor when voting SD.

As indicated in the previous paragraph, the SD’s controversial immigration policy is no longer the most important policy on the municipal level, which could add to the party’s attractiveness in the municipal elections for many voters. As some academics emphasize (Quensel, Poohl 2011, 20), even though SD in principle connects all social problems to immigration, the importance of immigration policy itself on the municipal level has been decreasing over the years. Also, their review shows that the topics which can be connected directly to the immigration policy are far from representing the largest proportion of the party's total number of topics. Between 1991 and 2002 the proportion of topics in the area of immigration was over 16 per cent of all of the party's topics, meanwhile since the 2010 election the immigration-

35 related topics represent only 9 percent (Quensel, Poohl 2011, 22). It therefore seems that immigration does not take much space in the party's municipal politics. One of the explanations could be that immigration is primarily not a municipal question, except in cases where the party, for example, raises the question of an agreement with the Migration Board or requires conducting referenda on refugee reception to a municipality.

At the same time, the party has grown and become more professional since 2002, which is reflected in the general change of SD’s municipal politics. During the years 1991-2002, SD disposed with a total of 44 municipality topics and could be defined as a small party with small resources and extremely limited experience in public policy work which is also evident in the statistics (Quensel, Poohl 2011, 14). Since 2002, SD has gained more experience with municipal politics and has succeeded to broaden its policy to other topics than immigration and criminality, which could give a possible explanation to why SD attracted many voters who normally would not vote for a populist extreme right party.

4.4.2 VOTERS' DISCONTENT WITH SWEDEN'S CURRENT POLITICS: SD AS THE ONLY PARTY AGAINST THE SYSTEM

Although the majority of media do not refer to SD as mainstream (see BBC News 2014, Europe 2014, The Guardian 2014), some Swedish academics have begun to address SD as mainstream, starting in 2014, adding, however, that even though it has softened its image in recent years, SD remains an ideologically extreme far-right party, even by European standards.

SD wants policy to be made drastically more restrictive. All the other Swedish parties – and, indeed, all leading newspapers and their commentators – have either supported the current policy or at least declined to criticise it directly. During the period previous to the elections in 2014, all the traditional parties were mostly focused on issues such as education, unemployment and taxes, not paying the main attention to the issue of immigration. Another typical sign is that he traditional parties claim these issues such as high unemployment and not efficient education system need to be addressed properly as they need to be improved. They, however, have mostly in common that the current politics regarding these issues are considered to be quite efficient and therefore no rapid change is needed. On the other hand, SD refers to these as completely dysfunctional and inefficient and therefore a huge change is needed (see for example SDKurinen 2014). Nothing has filled the political space between these poles. Members of the electorate who are doubtful about the policy could thus express that preference only by voting

36 for SD (Aylott 2015). And that could be the essential reason (apart from others, also relevant factors) of the party's advance in the municipal elections in 2014.

4.4.3 SD AS THE ONLY PARTY THAT OPPOSES IMMIGRATION

Many Swedish authors tend to refer to SD as mainstream as a direct result of its immigration policy, which attracts new, especially young voters, who normally would not vote for a populist or extreme right political party. According to them, in the context of Sweden currently having one of the world's most generous refugee policies19, none of the other main parties have spoken out in favour of cutting immigration, although former Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt did bring up the ongoing costs to the country. In Sweden, all of the traditional parties have agreed that Sweden ought to help to as many refugees as possible, meaning that the question is not “if to offer help”, but rather “how to help”. Compared to other European countries such as France, Italy or the UK where centre-right parties openly discuss quotas and integration strategies, in Sweden the political climate in very different. Even Linus Bylund20 argues that SD's unique approach to immigration is the key reason for its rapid success since 2010, adding that SD represents a political line in the sand that is different from all the other parties (The Local 2014). Significant could also be the lack of own detailed solutions regarding the immigration issue by the traditional parties, accompanied by the often lack of counterarguments to SD's immigration policy (SVT Debatt 2014).

The importance of immigration policy in general could also be essential here, since SD pays most attention to this question in particular, whereas the traditional parties tend to divide its focus between a number of issues, such as education, taxes, unemployment, elderly care and lack of housing (SVT Debatt 2014). Political Scientist Li Bennich Björkman from Uppsala University additionally emphasizes that SD has also tapped into a growing frustration bubbling across generations in rural communities in the north and south of the country, since there is a group of people outside of Sweden's urban cities that feel marginalized. Therefore, SD is particularly attractive for such voters as the party is not only about cutting immigration, but it also „represents a wider resistance to the post-modern world and so they attract people that hark back to a different kind of Sweden“ (The Local 2014). Even other Swedish academics point out

19 Around 2,000 people seek asylum in Sweden every week and the country grants automatic residency to all refugees fleeing the Syria conflict (The Local 2014). 20 Jimmie Åkesson's press spokesman.

37 that there are many voters who normally would not vote for SD but who want to reduce immigration by accepting fewer refugees (SVT Nyheter 2015).

4.4.4 CHARISMATIC LEADER AND WELL-PLANNED CAMPAIGN

Björkman also highlights that the SD's charismatic leader Jimmie Åkesson has benefited from a slick and organized media campaign in recent years. As a result SD has been particularly successful at attracting votes from young people (The Local 2014). Åkesson is indeed well known for always being confident and prepared to respond to counterarguments. During the campaign in 2014, he willingly assisted to a great amount of public debates and was able to use the current statistical data (for instance from Migrationsveret21).as a platform for his arguments. Åkesson for instance in many occasions addressed the costs of the current Swedish immigration policy as a strong argument, leaving behind the possible long-term advantages of massive immigration for Sweden and, on the contrary, highlighting what the budget could be used on instead (pensioners, unemployed etc.) (see SVT Forum 2014).

Sverigedemokraterna had also one of the biggest campaign funds. SD' budget for both the European elections and the general elections was 47 million. Only Socialdemokraterna, Moderaterna and Centerpartiet disposed with even higher budgets. The party focused mainly on attracting voters in Stockholm, where the number of inhabitants is growing rapidly. Only in Södermalm SD had almost as many voters as the party's most successful municipalities Sjöbo, Bromley and Örkelljunga together. In particular the campaign against "organized beggars" in the Stockholm subway was the most spoken of. This was a smart move according SD, saying that “The reason we chose the subway for the campaign is that generally people have already passed a number of beggars on the way down to the subway.” (Dagens Media 2014). Party members in the Stockholm area have increased significantly in four years, from about 600 to 1900. Beggars thus became the question that would get to the capital residents. According to political scientist Ann-Cathrin Jungar, an expert on right-wing populist and extreme right parties in Europe, in doing so SD joined a European trend in which the free movement within the EU has become a contentious issue. As a result, public opinion polls showed that the party's support increased in the capital. According to Statistics Sweden's political party preference, 3.3 percent of Stockholm inhabitants sympathized with SD in May 2014, even though it was only 1.9 percent in the first survey in November 2010 (Svenska Dagbladet 2014).

21 The Migration Agency.

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4.4.5 MEDIA INFLUENCE

The SD's campaign in 2014 was by many relevant media understood as highly provocative, captivating, and in many cases even strictly racist, which lead to a great amount of attention. All of the main newspapers in Sweden focused on SD on a daily basis, mostly critisizing the party for its campaing and spreading racism. In Dagens Media (2014), the campaign is called both "disgusting" and "racist". On many occasions the newspaper published interviews with those who are against SD, stating that "..it is time to stop the organized racism of influence in our parliaments.." and "..ugh this was worse than expected. I feel bad. We must fight poverty, not the poor!". Nyheter idag (2014) paid also more attention to the SD's campaign than to other parties, concluding that "people may feel singled out and therefore we have assessed that the ads could be interpreted as racist, obscene or difficult to comply with the ethical values that apply in the community". Metro (2014), one of the most popular newspapers in Sweden, published an article titled “Svaret på SD-kampanjen: Ursäkta röran – vi har ett rasistproblem” (In English „The answer to the SD's Campaign: Excuse the mess - we have a racism problem”). All in all, this attention from both the television and the newspapers resulted almost impossible to get away from.

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5 CONCLUSIONS

SD succeeded in gaining a high number of votes in the 2014 elections to Kommunfullmäktige despite its strong criticism towards the current Swedish immigration policy, which has traditionally been rejected by the majority of Swedes. This electoral success of a right-wing populist party on the Swedish political spectrum is a recent phenomenon and there are yet many myths and misconceptions to be addressed in order to clarify the root causes of this shift in electoral behaviour.

The goal of this study was therefore to determine if any of the five examined factors (immigration, criminality, unemployment, low education and euro-scepticism) could explain the increase of the electoral support for SD between 2002 and 2014. The main aim was to answer the following research questions:

1. Do the examined independent variables behave the same way in 2002 and 2014? 2. If not, which of the independent variables show statistically significant evidence that explains the increase of the electoral support for SD?

The main findings of this research are the following: 1. As for the dependent variable “votes for SD”, on the basis of the analysis results, one could claim that within the past twelve years the position of SD in the Swedish party system has changed, therefore the traditional characteristics of the voters of the extreme right do not apply. Nowadays, a much more diverse group of people proceeding from rather varied environments choose to cast their votes at SD, and as a result it is not the case that the support for SD would be higher in the municipalities where there is high unemployment, immigration and criminality rate, and high euro-scepticism rate. 2. Therefore, out of the five examined independent variables, only the variable “low education” (and partly the variable “criminality”) proved different and statistically significant behaviour in 2002 and 2014. In relation to the opposite direction of the coefficients in 2002 and 2014, the most probable interpretation of the effect of low education would be the increased ability of SD to mobilize less-educated. In other words, the most possible explanation is the ability of SD to attract less educated voters to vote in the municipal elections. SD has also been very proactive in its campaign and in various public debates, turning to “ordinary people” in particular.

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3. On the contrary, for instance the results of the analysis of “euro-scepticism” suggest that the influence of euro-scepticism on voting for the radical right could be questioned in the case of Sweden and SD. This could be caused by the fact that SD's agenda concerning EU issues has recently not been as predominant as in the case of other Eurosceptic parties and recently, SD has mostly been spoken of in connection with the issue of immigration, leaving the issue of the EU in the background. 4. Since almost all of the variables did not prove to be of significance when trying to explain the rise of SD, we tried to find out what this could be due to. Therefore, while discussing the multiple analysis’ results we focused on whether SD has become mainstream and as a result the classical characterization of the populist/extreme right voter does not apply, or if this was caused by the independent variables, i.e. municipal politics. We came to a conclusion that SD indeed became mainstream during the campaign previous to the elections in 2014, thanks to being the only relevant party that opposes the current political system in Sweden and being the only party that is for reduction of immigration to Sweden. Moreover, the charismatic leader, well-managed campaign and influence of the media could as well be significant while explaining why SD has become mainstream. 5. The change and broadening of SD’s municipal politics could also give an explanation to the recent electoral success since SD could have attracted voters who normally would vote for traditional parties due to the changes in municipal politics conducted since 2012 - focusing on education system, healthcare and lack of housing and decreasing the importance of immigration policy. Moreover, for many voters the sympathy for some politicians in particular could also be a relevant reason for voting SD.

It is of importance to mention that this study’s main aim was not to give an overall explanation of the SD’s recent electoral success, since there would have to be a number of other factors included in order to be able to reach a relevant conclusion, which was not possible to conduct due to the limited space of this research. It could, however, be interesting to conclude more factors in future research.

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7 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

BRÅ – Brottsförebyggande rådet (The Swedish Crime Survey)

BSS – Bevara Sverige Svenskt (Keep Sweden Swedish)

C – Centerpartiet (Centre Party)

EMU – European Monetary Union

ERPs – Extreme Right Parties

EU – European Union

FP – Folkpartiet (Liberal People's Party)

KD – Kristdemokraterna (Christian Democrats)

M – Nya Moderaterna (Moderate Party)

MP – Miljöpartiet de gröna (Swedish Green Party)

NyD – Ny Demokrati (New Democracy)

RRPs – Radical Right Populist Parties

S – Socialdemokraterna (Social Democrats)

SCB – Statistiska centralbyrå (Statistical Office)

SD – Sverigedemokraterna (Sweden Democrats)

UNHCR – UN Refugee Agency

V – Vänsterpartiet (Left Party)

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8 LIST OF FIGURES, GRAPHS AND TABLES

Figure I. Theory of the recent increase of the electoral support for ERPs.……………..………………..5 Figure II. Model formulation.……………..……………………………………………………...9 Figure III. Development of the number of municipalities where SD has taken seats in elections to the Kommunfullmäktige 2002-2014.…………………………………………………………..…….....20

Graph I. Probability of voting for a RRP by level of euro-scepticism………………………………..…9 Graph II. Development of SD's mandates in elections to Kommunfullmäktige 1998- 2014………………………………………………………………………………………..…..16 Graph III. Development of SD's active members 2006-2010………………………………………..17 Graph IV. Electoral support for selected parties in elections to the Kommunfullmäktige in 2002, 2010 and 2014………………………………..………………………………..…………………………19 Graph V. Low education 2001…………………………………………………………………...31 Graph VI. Low education 2013……………………………………………………..…………...31

Table I. Univariate description of the variables in percent while including all the municipalities…………………………………………………………………………………...………………..28 Table II. Multiple regression analysis………………………………………………………………………....30

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9 ANNEXES

Annex I. Support for SD in elections to Kommunfullmäktige 2014 in percent. The municipalities divided according to the number of votes for SD, i.e. the selected municipalities that showed low electoral support for SD and high electoral support for SD. Data from: http://www.val.se/val/val2014/slutresultat/K/rike/index.html.

Low suport: 0-5% Dorotea 0,7% Vindeln 4,11% Salem 5,74% Malå 1,37% Skellefteå 4,16% Ydre 5,79% Vaxholm 1,56% Ragunda 4,16% Leksand 5,83% Robertsfors 1,59% Nacka 4,25% Östersund 5,97% Kiruna 2,11% Sollentuna 4,28% Åsele 2,15% Piteå 4,29% Överkalix 2,2% Åmål 4,33% Danderyd 2,29% Örnsköldsvik 4,33% Norsjö 2,61% Solna 4,39% Lidingö 2,62% Vansbro 4,39% Nordmaling 2,72% Kalix 4,41% Pajala 2,74% Lycksele 4,46% Bjurholm 2,91% Österåker 4,6% Arjeplog 3,16% Luleå 4,88% Åre 3,17% Gällivare 4,92% Umeå 3,24% Boxholm 5,05% Övertorneå 3,33% Sollefteå 5,06% Vännäs 3,34% Ekerö 5,07% Storuman 3,4% Stockholm 5,16% Täby 3,42% Laxå 5,2% Jokkmokk 3,46% Dals-Ed 5,25% Vadstena 3,51% Gotland 5,28% Vilhelmina 3,54% Arvidsjaur 5,37% Haparanda 3,7% Hammarö 5,37%

High support: 18-23%

Landskrona 18,67%

Borlänge 18,77%

Eslöv 18,78%

Östra Göinge 18,92%

Flen 18,94%

Höör 18,99%

Nässjö 19,31%

Trelleborg 20,22%

Skurup 20,39%

Svedala 20,48%

Osby 20,69%

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Sjöbo 20,75%

Klippan 20,81%

Hörby 21,10%

Falköping 21,11%

Tomelilla 22,12%

Sölvesborg 22,26%

Åstorp 22,32%

Hässleholm 22,58%

Burlöv 22,62%

Bromölla 22,81%

Svalöv 23,59%

Ljusnarsberg 23,84%

Örkelljunga 23,89%

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