The New Radical-Right

MASARYK UNIVERSITY

Faculty of Social Studies

Department of Political Science

The New Radical-Right:

Analysis in Selected European States

Diploma Thesis

Bc. Kateřina Lišaníková

Supervisor: Mgr. et Mgr. Petra Vejvodová, Ph.D. UČO: 397916 Security and Strategic Studies Master’s Full-Time Study Matriculation Year 2014

In Brno, 18. 12. 2016

Declaration of authorship

I declare that I wrote the Diploma Thesis The New Radical-Right: Analysis in Selected European States by myself only and that I solely used the literature in the reference list.

In Brno, 18.12. 2016 ...... Bc. Kateřina Lišaníková

Special thanks to:

Ms. Petra Vejvodová for supervision of this Diploma Thesis and her valuable notes and thoughts through the whole process of writing. Also, special thanks to Mr. Rufus Latham from the SND Swedish National Data Service for providing me with requested dataset and to Mr. Alexander Gilder for language cooperation.

Content

Introduction ...... 7 1. Methodology ...... 9 1.1. Operationalisation ...... 12 1.2. Conceptualisation ...... 15 2. Short Overview of the Parties’ History ...... 20 3.1. Danish People’s Party ...... 20 3.2. Sweden Democrats ...... 21 3. Danish People’s Party and Sweden Democrats’ Manifestos ...... 23 3.1. Danish People’s Party’s Manifesto ...... 23 3.2. Sweden Democrats’ Manifesto ...... 26 4. Differences Between Analysed Manifestos ...... 29 5. Public Opinion in Sweden and Denmark ...... 33 5.1. Danish Public Opinion ...... 34 5.2. Swedish Public Opinion ...... 43 6. Danish and Swedish Mainstream Parties’ Offer ...... 54 6.1. Danish Mainstream Parties ...... 54 6.3. Swedish Mainstream Parties ...... 57 7. Reflection of Public Demand and Role of Mainstream Parties ...... 61 Conclusion ...... 72 Reference ...... 75 Appendix ...... 85

Anotace

Analýza v tomto textu je zaměřena na dvě krajně pravicové strany v Dánsku a ve Švédsku: Dánskou lidovou stranu a Švédské demokraty. Nebývale rychlý úspěch a nárůst preferenčních hlasů při parlamentních volbách společně s faktem, že obě dvě strany pochází z extrémistických uskupení přinutili širokou veřejnost dojít k přesvědčení, že obě strany patří do populistické krajní pravice. Práce se proto zaměřila na zkoumání vztahu nabídky těchto politických stran v kontextu poptávky po důležitých tématech u Švédů a Dánů společně se vstupujícím elementem mainstreamových stran. Analýza došla k závěru, že se v případě Švédských demokratů jedná o stranu jednoho tématu, tedy imigrace, která nedokáže v širším měřítku uspokojit potřeby švédské populace, jíž zajímá nejvíce téma ekonomiky, zaměstnanosti a vzdělávání. Zde mainstreamové strany vstupují do vztahu nabídky / poptávky velmi nezřetelně, a to adoptováním některých restriktivních opatření v oblasti imigrace. Naopak Dánská lidová strana má postavený program na nejdůležitějším tématu pro Dány, a to sociálním státu neboli welfare state. Imigrace, zejména ze zemí Blízkého východu, je pak vnímána velmi negativně jako něco, co narušuje fungování sociálního státu. Celkově pak Dánská lidová strana představuje menší odchýlení od mainstreamového politického spektra, než je tomu u Švédských demokratů, kterým pokud nezačnou propagovat také další části svého programu stejně jako to dělají u imigračního tématu, hrozí pomalý úpadek na politické straně, neboť jejich téma plně přeberou mainstreamové strany a oni se tak stanou pro běžné Švédy nezajímavými.

Abstract

The analysis of this thesis focuses on two radical-right parties in Denmark and Sweden. Namely, the Danish People’s Party and the Sweden Democrats. The public has come to the conclusion that these parties are populist radical-right due to their unprecedented, rapidly increasing success in parliamentary elections and the historical background, which is rooted in the extreme right. Therefore, the text analyses the relationship between the political offerings of these parties and public demand of the Swedes and Danes alongside what the mainstream parties’ offer. The conclusion is that the Sweden Democrats are a single-issue party focused on immigration only and cannot satisfy the demand of Swedes, which is the topic of economy, employment and education. The mainstream parties step up into the demand/offer relationship very shallowly by adopting some of the counter immigration measures. Contrary, the Danish People’s Party built up its program on welfare state issues, which concern the Danes most.

Further, immigration, especially from the Middle East, is perceived as something that threatens the functioning of the welfare state. Overall, the Danish People’s Party represents less deviation from mainstream politics unlike the Sweden Democrats. The Sweden Democrats may become less attractive for Swedish voters once the mainstream parties take over their key issues, if they do not start to push on other topics of their manifesto besides immigration.

Klíčová slova

Dánská lidová strana, Dánsko, Eurobarometr, imigrace, krajní pravice, Liberální strana, Sociální demokraté, Švédsko, Švédští demokraté, Umírněná strana, veřejné mínění, volby

Key words

Danish People’s Party, Denmark, elections, Eurobarometer, immigration, Liberal Party, Moderate Party, public opinion, Social Democrats, Sweden, Sweden Democrats, radical-right

Introduction

The current unprecedented immigration crisis which challenges Europe goes hand in hand with the phenomenon of the re-rising of radical-right political parties. These political parties have mostly built up their programs on the issue of the threat of refugees and try to influence voters by reminding them of the importance of nationalism. Several years ago, very few of them would have been successful with such performances. Nevertheless, in the face of current refugee waves to Europe, these parties have been more successful than ever before – some of them have even became part of the government or very strong opposition. In connection to this trend, the media has started to warn over Europe turning to the extreme right once again. Yet, the European citizens turn to these political parties as the only political subjects, which really care about their needs. Again, some scholars and media calls it populism, some people see it as awakening of Europe and punishment of the establishment, which has been ignoring the demand of citizens for the past twenty years. The new radical-right parties call the mainstream politicians the corrupted elite. Albeit there have been tendencies to isolate such parties, these new radical-right subjects gained even more power in parliamentary elections and showed the mainstream that they cannot ignore the voice of their people. Over a very short period, lots of European think-tanks have produced many articles and books summarizing current re-emergence of these radical-right parties on the old continent; however very few of them are seeking the basis of the new radical-right: what drives their success? Do they have any comprehensive manifestos to rule the countries or are they just being populist by promoting what is currently the most concerning issue in Europe? And do the mainstream parties ignore the society’s concerns by excluding the topic of immigration from their agenda? The immigration wave particularly hit Sweden and Denmark, where the success of the Danish People’s Party (DPP) and the Sweden Democrats (SD) was the most visible. Even though there are two radical-right parties in the neighbourhood countries, established at the same time, their paths significantly differ. While the Sweden Democrats remain in opposition without any ally in the parliament, the Danish People’s Party made an agreement with the governmental coalition. Nevertheless, both belong among the most successful radical-right parties in Europe. In this analysis, the author has chosen to take a closer look at these two cases and answer the questions, what is behind their success? By comparing their political manifestos and behaviour, the author will try to find the similarities and differences in their policy and thus understand if, and in what ways, both parties differ. In order to provide a truly comprehensive

7 image, the factor of the mainstream parties will be also included. The analysis will look at their manifestos and compare the political offer of the radical-right and mainstream parties to the public demand of the Swedish and Danish societies. By analysing both societies’ concerns and comparing them with the aforementioned manifestos, the analysis will be able to offer a description of the political situation in Sweden and Denmark and forecast which party is likely to stay politically successful in the long-term.

1. Methodology

For the purposes of the analysis, the author selected two states: Denmark and Sweden. Denmark and Sweden are, together with Germany, among states which mostly attract immigrants. The author chose Denmark and Sweden for their geographical closeness and interesting results of the new radical-right parties’ success. Furthermore, there is an opportunity to compare the examined topics within those two close states. The analysis focuses particularly on the selected radical-right parties’ political programs and their connection to the public opinion. Moreover, the text includes the position of the Swedish and Danish mainstream parties towards the examined topics. The general aim of the analysis is to answer the question whether the success of the selected radical-right parties is partly built on following the public’s main concerns and if there is any role of the mainstream parties regarding the aforementioned success. In other words, the research focuses on understanding the following; how do the radical-right parties work with the public opinion and how do the mainstream parties affect the success of the radical-right and vice versa? Probably the most significant obstacles might be hidden reasons why the radical-right was successful in particular states. This means a third hidden independent variable which may lead to not-complete picture about a particular radical-right party (e.g. grievance of past, resistance towards radical-right, or on the other hand, total lack of interest in politics due to the disappointment in all political parties – both classical and new ones). The author will try to eliminate these hidden variables by including specific literature targeted on recent history of the selected states. To eliminate the language obstacles as much as possible, the authors used primarily English language sources, as there are many for the Scandinavian countries. Nevertheless, in case of the Swedish and Danish sources, the author used the help of the native speakers in translation of the selected texts and has a basis in the Swedish language. No personal data or evaluation of personal opinions or beliefs will be included; therefore, there are no ethical concerns.

The importance of the research touches upon the idea that the success of the radical- right parties in Europe seems as a common trend. Europeans have started to take the radical- right parties as a preferable alternative towards classical political parties – on the other hand, it cannot be omitted that the majority of these parties does not have any direct experiences with being a part of any governmental coalition and in some cases, the parties were established by

9 people coming from extreme right extremist background. The parties must be perceived and handled with utmost caution, for the danger of the radical-right might be well hidden. The radical-right parties do not have to be dangerous themselves. However, their ideology and rhetoric may ignite radicalism within citizens and particularly youngsters. This research should help to understand the re-emerging phenomenon of the radical-right in a selected sample of countries, particularly in terms of what is included on their political agenda and how do they collaborate with the mainstream parties. At the end of the research, the analysis will answer on what are the biggest concerns of the Swedish and Danish society, if the highlights of the programs of the selected parties follow the public opinion, what is the role of the mainstream parties and what are the differences between Sweden Democrats’ and Danish People’s Party’s manifestos. Furthermore, the literature so far on the Danish People’s Party and the Sweden Democrats does not advance any new ideas. Both parties can be found only in the context of the extreme-right parties in Europe in the articles of the native speaking authors, e.g. Heléne Lööw, Susi Meret or Ravik Jupskås (see reference list). Moreover, the literature more or less covers only the period between 1990-2011. The goal of this analysis is to set the activities of these parties to the current context of the immigration crisis’ peak and thus wider the knowledge of working of these parties with their manifestos and public opinion. The aforementioned authors describe the parties’ history and generally agree that the parties are new subjects on the political scene and cannot be marked as directly extreme-right. Further, the latest articles are limited to only a few research topics: the context of immigration and racism (see e.g. Mulinari, and Neergaard, We are Sweden Democrats because we care for others: Exploring racisms in the Swedish extreme right from 2014), the election success (see e.g. Aalberg et al. Populist Political Communication in Europe from 2017), the parties’ history (see e.g. Mammone, Andrea et. al. Mapping the Extreme Right in Contemporary Europe from 2012) or parties’ ideological family (see e.g. Jungar and Jupskås, Populist Radical Right Parties in the Nordic Region: A New and Distinct Party Family? from 2014). The only exception is the Czech article published in Rexter magazine. Pavel Maškarinec published an article titled, The Sweden Democrats: An analysis of the far-right territorial and voter base in contemporary Sweden – the comparative quantitative analysis from parliamentary elections in 2006 and 2010. However, his research is limited to the quantitative findings without any qualitative background and is focused only on Sweden. Moreover, it is outdated for the purposes of our analysis. Nevertheless, it is a unique text covering the electoral basis of the Sweden Democrats and helping to understand what is the profile of the Sweden Democrats’ voters. Secondly, Susi Meret’s

10 articles, The Danish People's Party, the Italian Northern League and the Austrian Freedom Party in a Comparative Perspective: Party Ideology and Electoral Support from 2010 and partly, Country Report Denmark from 2009 in the collection Strategies for Combating Right- Wing Extremism in Europe try to qualitatively explain the voter basis of the Danish People’s Party. However, generally speaking, there is no comprehensive analysis dealing with mainly the parties’ manifestos, the voter basis and the relation to the mainstream parties. It is visible from the given examples there is lack of literature covering the last election periods of 2011 and 2015 in Denmark and 2014 in Sweden. Therefore, this analysis aims to widen the knowledge of the working of these parties and shifts the focus from analysing the parties only within the extreme-right background to setting the parties to the context of the mainstream political subjects.

The primary literature will include political programs of the selected parties, quantitative data of public opinion within the selected states and quantitative data regarding the election results: Dansk Folkeparti. 2002. “The Party Program of the Danish People's Party.”; European Commission. 2010. “Eurobarometer 74, Public Opinion in the European Union.”; Statistics Sweden. May 2013 – May 2016. “Political Party Preference Survey.”; Election Resources. n.d. “Sweden.” The secondary literature will cover supported qualitative data about the topics, such as general research on the radical-right phenomenon or related issues such as immigration: Andersen, Jørgen Goul. 2003. “The Danish People's Party and new cleavages in Danish politics.” Aalborg Universitet; Fredlund-Blomst, Sofie. 2014. „Assessing Immigrant Integration in Sweden after the May 2013 Riots.“ Migration Policy Institute, January 16.; Wilson, Robin and Hainsworth, Paul. 2012. Far-Right Parties and Discourse in Europe: A Challenge for Our Times. Brussels: European Network Against Racism.

Main research questions

1) How do the Sweden Democrats’ and People’s Party’s manifestos reflect the demand of the society in the researched countries? 2) How do the mainstream parties affect the relation of the Sweden Democrats’ and People’s Party’s demand vs. offer?

Specific research questions 1) What are the most highlighted topics in the manifestos of the analysed radical-right parties? 2) Are there any differences in the analysed manifestos of the selected radical-right parties? 3) According to the polls, what are the biggest concerns of the Swedish and Danish public? 4) What is the position of the Swedish and Danish mainstream parties to the analysed topics?

1.1. Operationalisation

For purposes of the research, the comparative analysis will be the areas of Denmark and Sweden. The time period covers the past twenty-years without precise limitation. The analysis will work with the latest political manifestos, but collecting data from the background of the countries since 1990s. This time frame was selected according to the year of formation of the selected radical-right parties. However, to fully understand the evolution of the parties as well as the position of the mainstream parties, the events since the beginning of the 1990s must be taken into the consideration as well. And sometimes, there will be a need to look even further back in history while talking about the predecessors of the analysed parties. The selected states include Sweden and Denmark. The text analysis the Sweden Democrats and Danish People’s Party, altogether with the mainstream Swedish Social Democrats and Moderate Party, and the Danish Social Democrats and Liberal (Venstre) party. The mainstream parties were selected to represent the most powerful parties on the left and on the right site according to the latest parliamentary elections (DIPD n.d.); (Lijphart and Grofman 2002); (NSD n.d.); (World Elections Denmark, Sweden n.d.). The author will use the analysis of documents method for the first research question (Hendl 2005, 132). Further, the author perceives a political manifesto as a primary document

12 and will use primarily the current political manifestos to analyse them. To select the most highlighted topics, there will be an evaluation of the following points: • length • level of detail • criticism • selection of topics by the party For this analysis, the author drew up a short evaluation to select the most relevant topics. Our goal is to find the answers to the central decision-making questions: What are the statements of the party? Which policy positions do the parties convey? (these questions are part of the Manifesto Coding Instructions by Annika Werner, Onawa Lacewell and Andrea Volkens (2011, 9). Obviously, while reading any political manifesto, first, the voter notices the length of the document/text. This determines at first sight the importance which is given to a particular topic. Secondly, the level of detail which is given to each topic is another aspect that comes to a mind while reading any manifesto. Further, the author also includes the ambiguous language to help us orient in the parties’ preferable topics. According to Annika Werner, Onawa Lacewell and Andrea Volkens, the ambiguous statements are very often part of the parties’ statements and manifestos with particular reason: often, parties make policy statements by mentioning a negative aspect of an issue in order to highlight its importance for the party (Werner et al. 2011, 9-10). Therefore, the analysis also focuses on negative statements of the parties, criticism, in order to find out whether the criticism leads also to topics that the party prefers and builds the manifesto on. Moreover, sometimes the parties even select the most important topics by themselves by writing them on the posters, stressing them on their website or highlighting them during public speeches. This will also be taken into account in our analysis. Due to a space limitation, the analysis will primarily focus on top five topics.

The second research question touches upon the differences in the manifestos of the Sweden Democrats and Danish People’s Party. Thus, the comparative analysis will be used to compare the results from the first research question.

As for the third research question regarding public opinion in Sweden and Denmark, the author will collect data from two sources: the national and the European level. The Danish Centre for Survey and Survey/Register Data (2007 and 2011) and the Swedish National Data Service (2002, 2004, 2010 and 20141) will be used for national level and. As the Eurobarometer (2010-2016) will be used for European level. Understandably, the primary focus lays in the results of the national polls. Nevertheless, to fully understand the Swedish and Danish voters, it is also important to include the results of polls on the European level. By comparing particular topics, which will be stressed in our analysis, there will be a possibility to explain both trends and commonalities. Nevertheless, it is apparent from the focus of this text that the analysis is mostly focused on topics such as immigration or terrorism. If the Sweden Democrats and Danish People’s Party gain support based on the general fear out of terrorism and incoming immigrants, it will be visible on both outcome graphs. On the other hand, if the cause does not lay in fear of immigration and terrorism, there will be no interest on national level. In that case, it is important to find out, whether people in Sweden and Denmark do not perceive these topics as relevant at all while speaking about politics and problems of the country or if they have a different opinion on the national and European levels. In other words, by including also European polls, there will be a possibility to describe the attitude of the Swedish and Danish voters towards particular topics. Furthermore, it will be necessary to minimize the number of analysed topics. Therefore, based on the results, the author has decided to omit some of the topics in order to focus only on the most problematic ones. After selecting the topics, there will be a comparison of the results from the first question with outcomes of this research question. To offer a comprehensive analysis, the research question number four was also included. The author will use the analysis of the documents of the mainstream parties’ current manifestos. There will be an examination only of those issues, which will be the outcome of the third research question. The outcome of this last research questions should add information to our main research question about the role of the mainstream parties.

1 See reference list 36.-39. 14

1.2. Conceptualisation

In past few years, the academic and journalist sector has registered an unprecedented increase of using terms “new far-right” or “extreme radical right” regarding the newly established parties on the right political spectrum. Yet, there is neither consensus on what to call these parties, nor an existing uniting definition. According to Cas Mudde, some authors prefer to use far-right term, others radical-right or right-wing populist or even anti-European populist parties (Mudde 2014, 98). The diversity can be seen also among journalists. They prefer to use terms as fascist, neo-Nazi, extreme-right or ultra-right (Eatwell 2000, 410). Even Mudde himself declares that he prefers to use far-right as an umbrella term for extreme and radical-right and when he speaks about Danish People’s Party or Sweden Democrats he calls them radical-right (Mudde 2014, 99). Before the start of analysis of both political parties and their manifestos, it is essential to define the aforementioned terms and clearly state, which term will be used and which terms are unsuitable to use while generally speaking about Sweden Democrats and Danish People’s Party. To call both parties Nazis, neo-Nazis or fascist is, according to the author, completely wrong. However, there is no surprise that mainstream media and the public still use these terms when one considers the parties’ history. The far-right concept is very often connected to Nazi ideology. According to Smeekes et al. (2014, 303), the literature finds nativism as one of the shared features of both concepts. Nativism combines xenophobia as well as nationalism and generally states that the state should be inhabited exclusively only by the native group, any other group is perceived as a threat to homogeneity (ibid); (Mudde 2010, 1173). Nevertheless, the current far-right parties are not as aggressive in their ideology than the Nazi party in Germany (Smeekes et al. 2014, 303). According to Backes (2007), the far-right of the late 1950s to present is linked to radically negativism of the fundamental equality of human being by creating national racism altogether with the totalitarian leader and what is the most important part, that the parties or movements publicly acknowledges the legacy of Nazi Germany. Indeed, the neo-Nazi tendencies appeared especially in 1990s with incoming immigrants, not only from Middle East (see e.g. Westin 2000 for the number of examples). Fascism preceded Nazism and could be mostly found in Italy. The concept of fascism includes anticommunism, anti-democratism and nationalism. It aims to have the citizens militarily committed to the state and its leader, the country is authoritarian (O’Sullivan 1995).

Notwithstanding, labelling the Sweden Democrats and Danish People’s party as neo- Nazi or fascist is generally wrong. Anders Ravik Jupskås supports the idea of not linking Sweden Democrats to neo-Nazi ideology because: though this party has historical roots in neo- Nazi and extreme right subcultures, it has worked hard and to some extent succeeded in becoming a more mainstream populist radical right party (Jupskås 2011, 62).

Looking into their political programs, it is clearly stated that both parties acknowledge the current democratic systems as well as the monarchies, in the respective countries, and seek the equality of all citizens:

The aim of the Danish People's Party is to assert Denmark's independence, to guarantee the freedom of the Danish people in their own country, and to preserve and promote representative government and the monarchy. (…) We value the Danish constitution as the basis of representative government, which should be developed yet further through more direct democracy (Dansk Folkeparti 2002).

“When I (Pia Kjærsgaard), together with other MPs, launched the Danish People’s Party, I swore that I never ever, as long as I were party leader, would let happen something that only slightly could remind people of the anarchic situation we were coming from.” (Meret 2009, 85).

Vi (Sverigedemokraterna) eftersträvar ett demokratiskt, jämställt och miljövänligt samhälle där alla medborgare skyddas av, och är lika inför, lagen. [We (Sweden Democrats) strive a democratic, egalitarian and environmentally friendly society where all citizens are protected by law and equal before the law.] (Sverigermokraterna Principprogram 2011, 3).

Vi (Sverigedemokraterna) bekämpar alla rörelser och idéer som vilar på antidemokratisk grund och försvarar alla individers grundläggande människovärde och alla folks rätt till självständighet och demokratisk utveckling. [We (Sweden Democrats) resist any movements and ideas that lay on antidemocratic basis, we defend all fundamental individualism, all human rights, independence and democratic trends.] (Sverigermokraterna Principprogram 2011, 5).

Statement, that both parties are xenophobic and racist is based on their anti-immigration policy – precisely regulation of immigration. Some of the parties’ members were indeed photographed while hailing or posted racist comments on social media (BBC 2014). Nevertheless, these particular members’ actions were dealt by the parties’ leadership with zero tolerance. The individuals have been excluded from the party. Both parties stand for zero tolerance policy in terms of racism and public xenophobic statements (ibid). Nevertheless, there is no doubt that both parties are Islamophobic (see e.g. Fredriksson 2015).

When using the term extremist party, one should be also aware what does this term mean. There are several definitions of extremism. Nevertheless, the definitions contain the same main points: generally, extremism describes the political powers on the very ends of the right- left political spectre, there is nothing else beyond it (Backes 2007). According to Piero Ignazi, there are two forms of extremism: the first is linked to the inter-war Nazism, fascism and the second to the new post-industrial extreme right (Zaslove 2011, 20). The new post-industrial extremist parties pose a counter response to post-material values such as neo-conservatism and authoritarianism (law, order, traditional families, opposing immigration), (ibid). Further, Ignazi highlights that even though there are for sure some parties connected to fascism or neo-Nazi ideology, the third wave of these parties does not pose a return to fascism and neo-Nazism (ibid). The extremism contains antidemocratic and anti-constitutional thinking altogether with the one-party system. The pluralism is not an option, because the extremists perceive their political power as the only possible way of ruling. According to the extremists, the media manipulate with public thinking, the current government is responsible for corruption etc. Right-wing extremism contradicts the basic concept of the equality of all humans: for them, their own race, ethnicity or nation is superior to the other groups of people (Backes 2007). The extremists’ goal is to establish a new political order, which institutionalizes the inequality of people based on race, ethnicity, nationality or origin (Mareš 2003, 21-22). Furthermore, extremism can be divided into four types depending on the use of violence and the degree of organizational structure. The political parties belong to the fourth groups: non-violent with a high degree of organisation (Mareš 2003, 25). Mudde (1996, 228-229) adds that the general consensus among authors regarding the definition of right-wing extremism includes a shared opinion of being anti-ideologist or non-ideologist. The author counted 58 features in 26 definitions of right-wing extremism. Some features are repeated, such as nationalism or racism (ibid).

As mentioned above, extremism is on the far reaches of the political spectrum and there is nothing beyond it. Political scientists also differentiate between extremism and the rest of the political spectrum: this space is called radicalism. The radicalism is a milder form of extremism as it calls for the reform of the current political system. According to Mareš (2003, 32-33), the radicals’ stance changes in relation to the ongoing political system. In other words, the radicals adapt their opinions according to the current situation. The opposite of radicalism is conservatism. Radicals very often use the rhetoric of populism to blame the government for particular problems and call for the change in the system. It is important to point out, that radicals do not intend to change the political system, or the democratic system, entirely. They aim only to gain significant change in the areas where they disagree with the government position. Nonetheless, radicals do accept democratic principles as well as the state monopoly on violence. The radicals blame the politicians for egotistical interests which harm the good of the people. The radicals see themselves as people’s interests’ protectors (Mareš 2003, 32-33). Moreover, the radical-right parties are very often called the populist radical-right. Cas Mudde assigns those parties three key features: nativism, authoritarianism and populism. While the nativism refers to the ideology that states should be inhabited exclusively by members of the native group, any other groups pose a threat, the authoritarianism stands for importance of order and authority. The general consensus on the definition of populism is the idea of having a divided society into pure people and a corrupt elite (Mudde 2010, 1173-1175). Some authors also add the features of having a charismatic leader and anti-establishment rhetoric (Eatwell 2000, 412). However, Roger Eatwell points out, that populism can be found also among mainstream parties, such as Tony Blair’s New Labour (ibid). Last but not least, the fusion of both far-right and populist radical-right may be presented as new far-right or new right-wing. Nora Langenbacher and Britta Schellenberg (2011) explain in their pre-view to the book “Is Europe On The ‘Right’ Path?” that current right-wing extremism is a product of a crisis briefly called a “crisis of representation” (Langenbacher and Schellenberg 2011, 16). What both classical and new far-right concepts have in common is the targeted voter: very often with social, financial, employment, educational crisis – lower to middle class – subjective deprivation (ibid, 14). However, the current far-right made up its essential idea on criticism of traditional politicians as corrupted and out of reality representatives who does not have any idea what crisis is going on in the society. In the Nordic case, the main topics include welfare state which is not fair to everyone – meaning that especially immigrants gain more than home citizens. Therefore, the modern form of classical extremist concept with superior race is now re-built in the concept of nationalism. The voter

18 basis is consisted of angry young (wo)men (2011, 14) who feel betrayed and upset with the traditional parties’ behaviour – as the politicians are perceived to care more about immigrants than about common citizens. The crisis of frustration is a driving force for new far-right political parties (Langenbacher and Schellenberg 2011, 11-26). As it is visible from the aforementioned definitions, it is very hard to precisely differentiate terms as far-right, radical-right, new far-right or populist radical-right. On top of that, it is generally preferable to use the term far-right in order to cover all forms of new political subjects on the very right side of the political spectre. Notwithstanding, to unite the terminology in our analysis, the author will use the term radical-right. Both analysed parties proved that they do not intend to attack the democracy system in any way and that their leaders do not tolerate any extremist ideology within their party members. Therefore, there is no reason to connect the parties with any extremism, which the term far-right evokes. Furthermore, the radical-right term is used in “Strategies for Combating Right-Wing Extremism in Europe” by Susi Meret in case of the Danish People’s Party (2009, 81-125) and by Heléne Lööw in the case of the Sweden Democrats (2009, 425- 462). Also, Ravik Jupskås in his chapter about Sweden in “Preventing and Countering Far- Right Extremism: European Cooperation” prefers the term radical-right as well. And finally, Pippa Norris and Herbert Kitschel from the radical-right school argues that using the term radical-right does not evoke prejudice that the analysed parties are beyond the boundaries of liberal democracy, which they are not (Zaslove 2011, 22). The attribute populist should also not be used automatically when speaking about the radical-right. The reason is, once someone says that a party is populist, we link their success to their ability to criticize the mainstream parties as corrupted and out of touch with reality and not to their radical-right ideology (ibid). The radical-right populist school defines the new radical-right parties as the parties without the platform of anti-liberal democratic and anti-constitutional policies, while respecting democracy and constitutionalism. Unlike extremist parties, the radical-right parties do participate in elections (ibid, 23).

2. Short Overview of the Parties’ History

To fully understand the connection between the selected radical-right parties and mainstream parties, there must be an introduction of how the parties entered the national parliaments.

2.1. Danish People’s Party

Danish People’s Party (DPP) was established by Pia Kjærsgaard in 1995, when it separated from its predecessor, the Progress Party in which Kjærsgaard had one of the top positions. The Progress Party, which existed on the Danish political scene since 1973, presented itself as a tax-protest party which also strongly opposed the establishment (Meret 2011, 245). However, during the 1980’s, the zero-tax policy was not as popular among voters whereas the topic of increasing immigration was increasing concern. Choose of wrong topic had significant influence on election results and the Progress Party dropped in popularity: in 1994, the Progress Party gained 6,4%, whereas four years later only 2,4% (DPP 7,4%) and in 2001, only 0,6% (DPP 12%); (Election Resources Denmark, n. d.). Kjærsgaard bet on separating the new party from the old unpopular policy and instead focused on the topic of immigration. To be precise, Kjærsgaard built up the party on the idea of welfare. The anti-immigration rhetoric suddenly gained its place in connection to welfare: immigration threatens the welfare system of Denmark. As for the organisational changes, Kjærsgaard introduced a new concept “control from the top” with one aim only: to prevent the party from becoming extremist (Meret 2011, 248). The success of the party was immediate, it gained more and more voters with every election. Today, the party is the second biggest in the Danish parliament, holding 21,1% of votes from the last election. The winners of the election are Social Democrats with 26,3% of votes. Albeit, the government is now formed by the Liberal (Venstre) party. The Danish People’s Party currently supports the government as it did in 2001, 2005, 2007 and 2011. The top positions in the past elections were usually taken by the Liberal Party (Venstre) and the Social Democrats. Nowadays, it is a Venstre minority government who are in power in Demnark. However, the Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen must rely on the support of either Social Democrats or the Danish People’s Party to gain a majority in important decisions (Election Resources Denmark, n.d.). Therefore, the Danish People’s Party, which has supported governments in the past, has once again strong possibilities to advance its agenda. Albeit it is worth mentioning that the Venstre party supports strengthened policy of immigration and overall, the government was always willing to cooperate with the DPP, unlike the case of

Sweden. Nevertheless, not every step taken by the Venstre government with the support of the DPP is popular. In the past few months, the Venstre ministers were criticized for publishing the official state document (Appendix A) concerning the strengthening of rules for incoming immigrants to Denmark in several states (The Local 2015a). It is needless to say that with the DPP’s history, the step taken by Venstre was very controversial particularly in other states, mostly in Sweden.

2.2. Sweden Democrats

The Sweden Democrats emerged from the extreme right background in the second half of the 20th century. One of the founders was Leif Zeilon, who later changed his name to Leif Ericsson, who helped to establish the movement Keep Sweden Swedish (Bevara Sverige Svenskt), and who also stood at the beginning of the Sweden Democrats in the fall of 1980s (SD historia, n. d.). Despite being established in 1988, the party needed to wait for success unlike the Danish People’s Party, which was successful immediately in the first election. In 2006, the party gained only 3% in the parliamentary election meaning it achieved no seats. Slowly but surely a step forward was made in the next election four years later; the Sweden Democrats took twenty seats in the parliament thanks to 5,7% of the vote. However, the turning point came in 2014, when the party gained 12,9% and 49 seats, something unprecedented in the Swedish parliament: suddenly, the party held the third highest number of seats (Election Resources Sweden, n.d.). The current government is formed by the winners of the last election, the Social Democrats. However, neither Stefan Löfven, the Prime Minister, nor any of the other opposition parties are willing to cooperate with the Sweden Democrats. The crisis can be illustrated by the example of the state budget in the autumn of 2014, when the Social Democrats failed to propose a satisfactory state budget together with the Greens. The Sweden Democrats blocked the voting stating, that they will instead support the opposition’s proposal for the state budget in protest of the government’s open policy towards immigration. The Prime Minister was forced to called an extraordinary meeting with the opposition, excluding the Sweden Democrats. Due to a reason that the new minority government had failed to push through the state budget’s proposal, Stefan Löfven announced snap elections taking date in spring 2015. The media had started to conduct polls and found that the Sweden Democrats were likely to gain more support, around 18%. Simultaneously, the support for the Moderate Party, the second biggest party in the parliament, was dropping to the benefit of the Sweden Democrats. The unwanted results of the

21 polls had been taken seriously by the political leaders of both the coalition and the opposition, who decided to come to an agreement rather than let the Sweden Democrats strengthen their position in the parliament. In December 2014, Stefan Löfven announced a new coalition agreement, valid until 2022, declaring that none of the six opposition parties will block the state budget voting in future (The Local 2014a). The party is known as controversial in Sweden and Northern Europe. Before the parliamentary election in 2010, Sweden Democrats evoked a series of emotive reactions to their released TV spot, which was part of their campaign. In the TV spot an elderly woman is being chased by group of women wearing burkas. They all try to reach the table with the state officers counting the state budget and pull the brake with signs pensioners / immigrants. The TV spot ended with a message that people can choose whether the state budget will be focused on pensions or immigrants by voting the Sweden Democrats in election. Swedish channel TV4 refused to broadcast the spot by arguing that the clip is xenophobic and racist. Understandably, this served as a perfect commercial for the party, which released the video on YouTube and very quickly gained a high number of views. The party defended itself that the actions of TV4 were censorship (Widfeldt 2015), (Brown 2010). Not only the Swedish government, but also the Swedish media are trying to isolate the party as much as possible. The controversial case with the banned TV spot was not solved in favour to Sweden Democrats.

3. Danish People’s Party and Sweden Democrats’ Manifestos

The first research question focuses on the most visible topics of the analysed parties:

1) What are the most highlighted topics in the manifestos of the analysed radical-right parties?

As it was already mentioned in the chapter regarding the methodology, the topics will be selected according to the following points:

• length • level of detail • criticism • selection of topics by the party

Danish People’s Party’s Manifesto

Fact that the whole political program of the Danish People’s Party is focused on strong nationalistic ethos is visible even from visiting their website. The headline Vores Danmark [Our Denmark] clearly states what is supported thorough their manifesto (the following analysis is based on Dansk Folkeparti Principprogram and Arbejdsprogram, n.d.). While reading their program, one can also notice that the party has experience with governing – each and every issue is broken down and analysed with concrete criticism and proposals. However, there are some issues that are given key importance. Starting with the length criteria, the party clearly emphasizes the issue of immigration and asylum policy. Further, this issue is not only prioritized within the topic itself, but is also strongly mentioned several times within other topics such as culture, education, justice and health2. Other stressed issues are welfare, social politics, justice, EU and the environment. Justice is one of the longest and most detailed chapters. This brings us also to the other criteria of our evaluation – the level of detail within the topics. Besides already mentioned topics, the

2 The whole section about health can be considered as rather general with several recommendations and „to do“ obligations; however, there can be found the reference to the migrants even in this chapter. The People’s Party emphasizes, that in order to prevent spreading of diseases from the Third World, all migrants should undergo medical examination and vaccination. Further, the People’s Party names the possible diseases and stresses out that e.g. wearing burka or headscarf can cause number of health problems, which altogether financially burden the Danish health care system. 23

People’s Party also clearly pays attention to energy politics, which is narrowly connected to environmental issues –two very popular topics generally in Nordic countries. The program is targeted to the daily life of common Danes, thus it is reflected in the detailed social policies concerning the elderly, as well as education and most importantly, immigration. Overall, the most stressed topics were the longest with the most detailed structure, concrete proposals and criticism of existing policies. The People’s Party strongly highlights the importance of nationalism in almost every topic as well as it criticizes Islam as a faith and generally Muslim immigrants as people. They are very specific about mentioning Middle Eastern culture while speaking about what threatens Danish society and what must be watched with the utmost vigilance. The rest of the topics are also described in detail; however, these are general statements of what is the current state of affairs and what should be done to improve the situation. Further, in some cases, the People’s Party notes that it agrees with and supports the current government’s approaches. Nevertheless, the content of the rest of the topics is rather general and the topics are not given such importance as the aforementioned ones. The most visible criticism visible in the People’s Party manifesto can be found in the chapters regarding immigration, asylum policies and the EU (strict regulation of immigration and Euroscepticism). Some level of criticism can be also found in the environmental issues, particularly disagreement with whale hunting, nuclear power or genetically modified food. Another important issue is raised with regards to the sexual abuse of children and animals. The party takes these two issues very seriously and strongly emphasizes that it is the only party in the Danish parliament which disapproves of the legality of having sex with animals. The party as itself stresses that its most important issues are: immigration, social policy, health, animal welfare, justice, protection of borders and EU policy – which supports our assumptions from the first part of our evaluation. The party mentions the protection of borders within the chapter about EU and asylum seekers. Moreover, the highlighted issues are visible thorough the introduction to the political program until the conclusion of the program. One of Mudde’s features for populist radical-right parties, nativism, is visible thoroughout the entirety of the program. Nativism, the belief that the state should belong to the native group of people only, can be seen in the very first paragraph of the DPP’s manifesto:

In the Danish People's Party we are proud of Denmark; we love our country and we feel a historic obligation to protect our country, its people and the Danish cultural heritage. (Dansk Folkeparti Principprogram, 2002).

The references to nativism, and nationalistic ethos, continues as the party talks about the need of external and internal border protection and emphasis on the security of the citizens. Further, the party stresses the unique role of Christianity and democracy. Moreover, the party brings up the issue of Danish culture and strongly highlights that it will firmly stand for preserving the Danish culture and that incoming foreigners must respect Danish culture and assimilate if they wish to stay:

Denmark is not an immigrant-country and never has been. Thus, we will not accept transformation to a multiethnic society (Dansk Folkeparti Principprogram, 2002).

Generally, the most important fact when evaluating the DPP’s manifesto is the highlighting of welfare. This shift from the party’s predecessor is inspired by the success of the Norwegian Progress Party in 1997 – the party was able to finish second in the elections, because it focused its program on the elderly, hospitals and health care, which were the main topics among Norwegians in 1997 (Meret 2010, 102). Furthermore, Pia Kjærsgaard, the former leader of the DPP and the person who established the party, admitted, that they have started to focus on welfare because at the time of the parliamentary elections, their voters appeared to be supporters of classical welfare unlike the voters for the mainstream parties (Meret 2010, 106). Moreover, in their 2001 program, the issue of immigration is brought to the attention of voters for the first time, in a sense that immigration is the biggest threat to the welfare – welfare is only for those people who pay for it by money that they earned at work, thus they have a right to use welfare unlike foreigners, for whom welfare is a free-self service (Dansk Folkeparti Principprogram and Arbejdsprogram, n.d.); (Meret 2010, 107). While speaking affirmatively about NATO and UN, the party strongly disagree with how the EU arguably infringes upon European countries’ sovereignty. Furthermore, the party emphasises the topic of the nuclear family, an efficient social and healthcare system and a clean and healthy environment. In their other introduction text, Better Denmark, the party touches only upon two major topics: the threat of massive immigration and the widening of the European Union towards a federal state. The updated conclusion of the political program by Pia Kjærsgaard in 2001 once again leads us to the warning against massive unprecedented immigration and a wish to keep Denmark Danish (Dansk Folkeparti Arbejdsprogram – Afslutning, 2002). To conclude by using the central decision-making questions: What are the statements of the party? Which policy positions do the parties convey? , the Danish People’s Party

25 highlights the policy of welfare and upon this builds up the connection to the immigration and justice issues. Further, the party stresses animal rights and takes an anti-EU position.

3.2. Sweden Democrats’ Manifesto

Political manifesto of the Sweden Democrats has two formats: one is the PDF format and the other one the website itself. The text document is a narrative than to the point. It is almost impossible to select any particular topic according to our scale of analysis: the length is almost the same at each topic, as well as the level of detail and criticism. Overall, the program is rather shallow and ambiguous. Therefore, it is possible to judge only by the order of the topics and public statements. There are three issues stressed out on the first page of Vår politik [Our policy]. The issues of immigration, crime and the elderly. The Sweden Democrats show that they wish to return to the policy when immigrants abandon their original culture and identities and assimilate into the Swedish Nation (Principprogrammet 2014, 21). Further, they stress that the Sweden Democrats do not oppose immigration, but that immigration must be regulated and within sustainable levels that do not pose a threat to Swedish society (ibid, 23). Another mention of immigration issues can be found on their website. The Sweden Democrats want to focus on cutting the governmental expenses which go to immigrants instead of the Swedish people. Further, the party also calls for UN support as Sweden shares the unfair burden of a high number of incoming immigrants. And once again, the Sweden Democrats highlight the necessity of decreasing the number of incoming immigrants by, for example, fully supporting them in their decisions to return to their country of origin (SD Vår politik A till Ö, n.d.). As for religion, the Sweden Democrats do not mention any particular church, nevertheless, they note that Sweden is a Christian country and everyone has the right to practise any religion they wish – within given limits (Principprogrammet 2014, 27). Other major issue is crime. The Sweden Democrats introduce the topic with the statement for taking a tough stance against crime, strengthening of penalties, new legislation against organized crime and an increase in the police budget (SD Principprogram 2014). As it was already mentioned above, the third highlighted issue on the main manifesto’s website is the elderly. The party stresses out that lots of the elderly want to spend the rest of their lives by enjoying it, however due to monetary limitations they are not able to do so.

Therefore, Sweden Democrats aim to increase budget for pensions and improve the quality of food in order to bring back the spark to the lives of the elderly (SD Vår politik nedat.). According to the public statements and rhetoric in the manifesto, another major point is the European Union. The Sweden Democrats find the power shift to Brussels extremely concerning. They say decision-making powers are more and more given to EU without transparency and public support. Further, they note that Sweden is among the biggest contributors to the Union’s common budget. Moreover, Sweden Democrats call for a referendum on staying in the European Union. According to them, the relationship Sweden has with the EU has changed substantially since joining. They also call for lowering the Swedish contribution to the common budget and working towards preventing corruption in the EU. They also criticize the Schengen Area, due to the fact the borders are open and let organized crime and terrorism move freely through Europe. The Sweden Democrats also touch upon the topic of organizational bagging as a serious problem (SD Mindre EU Mer Sverige! 2014). The Sweden Democrats also focus on the economy, particularly the taxes. They seek lower taxes for pensioners or employers and higher unemployment benefits. Understandably, there are also other issues that the party views as important such as family or the environment. However, it does not stress them as much as the aforementioned topics either in manifesto or in public speeches. Apart from the aforementioned topics, which were highlighted in the Sweden Democrats’ Principprogram, there are also several documents on the website, which focus on specific issues. This time, they are not sorted alphabetically. The Sweden Democrats begin with crime, school, energy, employment, animal welfare and rural policy and continue by industry and EU issues. What is surprising is that there is no sign of a special paper focused on immigration or asylum seekers. Generally, the whole immigration issue is handed very carefully by the Sweden Democrats – even while speaking about religion, they do not mention any specific religions. It is very hard to pick up several important issues for couple of reasons: the political points on the website are sorted alphabetically and are given equal importance (one to two paragraphs to each topic). If the reader wants to learn more, he or she must view either the Principprogram or the Policy Documents. The Principprogram is written very broadly, each chapter is a general statement of what is the situation in Sweden now and what needs to be done in future, or how it should be done properly. There is no further detail. On the other hand, one must admit that the visual part of the Principprogram is very catchy and evokes strong social focus of the party. The Policy Documents are clearly the most detailed ones.

Notwithstanding, the party’s public presentation is very narrow. During their public speeches, they mostly focus on the topic of immigration (see Kent Ekeroth’s speech in the parliament 2014), Islam (see Jimmie Åkesson’s public speech 2015; Richard Jomshof’s speech in the parliament 2013), crime and lastly on the EU (see Jimmie Åkesson’s speech at European Freedom Awards 2016). Further, the parties’ speakers very often criticise the establishment (see e.g. Jimmie Åkesson’s debate with other mainstream parties in the parliament 2016). Once again to sum up by using the central decision-making questions: What are the statements of the party? Which policy positions do the parties convey?, the conclusion is that according to the parties’ public statements, the core central issue is the immigration. Further, the party adds crime and welfare as the issues which go hand in hand with the problem of immigration (even though there is no connection of immigration, crime and welfare directly in their manifesto, the election TV spot from 2010 obviously connects the issues of the elderly and immigration). Last but not least, the Sweden Democrats profess a strong anti-EU policy and are also known for several tax regulation proposals.

4. Differences Between Analysed Manifestos

The second research question is narrowly connected to the outcomes of the first research question:

2) Are there any differences in the analysed manifestos of the selected radical-right parties?

To provide structured comparison, the evaluation of the points was kept the same: • length • level of details • criticism • own selection of topics

As for the length, the Danish People’s Party positively paid more attention to every topic. While Sweden Democrats shallowly mentioned every possible topic, the People’s Party criticized concrete things within each issue and also provided the reader with the proposals that they have once they gain enough votes or enough power in the parliament. Overall, it was very visible that People’s Party has some experiences with ruling, even though not within government but as a supporting party for the governmental coalition. Contrary, Sweden Democrats stand all the time in opposition, criticize the establishment and use the “blackmailing potential” of being the third biggest party in the parliament. As for the anti-immigration issue, which is a connecting issue of the both parties, also DPP wins in terms of the length, depth and level of criticism. The anti-immigration issue is literally ubiquitous through the DPP’s manifesto. Nevertheless, the program is not written in the sense that the core topic for the party is immigration. The common reader understands that the main issue is welfare of the country, which is threaten by the unprecedented wave of incoming immigrants. Whereas in the case of the SD, the immigration topic is, paradoxically, hardly visible. Their website and Principprogram create the first impression of the conservative social party, which wants to restore the Swedish values. The immigration topic, similarly to the DPP’s program, also mentions the need to relocate the money from immigration site in order to help the common Swedes, particularly the elder people. Nevertheless, there is one major difference between both programs. While the DPP concretely target their “anger” on Muslim immigrants coming from Syria, Afghanistan and other regional countries, the SD do not

29 mention any particular country, nor religion. The DPP are blaming Muslim immigrants for increasing number of crimes, rapes or connecting Islamism and terrorism. Moreover, the DPP mention also the problem of wearing traditional Muslim clothes, the unwillingness to learn Danish language or Danish cultural and historical values etc. The Sweden Democrats pay attention not to mention about anything particular in their anti-immigration documents, while similarly using the strong anti-Islamism rhetoric during their public speeches. This might be very dangerous: the vague, broad and shallow program, which is probably only a cover to the single-issue of anti-immigration looks like a perfect “catch-all” party manifesto and can attract various spectrum of voters. The strong anti-immigration, even anti-Islamism rhetoric resonates above all other topics. Understandably, this strong criticism pay attention to the related topics as welfare or crime. Nevertheless, according to the author, the DPP’s program is more precisely and detailly formulated, it is understandable what are the main points and how do the DPP want to deal with it. Further, it is clear that the DPP is not a party focused primarily on immigration – it is focused mainly on welfare and elder people as well as the healthcare. The immigration is threating these values. Contrary, in case of Sweden Democrats, albeit their declared that they have concrete plans for state budget, taxes or solving the crime issue, there is uncertainty whether they are able to come up with realistic and doable changes. Another strong topic is the Euroscepticism. Both parties agree upon the fact that Brussels has currently more supranational power than it supposes to have. Both parties agree on returning to the basis of EU – the common free trade without giving up any sovereignty rights to Brussels. The common topic is also strengthening the border controls to prevent not just illegal immigrants, but also organized crime, terrorists, or animal diseases to cross the countries’ borders so easily. Further, both parties also criticise the disproportionally big budget of European Union, to which Denmark and Sweden contribute unevenly much. For that reason, both parties are also in favour of referendum similar to Brexit. Moreover, both parties oppose the idea of common European army. Whereas DPP talks about NATO as the only possibility for the join army, Sweden Democrats, due to a reason that Sweden is not a NATO member, point out the importance of the cooperation between NATO and Sweden. SD oppose the possible membership in NATO. There are also topics, which are not mentioned in the SD’ program, but in the DPP’s manifestos: e.g. DPP strongly disagree with Turkey becoming a EU member or call for creating European police unit. Such concrete things cannot be find in the SD’s program. Generally, both parties agree on major points within the EU issue, there are only small nuances which do not contradict as the Turkey issue or referendum about staying in EU.

Another big topic, which both parties stress out is welfare. Practically both DPP and SD agree that the core issue is a protection of welfare for Danish / Swedish citizens and that welfare is threatened by incoming immigrants, who “steal” the money for elder or sick people. Once again, the DPP has clearly much broader discussion about the issue in their program unlike Sweden Democrats. The crime topic goes hand in hand with welfare topic. Nevertheless, the emphasis on immigration problem within the crime is once again more visible in the program of DPP. Sweden Democrats do not involve immigrants into the topic at all, if they speak about non-Sweden citizens, they use the term “foreigners”, but overall, the problems with foreigners were mentioned e.g. while speaking about international professional begging or deportation in terms of committing sexual offenses. The SD’s politicians use the opportunity of public speeches to talk about connection between immigration from Middle East and crime instead. Contrary, DPP speak openly about facts that immigrants and descends from non-Western countries commit more crimes than Danes and people with Western-countries’ background directly in their manifesto. Both parties have also common interest in environmental, energy and animal rights issues. Several similar points focused on renewable energy, contemplating about the level of dirtiness in seas or fighting against halal meal of slaughtering animals can be found. On the other hand, DPP also pay attention to sexual abuse of animals and highlights the importance of illegality, whereas SD mention the problem of circuses and animals. One of these topic is also elder people: this one is shared topic. Both parties mention the importance of paying attention to elder people and also connect the lack of finance for pensioners with the spill of money to refugees. Therefore, both parties assert shifting the state budget from immigrants to elder people (Lišaníková 2015, 3). Generally, the Sweden Democrats’ program might be nicer in terms of number of photos and flowers, however the Danish People’s Party program is to the point. While the reader could be little bit confused out of the SD website, which program he or she should read, whether to go through the shorten version or several documents with the same topic, and in the end does not have a clear idea what are the major standing points of the party, the DPP’s voters can easily recognize the major stand points according to the sorted program from major to minor problems. Moreover, DPP itself selected few topics with the highest priority unlike SD. Sweden Democrats gave priority to immigration issue, however only in their public exhibitions. Therefore, it cannot be surprising that media, which do not very often read manifestos, can conclude that indeed only immigration issue is the core topic.

To conclude and answer the research question: yes, there are indeed differences between both manifestos. But not in terms of content: in terms of interpretation. While the DPP’s program is clear, concrete and for some voters surely unacceptable, the SD chose the path of having rather very general and broad program to satisfy every voter. Notwithstanding, SD promote their core topic, immigration, mainly through the public speeches. To sum up over how do both parties handle their program, here is the conclusion: while DPP built up the identity of the party on welfare issue, the SD chose immigration as the core-topic. The Danish People’s Party shifted immigration from the centre of focus to the second partition claiming that immigration threatens the most significant value of the Danish society, welfare, and also the Danish culture and traditions. Further, that Denmark has still a lot work ahead in the area of justice. Contrary, the Sweden Democrats put immigration on the very bottom of their work and claim that due to the large unmanageable influx of immigrants, there is an increase of criminality and segregation of society and the money spent on refugees should be used in other areas as elder people, health care or education. Further, that it is the EU which also contributes on vast problems not just in Europe but also in Sweden, because it was given more power than was necessary.

5. Public Opinion in Sweden and Denmark

Once the analysis identified the most important topics of the both selected political parties and compared it, it is now time to confront them with the public polls in Sweden and Denmark:

3) According to the polls, what are the biggest concerns of the Swedish and Danish public?

Two sources of data for the public polls will be used. A major source for the analysis will be national polls. In case of Denmark, the Danish Centre for Survey and Survey/Registered Data repeats its national survey every four years. In Sweden, it is the Sveriges Television (SVT), Swedish TV, that realizes the national survey after every parliamentary and European elections. The results of every survey will be transferred into a table and then the most concerned issues will be selected according to the highest percentage of votes. Only the most important issues will be selected and projected into graphs in order to show the graphic evolution of the importance of the selected topics. Further, the author will comment on each issue with support of the secondary literature. Secondly, the analysis will also include the data analysis of Eurobarometer questionnaires from 2010 to 2016 in order to show the different evolution of particular topics on national and European level with aim to understand the Danish and Swedish voters’ concerns. The Eurobarometer examines several different topics. Moreover, the issues in the tables are already selected from European Council’s table, which includes also topics as taxation or pensions. Notwithstanding, the results for Sweden and Denmark were so poor, around 0-2%, that the author has decided completely omit those topics. Furthermore, for the greater selection of the analysed topics, the most relevant ones were selected from the above-mentioned table. Public finance, education or health and social security were omitted due to the lack of data (but not completely ruled out). One of the most concerned topics were also the climate change and environment. The author decided to connect both topics together to reduce the number of variables and define the number by finding the average value and then rounding it.

5.1. Danish Public Opinion

In 2007 and 2011, the Danish Centre for Survey and Survey/Register Data made surveys asking the Danes what are the most important political issues for them in Denmark. Unfortunately, the questionnaires significantly differ, thus the numbers vary a lot. The reason is that researches used a different set of problems that the asked people could use. While in 2007 the questionnaire included open question about the most important problem which generated over 180 types of answers, the questionnaire in 2011 was narrower and the respondents were given 17 possibilities to choose from. Nonetheless, it is still possible to extract the most frequent answers without comparing the two years in numbers. In 2007, the most important issue was ecology / environment / energy with 8% of votes. The welfare ended up on the second position very closely with 7,7%. The third most important issue was health care. Around 4,7-3,9% was given to integration of refugees and the refugee policy in general and to the issue of economy. Last but not least, relatively significant number of people (3%) said that seniors and elder people are the most important issue (CSSR 2007). In 2011, the respondents perceived the most important problems quite differently. Over 42% of people pointed on economy as being the most important issue. The welfare ended up once again second with 18,6% and the third place was occupied by labour issue with 16%. Other topics gained very few percent, it is possible to mention environment with 3,3% or refugees with 2,2% (CSSR 2011). To generally sum up after the brief analysis of the Danish Centre for Survey and Survey/Registered Data’s results, Danes pay a lot of attention to the welfare topic. Further, the economy shifted from middle-important issue to the core-issue. Another frequent issue is refugees, which dropped since the election in 2007. Other area topics include environment, employment and health care. Notwithstanding, there is lack of data covering the recent time period. For that reason, the analysis will immediately move to the results of Eurobarometer in order to find out, whether the Danes perceive the same problems also on European level.

This particular section works with data from the Eurobarometer no. 74, 75, 77, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84 and 85 from years 2010-2016. The most important political topics were extracted according to the Eurobarometer surveys in the time line of 2010-2016 (see Graph no. 1). The analysis starts in 2010 selecting the most relevant topics: issues, which had the most votes from Danes. Moving towards 2016, there were some differences in the questionnaires, causing the

34 different set of answers from the public. For that reason, it was not possible to find any available data for particular topics. Nevertheless, as these are the yearly questionnaires, the missing dependent variable can be added according to the other outcomes from different years. Furthermore, the missing issue signals that the public did not very probably saw the issue as the core one.

Question: What do you think are the two most important issues facing the EU at the moment? Data Source: Data Source: Eurobarometer 2010-2016 Graph by author

The issue of economy had its peak around autumn 2010 and spring 2011 and then has become dropping. Comparing it with national surveys, the economy was indeed the main topic in 2010, as it is in this Eurobarometer. It is visible that Danes perceived this issue as the main decision-point during both parliamentary and European elections. The results can be explained by the subsiding economic crisis, which stroke in 2007 from United States and affected the whole world, Europe including. By the time, the concerns about the economy situation decreased, except the year 2014. This might be caused by the Greek Euro crisis, which once again affected the whole Europe, including Denmark. Nevertheless, Denmark does not belong to Eurozone, therefore the concerns were focused on the whole Europe, rather than Denmark.

Unemployment was a big concern according to the graph in 2012 and then dropped. This phenomenon was commented by Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank in 2014. He explained that the euro area reacted to the shock from the Great Recession afterwards, mostly during 2009 where it decreased a little bit and then again was increased during 2011 to 2013, which follows our outcomes. This phenomenon reflects the synchronisation of the financial cycle (ECB 2014). Similarly to the Danish national results, the economic crisis hit also the employment market and affected all European countries, Denmark including. Therefore, both topics belong among the most important during the election 2010. The data from European Central Bank (2014) follow the results of the unemployment rate in Denmark: in 2010 the unemployment rate in Denmark was around 6,2 % 3, a year later, the rate dropped on 5,9 – 6,1 %. However, in 2012, the unemployment jumped back to 6,2 % and then thorough 2013-2016 slowly but surely dropped to the current 4,2 %. The most visible drop can be traced in 2014, from nearly 6 % in 2015 to 4,9 % (Trading Economics Denmark, n.d.). However, it is interesting that despite the large income of immigrants in the past few years, the unemployment still has been declining (this might be explained by the 2014 governmental reform for supporting the unemployment (European Commission 2016, 2)).

Public finance, another topic which deserves significant focus from the Danish citizens on European level. The data from 2012, 2013 and fall 2014 are missing but generally, the concern is around 20 %, which is still significant looking at the results of the other topics. The European Commission evaluated the Danish public finance in 2016 and published some facts, which explain the current situation. The Commission focused on the Danish economy recovery from the financial crisis and concluded, that the recovery has been moderate, but is about to pick up in upcoming years thanks to the low interest rates and low inflation. They also commented on unemployment, which has been decreasing as the economy has been recovering (European Commission, 2016, 1). Further, the Commission stated that the Danish public debt remains low and has decreasing potential (European Commission, 2016, 7). As the Danish economy grows, the concerns of the Danes decrease. Notwithstanding, we can conclude that the Danish parliamentary election in 2010 was about handling economic and unemployment crisis altogether with having a good state of public finance. Even though the Danish economy has been slowly and successfully recovering, the unemployment has been dropping and the

3 In Denmark, the unemployment rate measures the number of people actively looking for a job as a percentage of the labour force (Trading Economics). 36 public finance are posed as decent. Danes proved to concern about economical face of their country and Europe in general.

Other very interesting issue is immigration. The national survey showed that Danes perceived immigration / refugee crisis as an important issue during the year 2007. Since then, the issue has dropped in relevance. Unfortunately, the latest data have been missing. Nevertheless, Danes voted for immigration issue as the biggest problem on the European level in Eurobarometer. The sharp increase during the period of 2012 and 2015 is also definitely affected by incoming immigrants to Denmark: the 5,6 million Denmark accepted 7,500 immigrants and asylum seekers in 2013; 14,800 in 2014 and absolute peak of 21,300 people in 2015. Before the refugee crisis, Denmark has been accepting about 5,100 people per year (Helhedsplan 2016, 5), (Udenrigsministeriet 2016). The unstoppable increase of incoming people forced the government to take some counter-measures to halt the number. It is important to point out, that the proposals came out from the Venstre government with the support of the Danish People’s Party, therefore it is not solely the initiative of the DPP.

Graph no. 2: Immigration to Denmark 2014-2015 in percentage

Source: Helhedsplan 2016

The Minister of Immigration, Inger Støjberg, defended the new Danish bill from December 2015 regarding the immigration in front of the European Committee stating that Denmark took one of the highest number of refugees in Europe and has also one of the richest

37 welfare systems, which altogether create significant burden to the Danish state budget. Therefore, the government has decided to strengthen the rules for asylum seekers, for instance by forcing them to financially contribute to their stay in Denmark by keeping around 1,300 EUR and any valuables up to 1,300 EUR and hand over the exceeding cash and valuables for covering their accommodation costs during the asylum process (Udenrigsministeriet 2016). The government’s plan, which is called 2025 Plan, includes 44 initiatives. For example, the foreigners can now apply for permanent residence after eight years living in Denmark, instead of the current six. Further, the strengthen conditions will apply also for working in the country: three and a half years out of four to obtain for Danish citizenship. Moreover, the Danish government will more support the initiative to leave the country by financial means. Apart from this, the rules for Green Card or family reunification were also one of the 44 initiatives. All this contributed to the current state of having 4,700 asylum seekers since the beginning of 2016, which is a significant decrease from the last year (21,000). The Foreign Minister, Kristian Jensen, expressed the opinion that the government’s measures for immigration policy caused fewer asylum seekers in Denmark and therefore the possibility to give more money for help to refugees all over the world’s hotspots rather than in Denmark (The Local 2016b). Not even that the Danish government decided to strengthen the rules for applying the asylum and permanent residence, the Minister of Immigration has already published the core issues of the new bill into the foreign media as well as on the social networks in ten languages including English (The Local 2015a, Appendix A). Understandably, this step altogether with passing the new bill was highly criticized on the international platform. However, the Danish Venstre government and Ministers were able to defend their stand and indeed helped the number of asylum seekers in Denmark to decrease. The question remains, do people concern also on national level? The GateStone Institute released in 2011 a study about the increasing number of rapes in Sweden and Denmark in connection with the increasing number of incoming refugees to these countries. Despite the fact that the number of rapes in Denmark was significantly lower than in Sweden (also due to a fact that Denmark accepted around 15,000 immigrants at that time, whereas the twice bigger Sweden around 160,000), Danish officials published the background of the offenders, unlike Sweden, and it turned out that half of them were immigrants (Carlqvist and Hedegaard 2015). Hand in hand with the increasing statistics about crimes caused by immigrants, the number of so-called hate crimes has increased as well. While in 1999, there were around 19 cases of hate crime reported in Denmark, during the period of 2009-2013, the reported crimes increased to 300-380 per year (OSCE Denmark n.d.). Apart from the possible correlation between

38 refugees’ offends and Danish citizens’ hate crimes, Lindekilde and Sedgwick offer other possible explanation for increasing intolerance towards especially Muslim immigrants in their report, which may be linked to the terrorist attacks in Europe and Copenhagen (the cause of prophet Mohamed), (Lindekilde and Sedgwick n.d.). Even though the analysis could not work with the latest national surveys data due to their inexistence, there is indeed some correlation between increased number of incoming immigrants and increased number of crimes (the crimes of immigrants and the hate crimes and hate speech from the native Danes towards immigrants). In 2015, a YouGov released results of their polls regarding the immigration issue. Fifty percent of Danes were in favour of stopping the number of Muslim permits to live in Denmark. Moreover, one in four Danes would like to have Denmark consisted from no more than 5 % of Muslims (Wright 2015). Overall, immigration can be perceived as one of the main issues for Danes when deciding about voting in elections.

In spite of not being in the centre of the Danish citizens’ concerns, still more Danes are interested in environment and climate change than the regular Europeans. The Northern states have a tradition in being interested in environmental topics and also making a great effort not to just talk about it. Denmark is known for its wind turbines, which provide more than 40 % of Denmark’s energy supply. The plan is to reach 50 % by 2020 according to an Energy Act (Denmark n.d.). The surpluses energy is then sell to Norway, Sweden and Germany; in return, Denmark buys their surplus energy from the Norwegian hydroelectric power plants, Swedish power stations and German solar power plants (Treacy 2016). Further, Denmark wishes to be 100 % free of fossil fuel (Denmark n.d.). The Danish citizens simply care about the environment in the polls more than any other nation, besides the Nordic region of course, and also all the political parties highlight the environment and energy issue in their program. Their interest is visible both from national and European surveys.

Denmark belongs among the top European Union states with the highest expenditure to the health care system with over 10,6% GDP (2011), (Eurostat n.d.). Altogether with Sweden, Netherlands and Luxembourg, Denmark exceeded the amount of 1000 EUR per citizen in a long-term care (Eurostat n.d.). The health care system in Denmark is based on welfare system and is mostly paid from public taxes. Overall, the Danish healthcare system requires only minor changes. According to the report of OECD, Denmark should pay attention to aggregating information about patients or set a national vision for the primary care. The influence on the

39 current very good state of the Danish healthcare has undoubtedly also the structural reform of the Danish public sector in 2007 (OECD 2013, 32). The health care issue belongs among the most important issues on both levels, national and European.

As for the quality of education, Denmark holds the 10th position in the world and is practically tuition-free (UNDP Denmark, n.d.). The fact that significant number of people perceive education as one of the most important political issues show, how do the Danish citizens care about the high standard of education in their country and Europe. Nevertheless, the education is not probably the top issue while deciding about voting in parliamentary election.

The last two issues that we will evaluate within Denmark are crime and terrorism. While the concerns about crime slowly but surely drops on European level, the threat of terrorism in eyes of Danes rises. As is has been already mentioned, the increased number of crimes has some correlation with the increased number of incoming immigrants to the country. Nevertheless, significant majority of crimes are still caused by the Danish citizens.

Table no. 1: Crime Statistics in Denmark 2000-2010

Source: Hofer, Lappi-Seppälä, Westfelt 2012

The figures show that the number of crimes was decreasing at the beginning of millennium and then slowly growing during 2008 and 2009. Further, during 2014 the number

40 of crimes again have slightly arisen according to the Statistics Denmark. However, over 80 % of the reported crimes were committed by Danes, the rest around 20 % by immigrants and their descendants (Statistics Denmark 2014-2015). Furthermore, in 2015 the absolutely highest number of committed crimes targeted on property, then with some distance, there were violence crimes (Statistics Denmark 2014-2015). Generally, the crime issue is highly regarded in Denmark, Sweden and Germany for both sides: those, who want to connect the increasing number of crimes with incoming immigrants and those, who try to deny such correlation. Therefore, media do not very often correctly translate the statistics and wrongly inform the public about numbers, which of course causes bigger concerns within the public. Nevertheless, it is also worth noting, that indeed there are so called “no go zones” in the Danish cities: the ghettos created by immigrants which cause significant problems for the security forces.

As for the terrorism threat, according to the US report, Denmark remains a target for certain terrorist groups, such as al-Qai’da mainly due to the publishing cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in 2005 and 2008. Indeed, in 2010 the police arrested the group of four Arabs planning a terrorist attack to the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, the publisher of the controversial cartoons. Further, Denmark participates on the operations against terrorist in Middle East, thus is a potential target for certain groups. This became a reality in 2015 when two shootings in Copenhagen occurred killing three people. Moreover, Danish police arrested number of people with the Muslim origins, who had planned a terrorist attack in Denmark (OSAC n.d.). Generally, it can be concluded that Danes have of course concerns about terrorism and crime in Europe. Perhaps, the crime might be a determinant issue for some Danes, however does not appear in national surveys. Due to a recent correlation with immigration, probably those Danes who pose immigration as a problem perceive also criminality as an issue. As for the terrorism, no party can provide 100 % safety. On the other hand, all parties try to promote better security measures in order to prevent any terrorist attack. For that reason, the issue of terrorism can be excluded from belonging among the most important issues for Danes while deciding about voting in parliamentary election.

Putting the results from Danish Centre for Survey and Survey/Register Data and Eurobarometer together, it can be concluded that the Danish voters choose the parties according

41 to the several indicators. What do matter are the issues of economy, welfare and healthcare4 – these three topics are considered by Danes as the most important ones. In other words, the political party which takes over these topics is likely to get a significant support in national elections. Further, the immigration topic was more concerned on the European level than on the national level. Nevertheless, also the national results and polls show high level of consideration when comparing to the other issues. To sum up, it is crystal clear that the Danish voter seeks social assurances and is very concerned about economy issue. The Danish People’s Party has estimated correctly that the Norwegian model of the Progress Party will be a winning strategy on the Danish political spectre. Nonetheless, it is interesting that the Danish People’s Party keep the anti-EU position albeit the common Danish citizen is satisfied with the current Danish policy towards EU. Further, also the animal welfare topic, which stands high in DPP’s manifesto, seems not to be supported at all. Yet, the party gains inconsiderable number of votes.

4 Even though the healthcare is not included in our Eurobarometer graph, it does not mean that it did not receive high support among respondents. There is only a lack of data between Autumn 2010 and Spring 2016 – over 30% of asked people perceive the healthcare as the most important problem between Spring 2012 and Autumn 2014 (Eurobarometer 2010-2016). 42

5.2. Swedish Public Opinion

The analysis will use the data from Election Surveys of the Sveriges Television (SVT)5, Swedish TV, to evaluate the public opinion. The data are collected in the form of detailed questionnaire after each election. Further, we will compare the results with Eurobarometer data.

Graph no.2: Swedish polls after parliamentary elections

2014 34 36 50 52 19 32 34 20 55 40 60 28 29 47

2010 34 34 53 53 19 32 26 16 50 37 54 29 30 40 38

2004 32 31 56 50 23 41 25 20 51 37 54 35 35 45 41

2002 36 34 51 56 30 47 32 28 64 44 67 32 30 53 53

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 taxes environment employment economy security policy law and order refugees EU healthcare gender education business energy eldery child

Data Source: Swedish National Data Service 2002, 2004, 2010, 2014 Data in percentage Graph by author

The graph no. 2 collected data straight after the parliamentary elections in Sweden in the form of several questions. The most important for this analysis was: How important were the following issues for your choice of party today in the parliamentary election? Each question was focused on particular topic and the author has brought together the results stating “very important”. The graph no. 3 (page 44) was directly asking What are the most important political issues Europe is facing today?

5 See reference list 36.-39. 43

Few trends are quite clearly visible out of the first look at the graphs: between 2011 and 2014, there is a huge gap between concerns about economy and employment in the Eurobarometer questionnaire, while the national polls revealed constant trend.

Graph no.3: Sweden and public opinion

0 Autumn 2010 Spring 2011 Spring 2012 Autumn 2013 Spring 2014 Autumn 2014 Spring 2015 Autumn 2015 Spring 2016

Economic situation Unemployment Immigration Environment and Climate Change Crime Terrorism

Question: What do you think are the two most important issues facing the EU at the moment? Data Source: Eurobarometer 2010-2016d Data in percentage Graph by author

Overall the economy apparently belongs among core issues for Swedish voters – both on national and European level. Looking at the graph of the Swedish GDP growth rate, the absolute drawdown in 2009 after the Great Recession can be seen even though Sweden is not a member of Eurozone (Trading Economics n.d.). The incredible fast recovery of the Swedish economy was once again challenged in 2012 and then it constantly has been growing. It is worth noting that Sweden was not always a prosperous country. At the beginning of 90’s the strong economic recession hit Sweden and demanded unpopular steps taken by the then market- oriented Moderate’s government. To save the banking crisis, Sweden used 4% of its GDP to

44 rescue banks, the unemployment quadrupled during 1990-1993 (Dougherty 2008). The series of reform in 90’s brought significant changes into the tax system, macroeconomic policy and social insurance system. The taxes and labour market were lately reformed in 2006 and 2010 (Fölster and Kreicbergs 2014, 3). The unemployment is slightly decreasing on European level, but holds the strong position on the national level. As we mentioned above, the unemployment quickly grew at the beginning of the banking crisis in 90’s (Trading Economics n.d.). The unemployment rate of the next years follows the global recession in 2009 and 2010 and keeps the trend until now. The numbers in 2016 might appear with decreasing effect. However, the data were collected before the end of the year, therefore the similar results can be expected as in the previous year. Despite rare gap in the Eurobarometer questionnaire, the concerns about economy and unemployment has been decreasing in the past few years. Nevertheless, it can be concluded that according to the very similar results, voters who care about economy care about employment at the same way. Moreover, in the Swedish national election survey of 2014, the voters marked the two strongest parties in the country, Moderate party and Social Democrats, as the parties with the best economy and employment program (with Moderate party winning over economy issue). Thus, according to the results of polls and trust into both establishment parties equally, it can be supposed that Swedes do care about economy and employment at the same level (slightly decreasing on the European level – might be caused by the other rapidly increasing issues as immigration and terrorism). The same can be applied to the public finance.

The immigration topic once again attacked the highest ranks on the European level. However, on the national level, it belongs among middle-core issues. This is indeed very surprising taking into consideration that 10 million Sweden accepted over 160,000 refugees last year, which is absolutely highest number after Germany. Furthermore, the single-issue Sweden Democrats were able to gain the third strongest position after the parliamentary elections in 2014 and their support is still growing with the growing number of incoming people from Middle East. The discussion in media and social networks are very often escalated by both defenders and opponents of accepting refugees. One explanation for the graph no. 3 results might be that the voters asserting the radical solution to immigration did not participate at this polls in such number. Taking a closer look to the questions asking who did you vote for, 997 (7,9 %) Swedes said they voted for Sweden Democrats (comparing with 13 % support for the party after election), while 2727 (21,6 %) people marked the Moderate party (comparing with 23 % after election) and 3592 (28,4 %) the Social Democrats (comparing with 31% after

45 election). Left and Green party received more votes in the survey than the Sweden Democrats did, even though they ended up with worse results (Green Party 7%, Left Party 6%). These numbers lead us to an assumption, that the survey is not working with entirely representative sample of voters. Nevertheless, immigration has always been a “hot” topic in Sweden as the nation is divided in half: half is supporting the open-heart policy of Social Democrats and Moderate Party, half of the Swedes has concerns about the number of incoming immigrants and the possible threat to culture, economy, welfare system or employment. Moreover, the divided discussion is not just among the common people. For instance, the Danish parliament claims that their Swedish counter-part fights against Sweden Democrats by censorship (Brown 2013). Further, in 2015 the representatives of Denmark and Sweden (politicians, journalists etc.) were invited to a television to debate over refugee crisis. The Danish and Swedish Ministers of Immigrations clashed over the view, which country has a better receipt to handle the crisis. While Inger Stojberg from the Danish right Venstre Party defended her decision to adverb recent governmental changes in accepting refugees claiming that people have right to know what will they face in Denmark and that Danish government also wanted to discourage smugglers to continue in helping people get to Denmark, Kristina Persson from the Social Democrats commented the words of Stojberg as cynical and tried to push forward her opinion that Sweden is capable of accepting even more refugees than 160,000 if every city share the burden and get some number of refugees, who are in need and who are also a great asset for old Sweden. On the other hand, not every member of Swedish Social Democrats agreed with their Minister. One of the politicians stressed out that indeed there are voices within the Social Democrats about the need to regulate the number of incoming immigrants and thus, they do support Stojberg and her party in the steps they undergone to prevent unregulated immigration in Denmark. Other politician, this time from Swedish Venstre party, disagreed with the previous statement and highlighted that responsibility and solidarity is more worthy alternative. The representative of the Danish People’s Party, Martin Henriksen, also commented the situation and attacked the Swedish half of debate accusing them of constantly ignoring significant number of their inhabitants by excluding the Sweden Democrats out of parliament debate and therefore ignoring the voice of common people (Lolland 2015). Henriksen alluded to behaviour of the parliament parties, which all had refused to cooperate with Sweden Democrats in any way claiming that the party is neo-Nazi and xenophobic and thus does not represent the liberal values of Sweden. Stefan Löfven stated several reasons in his speech in the Swedish parliament why will the party not cooperate with

46 the Sweden Democrats. First of all, he mentioned the SD’s history and that the Nazi symbols are still visible within the SD’ members. Then he continued with the presented racism in the SD’s party and also mentioned that he as a Prime Minister is about to represent the whole country, meaning all people, no matter of the colour of the skin or religion (Lidström 2014). Nevertheless, it might be the “threat” of increasing popularity of the Sweden Democrats within people, which is still presented even after the elections and which is undoubtedly boosted by the government’s decision to isolate the party, that forced the Social Democrats to take some counter measures in the immigration issue. Sweden has decided to renew the border checks between Swedish Malmö and Danish Copenhagen, the two cities which are connected by train over the sea. While the Swedish government defended its step by claiming that they need to filter the migrants earlier than directly in Sweden due to the overwhelmed processing of migrants, the Gothenburg University’s hate crimes’ researcher, David Brax, stated that this step is rather a reaction to polarization of the Swedes. While both sides of the political spectrum, right and left voters, are disappointed by this step and rather wish to help the refugees, others are afraid of the terrorist and crime attacks of migrants (Bilefsky 2016). The immigration issue might be even more resonating in Sweden than in Denmark. Nevertheless, more people in Denmark are for the control of immigration unlike majority of Swedes.

Graph no. 4: Total number of asylum applications in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016 in Sweden

Source: Migrationsverket

As for the environment and climate issue, the Swedes do care about it on the same level as Danes constantly thorough the time no matter if it is the national or European survey. Sweden has undergone long transformation to become a green country. E.g. 75 % of Swedish energy

47 supplies were out of oil in 1970’s, whereas currently it is only 20 % thanks to the shift to nuclear and hydroelectric power (83 % of energy production comes from the mentioned power plants). Interestingly, Sweden is also a world leader in the number of nuclear reactors per million people with its three nuclear power plants and ten nuclear reactors. Moreover, Sweden has reached its goal for 50% of renewable energy earlier than planned by the government and with its current 52% is on the top in the EU (Sweden n.d.). The fact that environment, energy and climate change issues are important for Swedes can be supported by taking look at the graph no. 3: these issues were marked as more important than e.g. EU or foreign and security policy.

Healthcare is also one of the closely watched topics – according to the Swedish TV surveys, Swedes perceive healthcare as the most important topics altogether with education, economy and unemployment. Sweden is right after Denmark on the top of the scale in term of expenditures (7,5% GDP) to the healthcare system (Eurostat n.d.). The same applies also for education (UNDP n.d.).

Even though the crime statistics increased in the past few years, the Swedish citizens seem satisfied with the current level of the police work and do not chose the political party mainly according to their policy towards law and order. Threat and harassment belong among the most typical crimes against individual persons. Contrary, sexual offences, aggregated assaults and mugging are the least present (Brå 2015a). Speaking about crimes against individual persons, there is a significant discussion about the rise of hate crimes and hate speech in Sweden in connection with the immigration wave. The number of hate crimes has indeed arisen. There is a significant increase in hate crimes since 2010. Moreover, as the hate crimes with sexual orientation have been decreasing, the Islamophobic and Christianophobic hate crimes have been increasing. In 2015, 68 % of hate crimes were racist or xenophobic, then about 9 % included sexual orientation background and around 8 and 6 % were Islamophobic and Christianophobic. There has been also a fast increase in the hate crimes oriented to politicians. Whereas in 2012 there were 2,5 % cases reported, two years later during an election period, the police had to solve 6,3 % hate crimes against Swedish politicians (Brå 2015b). Another Swedish big issue is a problem of setting car in fire. Particularly the city of Malmö is well-known for the large immigration community and for the 55 so called “no-go zones”, in which the majority of car fires take place (Mansfield, Christys and Stromme 2016). Especially the district of Rosengård with hundreds of car fires per year. Nevertheless, even though the car

48 fires are a big issue, Malmö police released statistics, in which the number of car fires has decreased since 2009 (e.g. in 2009 there were 219 car fires in Rosengråd out of 628 in whole Malmö compared with 103 in 2014 and 52 in 2015), (Polisen 2016).

Graph no.5: Offences against individual persons in Sweden 2005-2014

Source: Brå 2015a

Graph no.6: Reported Hate Crimes Graph no.7: Reported Hate Crimes in Sweden 2008-2015 in Sweden 2008-2015 in details

Source (both): Brå 2015b

On the other hand, the regional statistics of voting during the parliamentary elections are showing, that Sweden Democrats are increasing their support in the problematic areas of Sweden. E.g. in November 2014, the party was able to gain around 10 % support right after the parliamentary election, a year later, the support doubled. The party also doubled its support in Götaland, Småland, Göteborg, Västsverige or Mellansverige. Interestingly, the increase in Stockholm was the most significant one with 6,6 % comparing to 1,6 % in November 2014. It is worth noting that Stockholm6 has the most no-go zones (Fittja, Tensta, Rinkeby, Husby, …); (Tomlinson 2016). Further, the violence brake down not only on immigrants’ side (see e.g. Strategic Diplomatic Relations 2016 – an Australian TV station was shooting in Stockholm suburb while being attacked without any reason by mostly East African immigrants), but also by locals (see e.g. the case of Andresson 2015 and the case of Tärnsjö, a village close to Stockholm, where the tensions were reported on both sides as locals set several refugees’ houses on fire).

While on the national level, Swedes do not choose the political party according handling out the terrorism (which is understandable because every government would stand up against any terrorist attack and undertake appropriate action), the concerns on the European level has risen sharply. According to the Swedish Security Service, there is indeed a threat of terrorism steaming mainly from Islamism and al-Qaeda groups as Sweden joined the international coalition in Afghanistan (Säkerhetspolisen n.d.). In 2010, foiled car bomb attack hit Stockholm by Islamist suicide bomber injuring two people (Gardham and Hutchison 2010) and more cases on planned attacks were investigated by police (Säkerhetspolisen n.d.).

6 The lake town Södertälje, 36 km away from Stockholm, is known as „Little Baghdad“. During the Iraq war, 2 million people were externally displaced. These refugees claimed asylum in almost 90 countries. Half of them claimed asylum in Sweden (18,600). Södertälje accepted more Iraqi refugees (5,000) than USA and Canada combined, with having only 83,000 inhabitants (NBC 2008). Today, 40 % of Södertälje inhabitants are first or second generation of immigrants. The mayor of the town admits that it is currently difficult to assimilate the latest generation, because the majority of town is simply Iraqi with people speaking Arabic. Therefore, he pushes on government to change the immigration law, according to which the immigrants can choose whatever city or town in Sweden they would like to stay in. Due to a situation, number of native Swedes living in Södertälje move away. The Sweden Democrats were able to doubled number of their seats in the town in 2006 election from two to four in 65-seats council (The Local 2008).

From the outcomes of the Eurobarometer and national polls results, it can be concluded that the Swedish voter seeks the same social assurances as the Danish one. Voters in Sweden decide according to the best social programs, programs for economy, education and employment. This is certainly not what do the Sweden Democrats offer in the first place, and yet their preferences keep growing month to month. One explanation can be that until now, the Swedish voter has always decided according to the social programs. Nevertheless, with the increased influx of immigrants and the mainstream parties keeping their social policy stands, the voters have started to feel that their social state might be threatened by the incoming immigrants, who are dislocated thorough the whole country, even in places where the common Swedes have problems to find a job or house. Unsatisfied Swedes then tend to choose to vote Sweden Democrats in a kind of protest way against the mainstream parties and their policy. The tense situation was captured in one of the Stockholm’s suburbs in April 2016 during the municipal board meeting. The discussed theme was a decision to move several immigrants to the barrack very close to a school. The citizens were asking the board and demanding answers, why was the decision approved, who did it, if the board has any researches that determine this place as the best one to put the migrants in and how does the board can ensure the safety to citizens and mainly to their children. A brawl appeared once it was clear enough that the board does not have any answers and is reluctant to give any (Vlad Tepes 2016a). The situation was then commented by the Swedish writer and activist Jan Sjunnesson, who had previously attended two other similar meetings and also the one in Stockholm. He pointed out that 87 % of the citizens of the suburb where the meeting was held, voted for the mainstream parties in 2014 and now they are very surprised for what did they vote for and how does the government behave. Calling the police by board in order to ensure its safety from the citizens was just the last drop to the public anger. Now 70 % of Swedes is reluctant towards immigration, while in 2013 the number was 55 % of people (Vlad Tepes 2016b). We can see that the Swedish society is very confused and divided over the topic of immigration. Albeit according to the national polls of 2014 which we used in our analyses, significant majority said that the immigration is not their decision topic, a slow shift among these people can be witnessed. In 2014, 40,000 immigrants came into Sweden. Two years later, the number is 163,000. The support for Sweden Democrats has increased since 2014, which can be perceived as the change of opinion among Swedes who had previously voted for the mainstream parties. To come back to the research question and the demand of the Swedish society, it became clear that the demand is indeed shifting slightly towards the topic of immigration as the frustration of people grows. Nevertheless, it must still be kept in mind that

51 the Swedish citizens prefer to choose the parties according to their socio-economic manifestos. In this point of view, the Sweden Democrats does not offer a satisfying program.

This research question evaluated the concerns of the Swedish and Danish public and searched for answers, what are their biggest concerns. The data from national polls had been used and supported with Eurobarometer questionnaires focused on European level. Generally, both Swedish and Danish public perceive the immigration as currently the biggest issue facing the EU at the moment as well as the threat of terrorism. However, on the national level, the public tend to choose the political parties according to other issue than immigration or terrorism. Still economy and welfare appears to be the biggest concerns for Swedish and Danish public and the main decision point while going to the parliamentary elections. Even though both economies have already undergone strong and quick recovery from the Great Recession and the unemployment has significantly decreased, the topic of economy is the main decision factor for both Swedes and Danes. Apart from economy, Danes mostly concern about welfare and labour at the national level, whereas the Swedes prefer the topics of employment, health care, education and elder people at the same level as economy. Overall, both Nordic nations concern most about economy and then about the whole spectrum of social issues: elder people, welfare, health care, education or employment. These are the main decision factors during the parliamentary election time. On the other hand, the main topics on the European level are without any debate the problems of immigration and terrorism. Quite surprisingly, the topics of law and order or crime do not belong among the biggest concerns of the both nations even though the statics show the increased number of hate crimes (with Islamophobic or Christianophobic backgrounds) and the problems with no-go zones still exist. Interestingly, also the refugee topic is not the core- decision factor for both public, even though both anti-immigration parties are gaining more and more support. Due to such results, we have a reason to suppose that the analysed parties have something more to offer, than just the anti-immigration rhetoric. Within our analyses of the third research questions, we have also found topics that have almost zero percent of concerns. Among those topics belong the question of EU – both Danes and Swedes are apparently very satisfied with EU and do not choose the political party according to their stand towards this institution. Further, both nations are satisfied with the foreign and security policy. Neither public perceive this issue as a problem as well as e.g. business or animal welfare / rights. And despite the fact that in both countries the topics of environment and climate change altogether with energy were among the highest valued,

52 generally the Swedish and Danish public is apparently rather interested in these topic and care about it, rather than perceive it as a major decision-point during elections. Understandably, all Nordic political parties pay attention to these topics and try to bring something more, some more ideas, to upgrade already extraordinary good position of the both countries in these issues. For this reason, this fact will be taken into the consideration. However, the analysis will not operate with those topics as the core ones for choosing the political parties during elections.

6. Danish and Swedish Mainstream Parties’ Offer

To fully understand the election popularity of the Danish People’s Party and Sweden Democrats, it is necessary to take a look into the programs of the Danish and Swedish mainstream parties and compare particular points with the DPP’s and SD’s programs as well as with the public opinion of Sweden and Denmark.

4) What is the position of the Swedish and Danish mainstream parties to the analysed topics?

The manifestos of Social Democrats on the both sides and Moderate party in Sweden and Liberal (Venstre) Party in Denmark will be evaluated. Further, the focus will be given to the particularly selected topics: in case of Denmark, the public was mostly concerned about economy, welfare and labour. Whereas in Sweden, people were interested in economy, education, employment and welfare as well. The topic of immigration will be included as well (within the issues of crime and terrorism), because even though this is not the major decision point for voters, it certainly plays a significant role in the context of the last two parliamentary elections period. Last but not least, the analysis will also add the topics, which the parties promote most (if they differ from the selected ones) in order to provide a comprehensive overview on the parties’ policy.

6.1. Danish Mainstream Parties

The Danish Social Democrats were established in 1871 and as any other social democratic party, this one is also rooted among urban industrial workers (DIPD n.d.). However, the Social Democrats experienced little shift from focusing on labour to the welfare as the core- issue. The Social Democrats belong traditionally among the biggest parties in the Danish parliament and formed the government during 2011-2015 (ibid). The Venstre party, founded 1870, has a liberal tradition with emphasize to individual freedom, free markets and liberalization of business (DIPD n.d.). The party forms now a single minority government, experiencing the government’s atmosphere for the sixth time since 1990

54 and having the third Prime Minister7. The centre-right party is popular for its welfare and pro- healthcare position, as well as for the strong attitude towards immigration (The Local 2015b; The Democratic Society n.d.).

Talking about the first major issue, immigration, it can be observed that both Danish mainstream parties, Social Democrats and Venstre, take immigration as the serious topic, which must be solved in order to sustain Danish culture and welfare system. Although the immigration does not hold the top position in the Social Democrats’ program, it has its place later on. While Social Democrats refuse the reform proposed by the Danish People’s Party, they propose their own solution. Further, the Social Democrats are in favour of strengthening border controls, however without permanent presence. The Social Democrats also mention the problem of no-go zones, they admit that there are indeed such areas in Denmark and that even though the number of assaults has dropped, there are still gangs consisted of young men with immigration background and it is necessary to take counter steps against them. On the other hand, the Social Democrats also commented the other side of incoming refugees and that is the increase of radicalism and extremism in the country – the party supports repression of such subjects, also in terms of radicalisation under ISIS. The party also agrees with the Danish participation in ISIL international coalition. As for the crime and terrorism, the Social Democrats follow 12 initiatives on counter-terrorism after attacks in Copenhagen and Paris. And in connection to that, the party is in favour of strengthening the immigration policy in order to protect the citizens against possible attacks. Last but not least to the immigration topic, the Social Democrats also support the idea of making the immigrants work: Kommer du till Danmark, skal du arbejde [if you come to Denmark, you are required to work] (Socialdemokratiet Politik n.d.). Interestingly, the Social Democrats do not pay attention to the topic of European Union at all, on the other hand they put forward the issue of jobs and economy. To be precise, the issues of jobs and economy are the core-topics which are visible in the program. The party points out that they have created 40,000 job positions and got rid out of economic recession. They particularly stress out the steps they have undertook once they were in government. Further, they aim to create even more job positions, around 120,000 in the upcoming years. The second most visible topic in the program is welfare – children, healthcare and elder people. The Social Democrats step into all topics but

7 Apart from the current Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, who served as a Prime Minister also during the period of 2009-2011, the Venstre party’s Prime Minister during 2001-2009 was also Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former Secretary General of NATO (DIPD n.d.). 55 the EU’s one and their stands are almost similar to the DPP’s ones except some differences within the immigration topic. However, overall the idea about strengthening rules for gaining asylum, strengthening border controls or the requirement to make immigrants work, remains the same. Contrary, the DPP is even more pushy in the topic of immigration – the problem of foreign culture is mentioned thorough all issues, whereas the Social Democrats stick only with the control of the large influx of the immigrants. As for the other Danish mainstream party, the Venstre party, their Helhedsplan for et stærkere Danmark [Masterplan for stronger Denmark] is significantly comprehensive than the one of the Social Democrats. Unlike Social Democrats, they have a brochure even for the topic of EU. Even though both Social Democrats and Venstre are in favour of abolition of the Danish opt-outs and entering Eurozone, the Venstre’s program is more concrete in this topic than the Social Democrats’ one. Venstre does not mind the current position of the EU, quite contrary, the party supports the politics of the EU and also the expansion of the Union under the Copenhagen criteria. Similarly, they also pay attention to the jobs, economy and unemployment as the Social Democrats. However, the core-topics include welfare and the healthcare – they criticize the public spending and are now trying to bring some cutbacks in favour of the healthcare. Further, the party’s catchword is det skal kunne betale sig at arbejde [it must pay to work] which is also reflected into their immigration position. As well as the Social Democrats, the Venstre supports the strengthening of asylum seekers’ rules. Nevertheless, they go even further than the Social Democrats and made the anti-immigration stand as one of their election core-issues – yet, they are not perceived as such xenophobic as the People’s Party (albeit there is also some kind of criticism, mainly after introducing the 2016’s changes for asylum seekers as the confiscation of money and jewellery). The reason is that they indeed pay a great attention to the immigration issue (e.g. they stress out in Venstres resultater [Venstre’s results] that they enforced altogether with the Social Democrats, DPP and Conservative party the refusal of naming the representatives of the foreign churches in Denmark, which profess values and attitudes that are in contradiction with the Danish values and attitudes). To conclude, both Danish mainstream parties agree upon necessity to make immigrants work. On the other hand, Venstre party stands for stricter approach towards immigrants and enforced several laws which strengthen the rules for granting asylum and simultaneously required the already income immigrants to contribute to the state’s costs of their stay. Further, both parties push forward the agenda of employment as the major one. As for the other issues,

Venstre party focuses on welfare and healthcare, whereas Social Democrats pay attention to the economy.

6.2. Swedish Mainstream Parties

The two other mainstream parties in Sweden are a bit younger than their counter parts in Denmark. The Social Democrats were founded in 1889 and understandably, as any other social democratic party, also this Swedish party focuses on welfare. However, among their other core-issues belong also the topics of environment or feminism (nevertheless, the Swedish election surveys showed that their voters prefer Green Party when it comes to environment), (VALU 2014, 29). The Social Democrats belong among the oldest and most common winning party in Sweden. The only strong opposition is the Moderate Party, the liberal conservative centre-right party, formed in 1904 with the emphasize on the reduction of taxation, economic liberalisation, free markets or personal freedom. Though Moderate Party exists more than a century, it was able to stand in lead of the country only few times. In recent history, Carl Bildt formed a minority government as a Prime Minister in 1991 for the next three years, although the Moderate Party ended up second in the parliamentary elections. It took 12 years until the party became successful once again. Frederik Reinfeldt became a Prime Minister in 2006 when forming a majority government until the next elections. During 2010 – 2014, the same leader was unable to keep the same governmental formation and created a minority government, which did not survive the parliamentary elections in 2014. Yet, the Social Democrats have never been defeated since 1991 (World Elections Sweden 2014).

The undoubtable core-issue for the Social Democrats is the full employment. They particularly focus on young people and on problem of finding job after school. Further they would like to invest in schools, education and teachers. These are the first issues that the voter can see when opening their program. Hand in hand with the education and employment, the Social Democrats also pay attention on welfare (the party was in fact a creator of the famous welfare system in Sweden, which now serves as a perfect school example) and creating quality standards as well as abolishing tax on pensions. They stress out that they have already invested two billion in elder people and they criticize the previous centre-right government of the tax cuts and privatisation. Speaking about the EU issue, there is not much about this topic in their program. However, they support widening of the EU as well as strengthening the EU as a global actor –

57 nevertheless, the topic has not place even within their program as a separate sector. On the other hand, they emphasize the need of the strong Swedish army – the Social Democrats are in favour of compulsory army service for men and women 18+ old and strengthening of the Nordic cooperation. One of the topics is also the problem of crime – the Social Democrats mention organized crime or sexual assaults on women. Nevertheless, there is not a word about ghettos in Sweden or so called no go zones with the immigrant background. Contrary, the immigrants and refugees are mentioned within the chapter of racism and migration. The party strongly points out that they are anti-racist party, which seeks the equality no matter of race, ethnic background, culture or religion. The Social Democrats aim to fight against racism and xenophobia with full-employment concept. In the section of migration, the party writes about the need to open the job markets to the immigrants as well as responsibility of villages and cities for dislocating the immigrants. Moreover, the party also indirectly mentions the Sweden Democrats: När personer som bekänner sig till rasism, nazism, fascism och andra högerextremistiska idéer gör försök att hindra mångfalden är det ett allvarligt hot mot demokratin. Och när vi ser att den här typen av antidemokratiskt våld och våldsbejakande grupper förekommer i vårt samhälle behöver vi gemensamt stå upp för att försvara demokratin och våra värderingar om alla människors lika värde. [When people, who profess racism, Nazism, fascism and other right-ting extremist ideas, try to prevent diversity, then it is a serious threat to democracy. And when we see that this kind of anti-democratic violence and violent groups exist in our society, we need to jointly stand up to defend democracy and our values of equal worth.], (Socialdemokraterna n.d.). The party is strongly pro-immigration.

The Moderate Party supports conservative values as defence, law and order and is reluctant towards welfare system (World Elections Sweden 2014). Frederik Reinfeldt was chosen to lead the party after 2002 election disaster. Reinfeldt was popular for its strong anti- welfare position. Nevertheless, he has become successful in the economic topic, what he proved during his Prime Minister’s period. He even renamed the party as a Nya Moderaterna – New Moderate Party (along the lines of Tony Blair and his New Labour). The party proposed tax reforms, tax cuts for the middle class and the idea that working must pay off. The party created a join manifesto with other Alliance parties for the elections 2006 and 2010 and promoted idea of having 5 million of employed people by 2020 (this included primarily youth employment). The second most important topic was education and health care, the third area of focus included criminality and security. Apart from these core-issues, the party perceives the problem of immigration more seriously than Social Democrats do, although the party is pro-immigration

58 and even decided to grant permanent residence to all Syrian refugees (ibid). During the 2014 elections, Reinfeldt promote a catchword open your hearts to refugees, our country has more space than you can imagine (Crouch 2014). Nevertheless, the party shares the same view over the necessity to make the immigrants work with the Social Democrats. Albeit in Social Democrats’ words this means that immigrants should have the right to have free access to the Swedish job market. In eyes of the Moderate party, the immigrants are required to work in order to help the state budget. The party also stresses out their new immigration policy which includes number of regulations: strengthen rules for family reunion, the necessity of leaving Sweden when the asylum was not granted, stick to the right for granting asylum according to the UN law or help in refugees’ camps. Further, the Moderate party calls the EU member states for redistribution of accepting the immigrants similarly to Social Democrats. This is a great shift from the older policy during Frederik Reinfeldt’s leadership, when the party promoted strong pro-immigration stand. Nowadays, the party admits there are indeed some problems with unadaptable immigrants in the section of crime, when it refers to the thefts, frauds, terrorist threats, creation of parallel societies, criminal gangs or crimes linked with the incoming refugees. They intend to strengthen the police with up to 2,000 new policemen or strengthen the punishment for murder to life-time in prison. As for the EU issue, the Moderate party pays more visible attention to the topic. The party supports the EU activities as well as widening the Union. The party even proposed to have euro as a currency. Talking about NATO for example, the Moderate party is in favour of becoming the full member of the Alliance, however given the current undecided society, the party has decided not to push forward the idea thorough the society and rather wait for the right consensus (Nya Moderaterna n.d.). To conclude, there are more differences between the mainstream parties unlike in the Danish case. Probably only the full employment can be perceived as a mutual topic. Nevertheless, while the Social Democrats promote welfare, issue of pensioners, education or feminism, the Moderate Party is more reluctant towards the welfare and keeps attention to the free markets or tax cuts. Both parties also comment to the immigration topic: Social Democrats seek fair chances in employment for all people no matter to colour of the skin, whereas the Moderate party would like to make immigrants work in order to help the state budget. Further, Social Democrats in Sweden and Denmark tend to criticize the society for racism and extremism. On the other hand, similarly to Venstre party, the Moderate party is also more willing to strengthen the rules for asylum seekers. Interestingly, both Danish and Swedish

Social Democrats did not pay any attention to the EU topic. Contrary, their Swedish and Danish opposite parts, Moderate party and Venstre, keep supporting the current EU policy. To sum up the fourth research question regarding the mainstream parties’ influence in the radical-right parties’ program offer, all analysed mainstream parties showed the strong support for full employment and made this topic their core-ones. Further, all parties pay attention to economy issue – nevertheless, the left parties promote the issue of welfare, education and elder people, whereas the right parties prefer the topics of taxation and markets. Right-wing parties also fully support the current EU policy and are more likely to solve the immigration crisis, unlike the left parties which promote rather solidarity concept in this matter.

7. Reflection of Public Demand and Role of Mainstream Parties

After making an analysis within the four research questions, the two main research questions can be answered:

1) How do the Sweden Democrats’ and People’s Party’s programs reflect the demand of the society in the researched countries?

Regarding the first question, the two forms of questionnaires with significant differences were evaluated. While the top topics on the European level include without any doubts the problem of immigration and terrorism, contrary, the national level was captured by the issues of economy, employment and welfare in both states. These results were quite surprising given the context of the large influx of immigrants to both countries and yet, the voters prefer to decide according to other criteria than which party handles the issue of immigration best. The analysis has already indicated the possible reasons for the outcomes of national polls: especially in Sweden, the number of incoming immigrants during the parliamentary election in 2014 was 40,000. While a year after, the number quadrupled. The support for Sweden Democrats has also increased from 2010 to 2014 particularly in the main urban areas of southern Sweden, where majority of immigrants is dislocated. Indeed, in 2014 majority of Swedes could perceive the policy of the mainstream parties as good towards the immigration problem. Nevertheless, within few months after the election, the mainstream parties apparently failed in controlling the large influx of immigrants and have started to dislocated those people in several areas of Sweden without discussion with city halls and citizens. While before the elections of 2014, people who voted for Sweden Democrats were quite probably young men with lower education levels, who tried to protect Swedish values and culture, later on the increasing support for Sweden Democrats after the election in 2014 is showing, that also common Swedes, who do not agree with the dislocation and open-heart policy of the mainstream parties, have started to support the Sweden Democrats only because they are the only party with the clear policy of stopping the influx of immigrants and reverse it (e.g. the Green Party, which now creates a governmental coalition with the Social Democrats, has the most open policy towards immigrants of all parties). Nonetheless, the Social Democrats and Moderate Party have started to promote regulation of influx in the past few months after welcoming over 160,000 refugees in 2015 and

61 witnessing an increased support of Sweden Democrats in TV polls. Both parties were in favour of temporary border controls and strengthening the rules for granting asylum. Suddenly, the support for Sweden Democrats has slightly decreased, which indicates that the party has nothing more to offer than strengthen immigration policy. This leads us to the first research question: the Sweden Democrats does not reflect the demands of the Swedish society – which is economy, employment and education. The fact, that they are now promoting the biggest issue in the country, immigration, does not mean, that they reflect what does the Swedish voter need. Looking back at Mudde’s key features for populist radical-right party, nativism, authoritarianism and populism, the Sweden Democrats fulfil all these criteria. They promote to keep Sweden Swedish under the strong leadership of Jimmie Åkesson and strongly criticize the establishment. Albeit the Danish People’s Party fulfilled the key features as well, the renege criticism of the establishment can be witnessed as the party becomes a part of the decision- making process. As for the DPP, the party is a better choice for Danes than is the SD for Swedes. DPP built up the party’s philosophy on protection of the welfare system. The strong anti- Muslim immigration policy is explained by tries to protect the welfare system from the immigrants. The new strategy kicked off by Pia Kjærsgaard apparently pays off. She had inspired herself on the Norwegian example and was successful to brilliantly combine the core “anti-issue” of immigration with the welfare topic. Moreover, this approach is also apparently more palatable for the Social Democrats and Venstre party than was the approach of their predecessor, the anti-tax Progress Party. Further, the DPP succeed in offering Danes precisely what do they ask for: social assurances, concerns about elder people or paying attention to the topic of economy. All these let the party to slow success of being the second biggest party in the Danish parliament. Needless to say that the immigration topic played also a significant role during the parliamentary elections. Nevertheless, albeit the rightist government has started to deal with the large influx of immigrants, the Danish People’s Party has not dropped, their preferences are still high. This indicates that indeed people are satisfied with the program and role of the DPP. Even though the party is not directly in the government, it is being listened. The interesting fact around both SD and DPP is that they both promote strong anti-EU position. They both criticize the supranational power of EU, even though the Danish and Swedish citizens proved in the polls that the topic of EU has no place while deciding during the parliamentary elections. To sum up, the DPP reflects the demand of the Danish society more than does the SD. The reason is, that the DPP’s bottom of the manifesto stands on the welfare issue, which is in

62 past few years the most concerned issue within Danes. Moreover, the DPP is focused on broad spectrum of social problems and economy, whereas SD built up their party’s face on anti- immigration stand, the party’s philosophy is opposite to DPP’s one. It is enough to cover Swedish society concerns nowadays, but the party is quite likely not able to continue in broad spectrum of topics once the immigration will be solved. The SD does not offer solution for important topics in eyes of Swedes.

2) How do the mainstream parties affect the relation of the Sweden Democrats’ and People’s Party’s demand vs. offer?

The second main research question is asking, whether the mainstream parties do affect the success of the analysed radical-right parties, in other words how do they step up into the demand-offer relation of the DPP and SD and the voters. It is now visible after doing the analysis that the influence of the mainstream parties is basically the core of the problem of the success of these new parties, particularly in the Swedish case. Starting in Sweden, first of all, it is important to know, how does the voters’ shift work between the radical-right and mainstream. Taking a closer look at the results of the smaller parties, from Centre Party to Green Party, one can find only minor differences thorough the elections. What is necessary to focus on are the results of the mainstream parties:

Table no. 2: The results of the Swedish parliamentary elections 2006-2014

2006 2010 2014 Social Democrats 36 30,7 31 Moderate Party 26,2 30,1 23,3 Sweden Democrats 2,9 5,7 12,9 Centre Party 7,9 6,6 6,1 Liberal Party 7,5 7,1 5,4 Christian Democrats 6,6 5,6 4,6 Left Party 5,8 5,6 5,7 Green Party 5,2 7,3 6,9

Source: Election resources Sweden Table by author

Graph no. 8: The parliamentary elections 2006-2010 in Sweden - results of the mainstream parties and SD in percentage

40 36 35 30,7 30,1 31 30 26,2 25 23,3 20 15 12,9 10 5,7 5 2,9 0 2006 2010 2014

Social Democrats Moderate Party Sweden Democrats

Source: Election resources Sweden Graph by author

Graph no. 9: If an election were held in...who would you vote? The case of Sweden

7,7 8,1 9,3 12,4 14,4 19,9 17,3

26,9 25,5 22,7 24,2 25,6 23,5 24,7

35,6 34,3 35,3 32,2 30 27,6 29,5

M 2013 N 2013 M 2014 N 2014 M 2015 N 2015 M 2016

Social Democrats Moderate Party Sweden Democrats

Results in percentage. M = May, N = November Source of data: Statistics Sweden 2013-2016 Graph by author

In every May and November, the Statistics Sweden holds the national survey over the question: If an election were held in [current month and year]. The author has extracted the data from May 2013 to May 2016 in order to show the correlation between the Sweden Democrats and mainstream parties and help to understand the voting movement of the Swedish voters. While in May 2013 the Moderate party net losses are for Liberal Party (0,4 %), in the later years the party has started to significantly loosing over the Sweden Democrats. Starting at 0,4 % in November 2013, the Moderate Party had significant net losses for the Sweden Democrats up to 1,8 % in November 2015. Right after the autumn parliamentary elections in 2014, number of the parties’ voters significantly dropped in favour of the Sweden Democrats. Other significant losses were noted during the peak of the Swedish immigration crisis in autumn 2015. On top of that, it is the Moderate Party, which had suddenly changed its politics and started to promote the regulation of immigration, even the talks about the possible coalition with the Sweden Democrats. This has reflected into the results of the polls statistics in May 2016, when all of the sudden, the Moderate Party has started to gain support over the Sweden Democrats: 1,0 % (Statistics Sweden 2013-2016). Contrary, the Social Democrats do not have such visible correlation with the Sweden Democrats. On the other hand, another important group of voters appeared to be the undecided people. In November 2013, the Sweden Democrats gained 0,5 % of votes from “don’t know group”, whereas two years later, the gain was 1,4 % from the same group. In May 2016, the Moderate also persuaded 1,2 % of such voters and Social Democrats 1 % (Statistics Sweden 2013-2016). Since there has been a shift of voters from the right Moderate party to the radical-right Sweden Democrats, it is time to ask why has this shift happened. It is already clear enough that the Sweden Democrats do not offer anything more to the Swedish citizen than the solution for the immigration crisis and perhaps tax changes – however, the common Swede is rather seeking the programs of the mainstream parties – economy, education, employment. The analysis has also described that the Moderate party fought in the last parliamentary elections with the statement to open hearts to refugees and it is this Moderate Party which suddenly comments on the migrant issue in its manifesto and supports some kind of counter-measures. Whereas the Social Democrats altogether with the Green Party hold the open-minded position towards immigration topic even after the elections. Albeit the government was literally forced to adopt changes and strengthen rules for granting asylum as well as it temporary restored border controls with Denmark, their policy remains very open towards immigration. According to Social Democrats, it is the Swedish duty to help the refugees coming from Middle East.

Therefore, before the election in 2014, the Swedish voters decided between both Moderate and Social Democrats parties’ open-immigration policy and between Sweden Democrats’ very strict immigration policy.

Pictures no. 2 and 1: the parliamentary election results of all parties in 2010 regionally (pic. no. 2) in comparison with the election results 2010 / 2014 of Sweden Democrats regionally (pic. no. 1)

S = Social Democrats, M = Moderate Party, SD = Sweden Democrats, the darker the colour, the more votes the party received Source: World Elections Sweden 2010; Sweddit n. d.

As it is visible from the included maps, the electoral support of Social Democrats lies mostly in centre-north part of Sweden, whereas Moderate party and Sweden Democrats gain its support in south (Stockholm, Malmö, etc.). It is clear that the most net losses over Sweden Democrats is among the Moderate party, which is successful in the same areas. On one hand, the Social Democrats’ voters of centre and northern Sweden (rural areas) are persistent in their open-minded immigration policy, which is deeply rooted in the Swedish nature, and have the will to share the rich welfare policy with the immigrants under their belief of solidarity. These voters will not change their minds in voting Social Democrats.

On the other hand, we have the voters of the right Moderate party, with open-minded immigration policy, reluctance towards welfare and strong pro-economic policy as well as pro- European stand point. These voters came from urban parts of Sweden, the south. And it was the south which was hit by the immigration wave most. The problematic so called no-go zones can be traced in the major cities of southern Sweden. The Moderate party’s voters of 2010 and 2014 may now experiencing a disappointment of the Moderate party policy: it is clear that the Swedish economy and welfare system cannot handle quadrupled number of immigrants coming to Sweden. And as the government and Alliance keep dislocating the incoming immigrants, people start to face the immigration reality and are angry to the establishment for not being transparent in this matter. Hand in hand with the fear of threatening the Swedish economy, welfare, and also education system, the Swedes tend to support the Sweden Democrats to show their disagreement with the mainstream parties’ policy. Yet, the Sweden Democrats still suffer from their party’s history and thus people are reluctant to support them (Sweden experienced a black chapter in its history in 90’s when the phenomenon of neo-Nazis arisen and several incidents, attacks and murders have happened, see e.g. Westin 2000). Last but not least, the trend of increasing support for SD after the elections 2014 can also be connected to the elections’ aftermath. The Prime Minister Stefan Löfven’s minority government was trying to push forward the state budget proposal. After the snap election’ announcement, the polls around the country favourited the Sweden Democrats of gaining up to 18 % of votes:

Source: The Local 2014b

The most threatened position was set down for the Moderate Party. It was even unsure whether the Moderate Party retain second in the parliament. However, the snap elections were cancelled and the Moderate party still holds the strong second position in the parliament. Another research showed that 1 7% of voters had at that time a more positive view of the

Sweden Democrats then they had before the snap election was called. Simultaneously, the research came up with the results, that those voters, who voted for Social Democrats or Green Party in autumn’s parliamentary elections, are more hostile towards the Sweden Democrats (The Local 2014b). Therefore, the Social Democrats hold a strong position in the parliament with broad spectre of voters, mainly from rural areas of Sweden. On the other hand, there is a shift of voters from Moderate party to the Sweden Democrats – these people are unsatisfied and disappointed by the Moderate party policy. The Sweden Democrats are also able to attract undecided voters unlike Moderate party. While according to Lööw (2009, 436) the typical model of the Sweden Democrats’ voter is a young man with lower education, working manually, disappointed by the Social Democrats’ politics, Maškarinec disproves this allegation. According to the results of his quantitative study of parliamentary elections 2006 and 2010, the typical SD’s voter is a Swedish inhabitant of the middle class around 25-44 years old who is afraid of losing his current social position in the society due to the shift of the state budget from welfare to immigrants (Maškarinec 2009, 103). This supports our assumption that Swedes tent to vote for mainstream parties earlier and then found out that the government does not have the immigration effects under control. Therefore, the original idea of helping refugees turned into fears of social welfare system collapse. Further, Maškarinec marked south areas of Sweden as the biggest electoral base of Sweden Democrats, particularly Skåne and Blekinge counties (Maškarinec 2009, 102).

The results of the Danish parliamentary elections since early 1990’s show the changeable success of all political subjects (unlike in the case of Sweden where the minor political parties gain very similar results every election). The typical profile of the DPP’s voter is an older man, between 70-80 years (note the age difference between voters of DPP and SD), with 8 to 9 years of education working manually (Meret 2009, 86). Even though we have this given profile, Susi Meret (2009, 87) stresses out that the DPP is not an old party at all. As time goes by, young people and women vote for the DPP as well. On the other hand, people with 12 and more years of education appear to be sceptical towards the party. Further, the DPP’s voters tend to have political and social distrust as well as believe that the immigration is a threat to a national culture (Meret 2009, 88). The same level of political and social distrust appears on the left political spectrum (particularly among Social Democrats’ voters). On the other hand, the same view on immigration share rather the voters of the right political spectrum, mainly of the Liberal (Vesntre) Party.

Graph no. 10: Election Results Denmark 40

0 1990 1994 1998 2001 2005 2007 2011 2015

Social Democrats Conservative People's Party Liberal Party of Denmark (Venstre) Danish People's Party Socialist People's Party Progress Party Center Democrats Danish Social-Liberal Party (Radikale Venstre) Christian People's Party

Source of data: Election Results 1990-2015 Denmark Graph by author

Even though the stand for immigration topic may seem confusing, Susi Meret notes that DPP is the most clearly define working-class party in Denmark (Meret 2010, 258). The profiles of DPP’s voters altogether with the manifesto focused on welfare create a strong competition to the Social Democrats. According to the election survey statistics in Denmark, it is particularly the Social Democrats, whose net losses are for the Danish People’s Party (ibid). The representatives of the Social Democrats consider this fact as a serious threat and tried to isolate the radical-right party during their first success in the parliamentary elections. The lefts called the DPP being the same as the Nazi party in Germany in 1930’s (said by Paul Nyrup Rasmussen, the former Prime Minister and leader of the Social Democrats in 1997). Furthermore, Peter Duetoft, a Centrum Democrats politician, has compared Pia Kjærsgaard to Hitler (Meret 2009, 107-8). Despite all these accusations and attempts to isolate the party, the reverse effect has appeared. The DPP became even stronger, which is what we are now witnessing in Sweden with the SD. The more the government is trying to isolate the strong radical-right party, the more voters tend to choose the isolated party. The DPP supported the minority government of Venstre during the period of 2001-2011, which is followed by the stable support of the radical- right party. The election period of 2011-2015 was won by the Social Democrats and the DPP created an opposition. As we can see, there is a significant increase of support for the DPP party

69 in the election 2015. Further, after forming a new Venstre government with the return support of the DPP, we know that it was mainly the Venstre party, which adopted significant changes in the refugees’ policy. The DPP proposed several of these changes. However, the most visible step forward was defended by the Venstre’s ministers. According to the Voxmeter, a Danish research company, which publishes the voters’ preferences thorough the years, months and weeks, the Venstre party is strengthening whereas the DPP (find Dansk Folkeparti) is weakening (Voxmeter 2016):

Graph no. 11: Voters’ preferences 2015-2016 in Denmark

Source: Voxmeter 2016

Nonetheless, the DPP was able to “steal” voters from both sides, not just the Social Democrats. The Venstre party lost during the 2015 election in the areas, where they normally win (World Elections Denmark 2015). Therefore, those voters disappointed by the Social Democrats’ welfare policy voted for Danish People’s Party and those disappointed by the Venstre’s immigration policy chose to vote Danish People’s Party as well. Albeit it is the Social Democrats who lose most over the Danish People’s Party as Meret in 2010 pointed out – it seems that there has been a change since the elections in 2007. As we can see from the graph no. 10, it is now the Venstre party, which loses most. Nevertheless, the Voxmeter proved the reversed trend in the past few months as the government worked on halting the immigration.

Similarly to Sweden, we can see unsatisfied voters with the mainstream’s policy. While in case of Sweden the SD is unable to catch the left-spectre of voters due to its only focus on immigration, crime and tax issue, the DPP is capable of stealing voters from both left and the right side thanks to its leftist welfare policy and rightist anti-immigration policy.

Conclusion

The analysis has focused on the topic of the radical-right parties’ phenomenon in the selected European countries. The author has chosen the Danish People’s Party in Denmark and the Sweden Democrats in Sweden as the examples. Both countries faced unprecedented surge of immigrants in the past years and the new political subjects suddenly gained strong position in both parliaments, in spite of being far more radical than any other mainstream party. The analyses’ aim was to take a closer look at he both parties’ manifestos and compare them with the demand of society: is there really such a vacuum on a political scene that voters are left with no choice than to vote these radical-right parties in order to notify on increasing immigration problem? The analysis has concluded that the Danish People’s Party reflects the demand of the Danish society more than the Sweden Democrats does. While the Sweden Democrats is almost a single-issue party (speaking about immigration), the Danish People’s Party covers wide scale of topics (welfare, immigration, employment, elder people, health care), which are important to the Danish voters. The Danish People’s Party appears to be more successful in detachment over its predecessor, the Progress Party. Its first leader, Pia Kjærsgaard succeeded to learn from the Norwegian example and built up the new party on the most important issue for Danes: the welfare. Further, she tied up the topics of elder people8, health care or employment on the core topic in the very beginnings of the party, which ensured net losses from the Social Democrats. Afterwards, the party added strong anti-immigration stand which ensured significant net losses over the Liberal (Venstre) party. Therefore, from the very beginning, the party has been focusing on the largest demographic group in the country and on the voters of the strongest mainstream parties by covering the most important topics as welfare, economy or labour. On the other hand, the DPP still keeps the uncompromising anti-EU policy, which does not reflect the public demand, nevertheless does not harm the party’s success so far. As for the immigration topic, it is visible from the European and national polls that Danes do concern about immigration (but not in a such way as about economy, welfare etc.). There is no doubt that the success of the DPP stands mostly on nationalism: the national welfare must be protected; the Muslim immigrants pose a threat to Denmark. Nevertheless, the party as

8 At the time the party was formed, mid 1990’s, the strongest demographic group was between 30 and 50 years old, whereas in 2016, there is a significant increase in the group around 18-24 years old. Nevertheless, the strongest demographic group shifted to 48-54 years old (Statistics Denmark Population 2016; Nordic Council of Ministers 1999, 4). 72 itself does not pose any security threat to Denmark and its democracy system. The strong nationalism is balanced with the aforementioned social issues. On the other hand, the Sweden Democrats do not reflect the Swedish public demand. Their program is vague and they do not try to push forward their other agenda in media as for instance taxation. Instead, they use the media to proclaim their anti-immigration rhetoric, which is de facto the party core issue. If the Sweden Democrats want to survive after the immigration crisis is ward off, they must widen their political agenda and promote it more visibly. Otherwise, the already mentioned spill-over effect between Moderate party and Sweden Democrats will definitely spill on the side of the establishment party. The mainstream parties do significantly step up into the relation of demand vs. offer when it comes to the radical-right parties. In both analysed cases, Danish People’s Party and Sweden Democrats, particularly the Social Democrats have tried to isolate the parties after the parliamentary elections. It clearly did not work in the Danish case and it is not apparently working with the Swedish case. During the isolation policy, the support for both DPP and SD increased. The isolation might work if the party gains negligible number of seats in parliament, however it cannot work once the party is the third / second largest and significantly affect the decision-making process. The change of the Swedish government and opposition towards the immigration affected also the support to the Sweden Democrats, which decreased in the polls at the beginning of 2016 (The Local 2016c) – due to a reason that people in Sweden tend to vote for Sweden Democrats only as a protest voice against Stefan Löfven, whose policy threatens welfare system. Contrary, the support for the Danish People’s Party is being stable, but little bit decreased as well. However, due to its broad spectrum of issues which attract voters from the left side and from the right side, the Danish People’s Party is more likely to stay on the top unlike its Swedish counterpart. In the case of Denmark, the mainstream parties significantly affect the DPP’s success. The Danish People’s Party has the voter basis build up on the older people, manual workers, but is gradually expanded also among young people, who care about the welfare, labour, economy or healthcare and who do agree with the assumption that the incoming immigrants pose a threat to a Danish national welfare system and economy. In short, the DPP catches the voters from either ends of the political spectre. However, the Social Democrats offer almost the same agenda, apart from the immigration and EU policy. For this reason, the Social Democrats’ voters tent to choose the DPP instead of their mainstream party once they did not agree with the Social Democrats’ welfare policy. On the other hand, Venstre offers a more proactive approach towards strengthening asylum seekers rules, do accuse immigrants of creating ghettos

73 and actively deal with the problem of segregation of society. Apart from EU issue, the Moderate party is a good compromise for voters, who do believe on more trade economy and find balance between a radical view on immigration of the DPP and rather reserve attitude of the Social Democrats. And this showed up during the 2015 election when particularly Venstre lost over DPP. Contrary, the mainstream parties in Sweden do not step up into the demand-offer relation when it comes to Sweden Democrats. The reason is, that Sweden Democrats as a single- issue party, cannot offer the public the solution of the most important issues, as the economy, employment or education. In this matter, the voters tend to choose the mainstream parties without hesitation. Nevertheless, Sweden Democrats very probably attract undecided voters or voters disappointed by the governmental policy over the immigration. The voters of Sweden Democrats tend to be younger and middle-aged with lower education, living as middle class and considering about their welfare benefits. Once the government and opposition have started to deal with the immigration at the beginning of 2016, the preferences for Sweden Democrats slightly felled down: suddenly there was an alternative towards this radical-right party. Since the Sweden Democrats still struggle with their past, there is no surprise that people tend to choose rather mainstream party than to choose Sweden Democrats and be accused of xenophobic and racist. This analysis showed that even the most successful radical-right parties in Europe of nowadays can significantly vary. Further, it also widened and updated the current research about radical-right parties by working with their manifestos and putting them in context of the public demand and mainstream behaviour. Last but not least, this analysis has also continued in the research of Pavel Maškarinec by qualitatively proving his results and updated them. Nonetheless, there is still a broad scale of topics, which can be analysed while evaluating radical-right parties. Generally, it is crystal clear that the current immigration crisis forced the mainstream parties to change their existing agenda towards sometimes unpopular steps and split the society. We will see after ten, fifteen years which new radical-right parties gained the right momentum and built up their manifestos on successful set of topics.

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Reference

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Appendix

The official informative letter of Danish authorities about changes in immigration policy

Source: The Local 2015a