Master Thesis Is to Shine Light on the Recent Upsurge and Seemed Convergence of Radical Right Parties in Europe in General and the Nordic Countries in Particular

Political Climate?

How Environmental Attitudes relates to Support for Radical Right-wing Parties in the Nordic Countries

Uppsala University Department of Government Master’s Thesis in Political Science Autumn Semester 2018 Author: Agnes Duregård Supervisor: Marcus Österman Words: 16 079 Abstract

The Nordic countries are geographically, culturally and politically close, and have all witnessed an upsurge in support for radical right-wing parties over the past decades. Although the five parties: the Danish People’s Party, the Finns Party, the Icelandic Progressive Party, the Norwegian Progress Party, and the Sweden Democrats, are different when it comes to party history and how accepted they have been by other parties, they are today similar in their anti-immigration rhetoric, their critique of the established elites and to some extent their welfare chauvinism.

According to theories on radical right-wing parties and environmental attitudes, caring for nature and the environment would make a person less probable to vote for a radical right-wing party. Using data from the European Social Survey, the relationship between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting is examined. The initial results support this thesis, but when adding control variables the relationship is no longer significant.

However, when looking at the countries separately, it shows that the relationship between environmental values and support for radical right-wing parties varies across the Nordic countries. Here, Norway stands out as the country with the strongest negative relationship between environmental values and support for radical right-wing parties.

Keywords: Radical right-wing parties, Nordic countries, environmental attitudes, post- materialist values, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, populism, environmentalism

List of party abbreviations

Denmark

DFP Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti)

FP Progress Party (Fremskridtspartiet) Will occasionally be referred to as the Danish Progress Party as to not confuse it with the Norwegian Progress Party or the Icelandic Progressive Party

Finland

PS The Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset) Previously known in English as the True Finns

SMP The Finnish Agrarian Party (Suomen Maasedun Puolue)

Iceland

FSF Progressive Party Will occasionally be referred to as (Framsóknarflukkurinn) the Icelandic Progressive Party as to not confuse it with the Danish Progress Party or the Norwegian Progress Party.

Norway

FrP Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet) Will occasionally be referred to as the Norwegian Progress Party as to not confuse it with the Danish Progress Party or the Icelandic

Progressive Party. MDG Green Party (Miljøpartiet De Grønne)

Sweden

ND New Democracy (Ny Demokrati)

SD Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna)

MP Green Party (Miljöpartiet)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION ...... 5

1.1 OBJECTIVE AND RESEARCH QUESTION ...... 6

1.2 DISPOSITION ...... 6

2 PREVIOUS RESEARCH AND THEORY ...... 7

2.1 WHAT ARE RADICAL RIGHT-WING PARTIES? ...... 7

2.2 WHO VOTES FOR RADICAL RIGHT-WING PARTIES? ...... 9

2.3 ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDES ...... 12

3 CASE SELECTION ...... 14

3.1 LIMITING THE STUDY TO THE NORDIC COUNTRIES ...... 15

3.2 THE RADICAL RIGHT-WING PARTIES IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES ...... 16 3.2.1 Denmark: Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti, DFP) ...... 17 3.2.2 Finland: Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset, PS) ...... 18 3.2.3 Iceland: Progressive Party (Framsóknarflokkurinn, FSF) ...... 20 3.2.4 Norway: Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet, FrP) ...... 21 3.2.5 Sweden: Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna, SD) ...... 23

3.3 CAN ALL THE PARTIES BE CLASSIFIED AS RADICAL RIGHT-WING? ...... 24

3.5 HYPOTHESES ...... 26

4 DATA AND METHODS ...... 28

4.1 EUROPEAN SOCIAL SURVEY DATA ...... 28

4.2 DATA DELIMITATIONS ...... 28

4.3 VARIABLES ...... 29 4.3.1 Dependent variable: Radical right-wing voting ...... 29 4.3.2 Independent variable ...... 33 4.3.3 Control variables ...... 33

4.4 METHODS ...... 35

4.5 VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY ...... 36

5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ...... 37

5.1 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS ...... 37

5.2 REGRESSIONS ...... 39

6 ANALYSIS ...... 45

7 CONCLUDING REMARKS ...... 49

7.1 FUTURE RESEARCH ...... 50

8 REFERENCES ...... 51

9 APPENDIX ...... 54

APPENDIX 1: TABLES SHOWING DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE VARIABLES “VOTED FOR RADICAL RIGHT PARTY IN LAST ELECTION” AND

“FEELING CLOSEST TO RADICAL RIGHT PARTY” ...... 54

APPENDIX 2: REGRESSION BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDES AND RADICAL RIGHT-WING VOTING, WITH DOMICILE AS DUMMIES ...... 55

APPENDIX 3: LOGISTIC REGRESSION TABLE 1 ...... 56

APPENDIX 4: LOGISTIC REGRESSION TABLE 2 ...... 57

APPENDIX 5: CRONBACH’S ALPHA TEST ...... 58

LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1: ELECTION RESULTS FOR RADICAL RIGHT WING PARTIES IN THE NORDIC COUNTRIES, 2007-2018 ..... 30 FIGURE 2: FEELING CLOSEST TO RADICAL RIGHT PARTY, NORDIC COUNTRIES, ESS 5-8 ...... 30 FIGURE 3: RESPONDENTS' ATTITUDES TOWARDS CARING FOR NATURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT ...... 39 FIGURE 4: MARGINAL EFFECTS OF CARING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT ON RADICAL RIGHT-WING VOTING ...... 44 FIGURE 5: PREDICTED VALUES FOR DIFFERENT LEVELS OF CARING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT ON RADICAL RIGHT- WING VOTING...... 45 FIGURE 6: MODEL SHOWING CAUSAL DIRECTION BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDES, RADICAL RIGHT WING VOTING AND CONTROLS ...... 46 FIGURE 7: MODEL SHOWING CAUSAL DIRECTION BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDES AND ATTITUDINAL CONTROL VARIABLES ...... 47

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE 1: ELECTION RESULTS FOR NORDIC RADICAL RIGHT-WING PARTIES, 2010-2018...... 16 TABLE 2: INCLUDED ESS ROUNDS ...... 28 TABLE 3: PERCENTAGE OF RESPONDENTS FEELING CLOSEST TO RADICAL RIGHT WING PARTY, ESS ROUNDS 5-8 ...... 32 TABLE 4: SUMMARY STATISTICS ...... 38 TABLE 5: CORRELATION BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDES AND RADICAL RIGHT-WING VOTING ...... 40 TABLE 6: CORRELATION BETWEEN CARING FOR NATURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT AND FEELING CLOSEST TO A RADICAL RIGHT WING PARTY, WITH INTERACTION EFFECTS ...... 42

1 Introduction Three months after the parliamentary election in September 2018, Sweden still has no government (Rosén, 2018). Since the Sweden Democrats got 17.5 % of the votes, none of the established political parties have enough support from their traditional allies to form a government. Instead, they have to negotiate across party lines to find a compromise that produces a stable government while still obstructing the Sweden Democrats from getting any real political influence.

This situation is not unique for Sweden – all over Western Europe, support for radical right- wing parties has more than doubled over the past decade (Dalton, 2018, p. 73), changing the political playing field. The traditional left−right political divide is no longer the only factor determining electoral support, but radical right-wing parties as well as liberal green parties represent a new political dimension.

In several countries, radical right-wing parties are or have been represented in government. The radical right is now considered one of the newest party families in democracy studies (Ivarsflaten and Harteveld, 2016, p. 369).

The Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, are often used as examples of strong social democratic states where liberal values thrive (Bergmann, 2017, p. 1). But in recent years, radical right-wing parties have gained support and are now represented in all five Nordic parliaments1.

When they first emerged, many dismissed the radical right parties as temporary protest- parties. But over the past decade, their electoral bases have become more or less stable. Through populist rhetoric, anti-immigration policies and critique against the European Union, radical right-wing parties have managed to mobilize less-educated men from the majority population (Ivarsflaten and Harteveld, 2016, p. 369).

One of the traits that distinguish the radical right-wing party family from mainstream ones, is that they are the most anti-environmentalist of all party families (Gemenis, Katsanidou and Vasilopoulou, 2012, p. 18). As environmental politics in general, and climate change in particular, has become a highly politicised issue in the past decade, the fact that the rapidly growing radical right-wing parties de-prioritise the environment could have important political consequences.

1 Not including the parliaments of the autonomous counties Åland, Faroe Islands or Greenland. 5

The public opinion on climate change varies as some deny its’ existence altogether, while others seek professional help to deal with their climate change anxiety. Radical right-wing politicians are often found on the sceptic end of the climate change scale, while green politicians emphasise the importance of environmental policies. This thesis will look closer at whether or not this climate-scepticism matters to their voters.

Both radical right-wing parties and green parties are difficult to place on a traditional left−right spectrum of political parties. Instead, they represent a fairly new liberal−authoritarian dimension of party competition (Inglehart and Norris, 2017). This study attempts to further investigate this dimension by taking a closer look at the relationship between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting.

1.1 Objective and research question The objective of this master thesis is to shine light on the recent upsurge and seemed convergence of radical right parties in Europe in general and the Nordic countries in particular. By investigating how an often overlooked factor, environmental values, relates to radical right voting in the Nordic countries it can hopefully lead to a greater understanding of the voter bases of these parties.

By a quantitative comparison between few countries, it is possible to identify factors common for the relationship between environmental values and radical right voting, as well as taking national context into account. Hopefully, this will contribute to a greater understanding of how national context interacts with global trends concerning radical right-wing voting.

The research question I will attempt to answer in this study is “What is the relationship between environmental attitudes and support for radical right-wing parties in the Nordic countries?”

1.2 Disposition In order to place this thesis within the field of electoral studies, theory and previous research on radical right-wing parties and voters will be thoroughly presented in the first section. Then follows a presentation of the cases, the Nordic radical right-wing parties. By relating the theory to the cases, hypotheses are formulated.

Then, a discussion of the data and methods will follow. In the following results section, the empirical results are presented and described. The results are further discussed in the analysis section, before the thesis ends with some concluding remarks and suggestions for further research.

2 Previous research and theory

2.1 What are Radical Right-wing parties? The radical right-wing parties in Europe have often been considered temporary protest parties, but over the past decade it has been made clear that these parties have stable electoral bases and that they are here to stay (Goodwin, 2011, p. 4). Today, they are categorised as their own party family in, for example, the Comparative Political Data Set (Armingeon et al., 2018) and ParlGov (Döring, 2016).

Interestingly enough, most researchers agree on which parties to include in this party family, which is referred to interchangeably as “radical right”, “extreme right”, “anti-immigrant”, “nationalist” or “populist right”. But there is no consensus on the criteria for categorising a party within this party family (Rydgren, 2007, p. 242). Since many of the parties themselves are reluctant to be compared to their foreign counterparts (Zhirkov, 2014, p. 287) or identified as part of a populist or radical right party family (Mudde, 2007, p. 35), it makes the definition of the party family even more difficult.

Due to this lack of consensus and universal definitions, defining the party family and classifying the parties has been an objective for many researchers over the past decade (see for example Mudde, 2007; Bergmann, 2017; Rydgren, 2007). Due to what Mudde (2007, p. 12) refers to as “the terminological chaos” in the field, it is important to start out by defining the terminology and classifications revolving the party family, in order to do a comparative study.

Depending on the objective, different researchers have formulated definitions and classifications with different scopes. A widely used definition is the one by Mudde (2007). He uses the term Populist Radical Right Parties, a term encompassing parties which share the three core features “populism”, “radicalism” and “right-wing-ideology”. By populism, Mudde refers to an ideology where a party claims to represent the will of the common people or the “silent majority”, as opposed to the establishment or elites, and that the will and needs of the

7 majority group is more important than for example minority rights (Mudde, 2007, p. 23). Mudde defines radicalism as opposition to the ideals of liberal democracy, most notably political pluralism and the protection of minorities (ibid, p. 25). Finally, right-wing is defined as a belief in inequalities being a part of the natural order, which indicates that parties are right-wing in a socio-economic aspect (ibid., p. 26). Few of the parties classified by others in the populist radical right party family self-identify as populist, and even fewer as radical right (ibid., p. 36).

The definition used by Mudde has a rather narrow scope, limiting the number of parties which can be included. This means that many parties often grouped together with Populist Radical Right-wing parties will fall outside this classification. For example, the Norwegian Progress Party is classified as Populist Neo-liberal, a definition which resembles the Populist Radical Right parties in most aspects (Mudde, 2007, p. 47). While Mudde’s definition can be more useful for a comparison between populist parties, it is too narrow for the purpose of this thesis as it would exclude relevant cases in the Nordic political context.

Instead, Rydgren’s (2007) definition of Radical Right-wing Parties is more useful, since it encompasses a wider range of parties while still limiting the scope to the parties of interest. Rydgren also notes that the radical right-wing parties (RRPs) “tend to be populist” and use a popular rhetoric (Rydgren, 2007, p. 242; Jylhä, Rydgren and Strimling, 2018, p. 24).

Rydgren’s criteria are that the parties can be considered radical and right-wing. By “radical”, Rydgren means that the parties criticise representative democracy as it is today, but still take part in and seek representation through national elections. Rydgren uses the term “right-wing” mainly in a sociocultural aspect. The radical right parties prefer authoritarianism over liberalism, and emphasize value-laden issues such as law-and-order, abortion policy, immigration policy, and nationality. The radical right’s ideal state is an “ethnocracy”, where the interests of the majority ethnic group are most important. (Rydgren, 2007, pp. 243–244). The radical right-wing parties often feel threatened by both immigration and supranational institutions such as the EU (Jylhä, Rydgren and Strimling, 2018, p. 9).

It is important to differentiate between radical right-wing parties and the extreme right. The radical right-wing parties still use legal and democratic means to change society. They can criticise democratic institutions and procedures, and often oppose the ideas of liberal democracy, but still compete in national elections on the same premises as other parties (Jylhä, Rydgren and Strimling, 2018, p. 9). The extreme right, on the other hand, is “in

8 essence antidemocratic, opposing the fundamental principle of sovereignty of the people” (Mudde, 2007, p. 31). In the following paper, only parties that use the established electoral system as means of influence will be studied.

2.2 Who votes for Radical Right-wing parties? As the electoral support for radical right-wing parties has continued to increase over the past decades, so has the literature trying to explain it. Today, there is extensive research comparing ideology, history and rhetoric of radical right-wing parties in Western nations, especially in Europe. Several attempts have also been made to investigate what unites the voter bases of radical right-wing parties.

In previous research, the explanations for radical right-wing electoral support can be divided into three categories: socio-economic (individual) explanations, anti-immigration explanations, and value-oriented explanations. Of the three categories, the first two are studied to a greater extent than the third. The categories will be presented more thoroughly below.

Over the 20th century, socio-economic or individual explanations such as class, education and income have been strongly correlated with left− and right-wing voting (Inglehart and Norris, 2017, p. 448). But in the past decades, the traditional left−right determinants of electoral behaviour has to some extent been abandoned in favour of socio-cultural factors (Dal Bó et al., 2018, p. 6). The radical right-wing parties, as well as green or liberal parties such as, for example, Macron’s La Republique En Marche, are difficult to place on the traditional left−right scale (Dalton, 2018, p. 217).

Today, the larger political parties are less distinct in left−right terms, meaning that it is more difficult for voters to base their electoral choice on ideological preference, which has previously been the main electoral determinant (Van der Brug, 2010, p. 589). It appears as though socio-economic factors are not as important as they have historically been in determining electoral behaviour, as voters are becoming detached from the established parties (Dal Bó et al., 2018, p. 6). An example is how low-income Americans vote against their own interest when they are more inclined to vote for the Republican party, which indicates that values have come to play a more important role than before in determining electoral behaviour, in comparison to personal economic gain (Inglehart and Norris, 2017, p. 452). Traditionally, educated and financially secure groups have voted for conservative parties, but

9 there has been a shift where these groups are more inclined to vote for left or liberal parties and the divide appears to be between liberal and authoritarian values (Inglehart and Norris, 2017, p. 444).

According to Dal Bó et al. the Sweden Democrats’ voters are outsiders/non-secure insiders on the job market, who are in general worse off economically over the past decade (Dal Bó et al., 2018). This could indicate that it is not the actual economic situation that determines the vote, but the perceived relative economic situation.

When discussing electoral behaviour in general and radical right-wing voting in particular, it is important to remember that many different factors are at play simultaneously, making it difficult to isolate particular explanatory variables. For example, unemployed or people with lower incomes are seen as more likely to vote for radical right-wing parties. But at the same time, younger voters are more likely to be unemployed while older voters are more likely to vote for these parties (Inglehart and Norris, 2017, p. 446), and women generally have lower income than men while men are more likely to vote for the radical right (Ivarsflaten and Harteveld, 2016; Inglehart and Norris, 2017, p. 446). This indicates that simply looking at socio-economic factors will not be enough to explain the support for radical right-wing parties.

The vast majority of previous research has paid much attention to anti-immigration attitudes as a determinant of radical right voting. This is a quite intuitive focus, since the radical right- wing party family is often referred to as xenophobic or immigrant-sceptic parties. A core feature in their ideology is nativism, which means valuing the native population over immigrants (Zhirkov, 2014, p. 287) and therefore by default the parties will be sceptic towards immigration, especially from other ethnic or religious groups. Supporting immigration restrictions is the main uniting factor of radical right-wing voters (Ivarsflaten, 2008, p. 15; Ivarsflaten and Harteveld, 2016, p. 369). On other policy matters, radical right- wing voters are more diverging. Immigration sentiments seem to play a large role for radical right-wing voting, but it does not have to correlate with actual number of immigrants in a country (Dal Bó et al., 2018, p. 7).

In recent years, a few studies have conducted large-N comparative studies of the voters of radical right parties in Western Europe. Ivarsflaten (2008), Zhirkov (2014), and Rooduijn (2018) have all used ESS data from in order to study what unites the voter basis of the radical right.

Ivarsflaten (2008), presents three different grievance models which are often used for explaining radical right voting: economic changes, political disillusionment, and concerns over immigration. After investigating them separately, she concludes that the immigration grievance model is best suited to explain populist right-wing voting (Ivarsflaten, 2008, p. 15).

Zhirkov (2014) compares radical right-wing voters to moderate right-wing voters, left−wing voters and those who abstain from voting altogether, in eleven Western European countries. He concludes that radical right-wing voters are motivated by political attitudes such as opposition to immigration, political mistrust and opposition to income redistribution, rather than post-materialist values (Zhirkov, 2014, p. 286). Zhirkov operationalises post-materialist values as tolerance towards gays and lesbians and participation in direct political protest (Zhirkov, 2014, p. 288).

Rooduijn investigates the voters of 15 populist parties in Western Europe, both populist left−wing and populist right-wing voters. His conclusion is that there is no typical populist voter, even though many share similar traits (Rooduijn, 2018, p. 365). However, Rooduijn includes voters for both left− and right-wing populist parties in his study, which means that the conclusion that there is no typical populist voter might be because of the difference between left− and right-wing populist parties and voters. Rooduijn does find that populist right-wing voters are in general less educated, from lower classes and to a larger extent unemployed, and this does have an effect on populist right-wing voting in most of the investigated parties (Rooduijn, 2018, p. 355).

As mentioned above, the previous literature on radical right voting focuses mainly on three explanations for this electoral behaviour: socio-economic (individual) explanations, anti- immigration explanations, and value-oriented explanations. Of these three explanations, the value-oriented one is the least examined. Though values are often mentioned as a factor affecting radical right voting, there has not been much research examining the impact values could have.

The effect of values on electoral behaviour is often mentioned in the context of political realignment, where it exemplifies a liberal−authoritarian party axis (ex. Inglehart and Norris, 2017; Dalton, 2018). A highly politicised value along this axis, which has not yet been studied in relation to radical right-wing voting, is one’s attitude towards the environment. This study will use environmental attitudes as independent variable, examining its relationship with radical right-wing voting.

2.3 Environmental attitudes Environmental protection has long been considered a “valence issue”, meaning that there is a near-consensus of the objective, in this case a clean environment, and party competition focuses more on performance than on the end goal (Gemenis, Katsanidou and Vasilopoulou, 2012, p. 2).

However, as party group, radical right parties are more anti-environmentalist than other parties (Gemenis, Katsanidou and Vasilopoulou, 2012, p. 18), and green parties are often mentioned as their antagonists, by media, academia and the parties themselves. Radical right parties have often tried to mobilize a backlash against green politics, appealing to voters who oppose political intervention to protect the environment (Ivarsflaten, 2008, p. 8).

A theory often referred to when studying the emergence of both green and radical right-wing parties in high-income countries, is the theory on post-materialist values (Inglehart and Norris, 2017, p. 444). It is also known as the Silent Revolution thesis, and was first introduced by Inglehart in 1977. According to the Silent Revolution thesis, the security in high-income countries after World War II made younger generations embrace values such as freedom of speech, environmental protection, gender equality, and tolerance towards people who do deviate from the societal norms (Inglehart and Norris, 2017, p. 443). This generated a clash between generations, as the younger post-war generations were more inclined to embrace post-materialist values than their parents had been.

Today, due to “unprecedented levels of social and economic security”, values and social issues are more important than economy in deciding voting behaviour today (Zhirkov, 2014, p. 288). This has led to a change in political demand which has brought with it a realignment of the political spectrum, as the electorate can no longer just be placed on a left−right axis but also on a “libertarian−authoritarian” scale (Ennser, 2012, p. 153).

Inglehart described the emergence and success of the green parties in Europe as a sign of a post-materialist–materialist cleavage, as the green constituency was made up of the young and well-educated (Inglehart, 1977). However, Inglehart and Norris (2017, p. 444) argue that post- materialism “eventually became its own gravedigger”. As traditional values were eroded in favour of post-materialist ones advocated by the educated elites, it provoked those who felt left out or threatened by this development and eventually led to the growing support for

12 radical right parties (Inglehart and Norris, 2017, p. 444). In that way, environmental and climate policies have often been seen as a special interest for the elites.

The green parties of Europe and their electorates are often seen as representatives for post- materialist values (Ivarsflaten, 2008, p. 8; Inglehart and Norris, 2017, p. 445). This is both due to the fact that environmental protection is a typical post-materialist value, and that it is the only post-materialist issue which has laid the foundation for a new party family. The Pirate Parties of Sweden and Iceland can to some extent be said to encompass post-materialist values, but they have remained peripheral and have not seen the international success of the green parties (Kopraleva, 2017). The same applies to the Swedish Feminist Party, which won one seat in the EU Parliament in the 2014 election but have not managed to gain enough support to enter the Swedish parliament, and does not have successful international counterparts (Coleman, 2015).

Environmental policies are often connected to climate change, which is a highly politicised issue. Tvinnerheim and Ivarsflaten (2016) challenge the idea of sceptics and acceptors when talking of climate change, and instead argue that people are more or less supportive of policies which affect them personally (Tvinnereim and Ivarsflaten, 2016, p. 369).

Policies targeting certain patterns of behaviour are often protested by those complying or identifying with this behaviour (Price, Walker and Boschetti, 2014, p. 8). Following the common theory that populist right-wing voters are so called “losers of globalisation” (Rooduijn, 2018, p. 352), environmental policies could trigger people to vote for the parties which oppose them the strongest. As the “losers of globalisation” often work in manufacturing industries, environmental policies – especially when aimed at reducing climate change – could be interpreted as targeting them directly.

Because of the parliamentary system in the Nordic countries, there is room for more issue- specific parties. Post-materialist values effect on electoral behaviour is less evident in countries with two-party systems, such as the United States (Inglehart and Norris, 2017, p. 445).

Which issues become salient in determining voting behaviour is to some extent determined by the parties competing for representation. Whether or not cultural or economic issues are more important in determining voting behaviour depends to some extent by which parties are competing for votes in a country (Dalton, 2018, p. 135). If there is a party representing for

13 example a green or an anti-immigration stance, it will have an effect on how important these are for voters.

This means that the existence and electoral success of a green liberal party would make the liberal−authoritarian debate, as well as the debate on environmental values, more prominent in determining electoral behaviour. In countries with green parties in their parliaments, environmental attitudes would more politicised and could have a larger effect on radical right- wing voting.

Therefore, environmental attitudes could have an effect on political behaviour, where positive attitudes towards the environment would mean stronger support for green parties, and negative attitudes towards the environment would lead to stronger support for radical right parties. Looking at the relationship between these two factors would contribute to the research on radical right electoral behaviour.

3 Case selection This study will focus on the relationship between environmental attitudes and radical right- wing voting in the five Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. In practice, this means that it focuses on the relationship between caring for the environment and voting for one of the five Nordic radical right-wing parties: the Danish People’s Party, the Finns’ Party, the Icelandic Progressive Party, the Norwegian Progress Party or the Sweden Democrats.

Previous research on radical right-wing voters have focused on large-N comparisons conducted on a large number of countries (ex. Zhirkov, 2014; Rooduijn et al., 2017; Rooduijn, 2018), where researchers attempt to find common explanatory factors for the electoral success of radical right-wing parties in Western Europe, or they have zoomed in on a specific country and party and investigated its’ voters (ex. Westinen, 2014; Dal Bó et al., 2018), thus focusing on national context. This study hopes to fill a void between these two types of studies, by making a cross-country comparison over a small number of countries. That way, it will be possible to take national context into account while still being able to generalise the results to a higher extent than national case-studies.

Previous studies have looked at countries where radical right-wing parties have been particularly successful in past elections. However, the political landscape in Europe has

14 changed over the past decades, and radical right-wing parties have fairly stable electoral bases in most Western European countries (Rooduijn, 2018, p. 351).

3.1 Limiting the study to the Nordic countries Using the Nordic radical right parties as a sample can be justified by the most similar systems design (MSSD), as the Nordic countries make up a region and share many important traits such as welfare regimes, language, and secularism, and their respective political landscape has for long been dominated by five traditional parties (Jungar and Jupskås, 2014, p. 215). Also, the Nordic radical right parties are similar when it comes to rhetoric, ideology and electoral support.

Limiting the study to the five Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, makes it possible to formulate hypotheses deriving from the specific traits of the parties. When comparing macro variables in a few country study, one can focus on intra- national developments as well as international and include a contextual analysis. This gives a lower level of abstraction, but a higher validity (Landman, 2008, p. 69).

It is interesting to include national context as a factor, and look at whether or not there are country specific factors affecting how much caring for the environment is related to radical right voting. After all, a typical trait of those valuing nationalism would be that national context is important. By comparing fewer cases than previous scholars, more attention can be paid to the national context and the complex relationships between values and electoral behaviour. This attention to context and complexity is an advantage of smaller-N comparative work (Coppedge, 1999, p. 471). Comparing few countries makes for a more intensive than extensive study, as it allows the researcher to take a closer look at the cases comprising the sample (Landman, 2008, p. 69).

Internationally, the Nordic countries are often seen as beacons of social democracy, stability, gender equality and peace (Bergmann, 2017, p. 1). This is also a common self-image in the Nordic region. But in recent years, radical right-wing parties with anti-establishment agendas have gained seats in parliament in all five Nordic countries, their vote shares ranging from 11 to 21 percent. Even though the parties have emerged from different starting points, they share many traits today. Jungar and Jupskås (2014) even argue that the Nordic Populist Radical Right-wing parties could make out their own party family or classification.

Each of the Nordic countries has one party which can be classified as radical right-wing. The parties and their vote shares in past elections are presented in the table below.

Denmark Finland Iceland Norway Sweden DFP PSS FSF FrP SD 2010 14.8 % 22.9 % 5.7 % 2011 12.3 % 19 % 2012 2013 24.4 % 16.3 % 2014 12.9 % 2015 21.1 % 17.6 % 2016 11.5 % 2017 10.7 % 15.2 % 2018 17.5 % Table 1: Election results for Nordic radical right-wing parties, 2010-2018 (Parties and Elections in Europe, 2018; Armingeon et al., 2018).

However, there are also many aspects differentiating the parties from each other. One of the most prominent is party history. The radical right parties in Denmark and Norway started out as anti-tax movements in the 70s, the Sweden Democrats as a neo-Nazi party, the Icelandic Progressive Party is a mainstream agrarian party turned radical right-wing rather recently, and the Finns Party started as a faction of an agrarian-populist party (Bergmann, 2017).

In the following section, the parties will be presented more thoroughly, which will lay ground for formulating hypotheses.

3.2 The Radical Right-wing Parties in the Nordic Countries In each Nordic parliament, there is one party which could be classified within the radical right-wing party family. However, the parties have different history and to different extents been accepted by the mainstream parties.

3.2.1 Denmark: Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti, DFP) In previous research on radical right-wing parties, the Danish People’s Party is one of the most used cases, and the party is usually placed within the radical right-wing category without much discussion (see for example Mudde, 2007; Bergmann, 2017; Ivarsflaten, 2008; Roodujin, 2017). According to Mudde, the Danish People’s Party has since its’ start “been unequivocally populist radical right, despite keeping its distance from similar parties like the Front National and Vlaams Belang” (Mudde, 2007, p. 43).

The Danish People’s Party originated from the Danish Progress Party, which like its’ Norwegian namesake had been founded in the 1970s as an anti-tax neo-liberal party. In 1995, Pia Kjaersgaard left the Progress Party together with some of the party’s leading politicians, and formed the Danish People’s Party, which soon outcompeted its’ predecessor (Bergmann, 2017, p. 54). The fact that the party was founded, and for many years led, by a woman makes it stand out among radical right parties in Europe (Mudde, 2007, p. 43).

The main difference between the Progress Party and the Danish People’s Party is that the latter advocate a strong welfare state as well as a harsh anti-immigrant legislation (Bergmann, 2017, p. 65). In social and economic policies the DFP tend to lean more towards the left then their predecessor as they have adopted a welfare-chauvinist agenda, inspired to an extent by the successful adoption of welfare issues by the Norwegian Progress Party (Klein, 2013, p. 112).

However, the party is strongly welfare chauvinist, as they believe that the generous welfare state should be the sole prerogative of the Danish people (Bergmann, 2017, p. 65). They also stress in their party manifesto that the Danish welfare should be generous, but reserved for Danish nationals (Dansk Folkeparti, 2018). They are value conservative and authoritarian, stressing family values and law and order (Rydgren, 2010, p. 2).

Opposing immigration and protecting Danish culture are two values at the very core of the DFP, and they regard both immigration and European integration as threats against Denmark (Klein, 2013, p. 111). Today, Denmark has one of the toughest immigration legislations in Western Europe (Bergmann, 2017, p. 66), which illustrates the unique impact the DFP has had on Danish politics even when not in government. This has been made possible because of Denmark’s long tradition of minority governments, which has made it necessary to negotiate between parties (Mudde, 2007, p. 43).

In recent years, the Danish People’s Party has become more accepted by the mainstream parties and was after the 2015 election asked by the Liberal Party (Venstre) to support their minority government (Bergmann, 2017, p. 66).

The Danish People’s Party’s electoral base follows the pattern of radical right-wing voters in Western Europe. Their voters are to a large extent men, who older and less-educated than the average voter, and only a minority live in any of the larger cities (Lund, 2014). Many of the Danish People’s Party voters come from the Social Democratic Party, and in comparison with people who vote for other parties, they particularly low levels of trust in politics (Klein, 2013, p. 109).

The Danish People’s Party can be classified as a radical right party, as its core lies on anti- immigration and ethno-nationalism, they use a populist rhetoric criticising the “elites” and see themselves as the rightful representatives of the Danish people (Rydgren, 2010, p. 21).

In their manifesto, the Danish People’s Party do not mention climate change challenges, but emphasise the importance of a clean environment for future generations (Dansk Folkeparti, 2018).

Denmark is the only Nordic country that does not have a successful green party (Jungar and Jupskås, 2014, p. 233). The closest alternative is the Red-Green Alliance (Enhedslisten), a party that got 7.8 % of the votes in the 2015 election (Parties and Elections in Europe, 2018). It is the most left-wing party in Denmark, and part of the European United Left−Nordic Green Left group of the EU parliament. The new party The Alternative (Alternativet) also identify themselves as green (Alternativet, 2018), and entered the Danish parliament after receiving 4.8 % of the votes in the 2015 election (Parties and Elections in Europe, 2018).

3.2.2 Finland: Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset, PS) The Finns Party, formerly known in English as the True Finns, is like the Danish People’s Party often classified as radical right-wing in literature (Westinen, 2014, p. 225; see Zhirkov, 2014, p. 290; Rooduijn, 2018, p. 358). However, their rhetoric on immigration is less aggressive than, for example, the Danish People’s Party or the Sweden Democrats (Arter, 2010, p. 503). A unique feature of the Finns Party is that they self-identify as populist, claiming that populism is the opposite of bureaucratic and elitist (Raunio, 2013, pp. 133–134).

The Finns Party was founded in 1995, filling the electoral gap created when former populist Finnish Agrarian Party (Suomen Maasedun Puolue, SMP) was dissolved (Bergmann, 2017, p. 82).

Through a strong anti-establishment rhetoric, the Finns Party managed to increase their vote share by 15 percentage points between the 2007 and 2011 elections, going from 4.1 % to 19.1 % vote share (Bergmann, 2017, pp. 83–84). This was mainly due to the Eurozone crisis in 2008, which sparked a debate on the EU- and EMU-membership in Finland, and there was a notable clash between the Finns Party and the mainstream parties (Raunio, 2013, pp. 136– 137).

In the following election, in 2015, the party got 17.7 % of the vote. Despite the earlier clash with the mainstream parties, the Finns Party joined a centre-right coalition government (Bergmann, 2017, p. 84).

The Finns Party also have a strong ethno-nationalist core. In recent years, the Finns Party has sharpened their anti-immigration politics, but the ethno-nationalism has also been evident from the start, in the strong criticism of Swedish influence and the rights of the Swedish speaking minority, as well as the rights of the Sami minority in northern Finland (Bergmann, 2017, pp. 85–86).

Finland has a relatively low number of immigrants in comparison with Sweden, Denmark or Norway, and the success of the Finns Party indicates that it is possible to win votes on a strong anti-immigration agenda even in a country which has low inflows of migrants (Jungar and Jupskås, 2014, p. 232).

Perhaps not surprisingly because of the criticism against the Swedish speaking minority, the Finns Party is stronger in areas where there are few Swedish speakers (Westinen, 2014, p. 138). Their support is also stronger where unemployment is higher, a larger proportion of the workforce is in the construction or industry sector, there is low population density, and low proportion of foreigners (Westinen, 2014, pp. 137–140).

While advocating as little government intervention as possible, the Finns Party also, quite contradictory, stress the importance of maintaining a Nordic model welfare state (Raunio, 2013, p. 139). They are conservative on social issues such as family values and law and order, but centre-left when it comes to redistribution (ibid., p. 139). The Finns Party is welfare

19 chauvinist, as they emphasise that the benefits of a strong welfare state should be reserved for native Finns (Bergmann, 2017, p. 86).

The Finns Party has made out the party the Green League (Vihreä liitto) to be their main antagonist, attacking both the party and “the green political agenda” in general (Raunio, 2013, p. 140). In their party programme, they also emphasize the importance of not protecting the environment at the cost of Finnish industry (Buchert, 2018).

3.2.3 Iceland: Progressive Party (Framsóknarflokkurinn, FSF) The Icelandic Progressive Party is somewhat of a wild card when discussing Nordic radical right-wing parties. The party started out as an agrarian party, and recently celebrated their 100 year anniversary. It has been the country’s largest party and held the presidency. The Progressive Party stands out among the Nordic radical right parties, as it did not start out as neither populist, radical nor even particularly right-wing. Over the past century, the party cooperated with both right- and left-wing parties, but after the financial crisis in 2008 the Progressive Party became much more radical (Bergmann, 2017, p. 112). A reason for this shift was the change of party leadership after the crisis, when Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson took over the party. Under his leadership, the party has adopted a Eurosceptic and anti-Muslim rhetoric, even though there are very few Muslims in Iceland (ibid., p. 45). Many of the more liberal voters left the party due to this change (ibid., p. 115).

As Iceland declared independence as late as 1944, the struggle for an independent nation has been an important factor in explaining the country’s politics. The fight for recognition and sovereignty has in led to a wide-spread ethnocentrism and scepticism towards foreigners. Therefore, it can be difficult to separate the nationalism of the Progressive Party from the nationalism seen across the Icelandic political spectra. (Bergmann, 2017, pp. 96–99).

However, Gunnlaugsson has to a much greater extent built a narrative around the Icelandic “Viking heritage”, by which he means that Icelanders under no circumstances should be the subjects of foreign authority (Bergmann, 2017, p. 114). Gunnlaugsson has also announced that he will only eat Icelandic food (ibid., p. 114). The party leadership dismissed criticism as “tactics of urban elitist left-leaning liberals” (ibid., p. 115).

In the parliamentary elections in 2013, the Progressive Party won a quarter of the votes and the party’s leader Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson was named president (Bergmann, 2017, p. 94). The same year, one of the party’s leading MPs, Vigdís Hauksdóttir, argued that asylum seekers should wear GPS tracking devices around their ankles (Bergmann, 2017, p. 115),

20 which is an example of how the anti-immigrant rhetoric had become more prominent. Gunnlaugsson stepped down as president after the Panama Papers’ scandal in 2016 (Bergmann, 2017, p. 117).

Bergmann argues that because of the strong nationalist rhetoric and the criticism of the “establishment”, the Progressive Party has become more and more similar to the Norwegian Progress Party (Bergmann, 2017, p. 120). The Icelandic party also shares their history as an agrarian party with the Finns Party, a fact that according to Bergmann makes is possible to some extent to draw parallels between the Progressive Party and the Finns Party (ibid.).

Radical right-wing parties usually surge from a political opposition. However, a mainstream party converting into a radical right party is not an unknown phenomenon but there are other examples of this in Europe, for example the Austrian Freedom Party and the Swiss People’s Party (Heinisch and Mazzoleni, 2016, pp. 223–224).

The Progressive Party emphasize the Icelandic nature as an economic resource in their party program. Their environmental policy is highly influenced by the fact that the beautiful nature is Iceland’s main tourist attraction, and that the country is dependent on protecting their natural resources to produce energy (Framsóknarflokkurinn, 2018).

The fact that the environment is important to the Icelanders is illustrated by the fact that the country’s three-party coalition government is currently headed by the Left-Green Movement (Vinstrihreyfingin – grænt framboð), an eco-socialist party that received 22.8 % of the votes in the 2017 election (Thorsson, 2017).

3.2.4 Norway: Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet, FrP) Bergmann refers to the Norwegian Progress Party as “perhaps the mildest and most successful right-wing populist political party in Europe (Bergmann, 2017, p. 192). Since 2013, they have been part of the centre-right government led by Erna Solberg from the Conservative Party (regjeringen.no, 2018).

It has been debated whether the Norwegian Progress Party can be included in the same party family as the radical right-wing parties, or if it is too different. For example, Mudde classifies the Progress Party as a “populist neoliberal party” and not populist radical right, as he argues that they do not have a strong enough nativist core ideology even though they occasionally run xenophobic campaigns (Mudde, 2007, p. 47).

However, there are several authors (for example Bergmann, 2017, p. 154; Jungar and Jupskås, 2014, p. 225; Zhirkov, 2014, p. 290) who argue that the Progress Party can in fact be classified as a radical right-wing party, since the party has in the past decade downplayed the liberal stance in favour of an anti-immigrant, nationalist stance that does indicate a nativist core.

When it was founded in 1973, the Progress Party was called “Anders Lange’s Party for a Strong Reduction in Taxes, Duties and Public Intervention”, and as the name indicates the party had a strong libertarian core (Bergmann, 2017, p. 139). But since 1989, the party has been developing towards being more anti-establishment and anti-immigrant than anti-tax (ibid., p. 141). After internal conflicts in the 1990s, the more liberal faction left the party, allowing the party to make a right turn (Heinisch and Mazzoleni, 2016, p. 235).

The Norwegian Progress Party was categorised as a protest party by the Comparative Political Data Set until 2013, when it was instead categorised as right-populist or ultra-right party (Armingeon et al., 2018).

When Siv Jensen took over as party leader in 2006, the party moved more towards the mainstream – with a “fuller political portfolio” – and managed to broaden their platform (Bergmann, 2017, p. 149). Even though the party still claims to be liberal, the party has adopted more welfare-chauvinist than liberal politics (ibid., p. 143). They also claim to represent the “ordinary people” (Jupskås, 2016, p. 161).

The Progress Party turned towards radical right-wing party as a way to increase electoral support (Heinisch and Mazzoleni, 2016, p. 225). Economic policies are more salient in the Progress Party’s agenda than for the Danish People’s Party, the Finns Party or the Sweden Democrats, but economy is still less important for the Progress Party than immigration issues and law-and-order (Jungar and Jupskås, 2014, p. 222).

The Progress Party has suppressed extremist and ultranationalist factions by expelling people for expressing such opinions (Bergmann, 2017, p. 152), which was also an active office- seeking strategy (Jupskås, 2016, p. 177). That way, they have gained legitimacy and become far more accepted by the mainstream parties than their Nordic counterparts (Bergmann, 2017, p. 155).

The Progress Party’s environmental policy is largely based on the idea that a majority of pollution comes from other countries, meaning that any Norwegian environmental policy will

22 not make an actual difference for the environment, but instead put unnecessary constraints on Norwegian economy (Fremskrittspartiet, 2018).

Norway’s Green Party (Miljøpartiet De Grønne) got 3.2 % of the votes in the 2017 election (Parties and Elections in Europe, 2018), giving them one seat in the Norwegian parliament. They have close ties to the Swedish Green Party, and identify as centre-left.

3.2.5 Sweden: Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna, SD) Along with the Danish People’s Party and the Finns Party, the Sweden Democrats are often included without much discussion in the radical right-wing party family. However, the other Nordic parties have been reluctant to be associated with them as they have been portrayed as extreme right and more or less isolated by the Swedish mainstream parties (Rydgren, 2010, p. 17). The mainstream parties have upheld a “cordon sanitaire” strategy, or a strategy of isolation, towards the Sweden Democrats, mainly because of the party’s neo-Nazi roots (Jungar, 2016, p. 190), a factor that differentiates the party from the other Nordic radical right-wing parties.

In 1996, the Sweden Democrats expelled several founding members in order to distance itself from the neo-Nazi factions (Heinisch and Mazzoleni, 2016, p. 235). From 2005 and onwards, the party has gone through a prominent de-radicalisation, leading to the parliamentary breakthrough in 2010 when the Sweden Democrats got 5.7 % of the votes (Bergmann, 2017, p. 180). However, even though the party underwent a process of de-radicalisation they can still be categorised as radical right-wing, as today they are similar to other European parties in this category (Bergmann, 2017, p. 180).

The Sweden Democrats was not the first populist, radical right-wing party to enter the Swedish Parliament. They were preceded by New Democracy (Ny Demokrati) who gained 6.7 % of the votes in the 1991 election, getting 25 seats in the parliament (Klein, 2013, p. 117). However, while New Democracy only lasted one term in the parliament, the Sweden Democrats have continued to grow since they entered the parliament in 2010 (Klein, 2013, p. 112). In the 2018 election, they received 17.5 % of the votes, making them the third largest party.

As for the Danish People’s Party and the Finns Party, social and moral values play a larger role than economic policy in the Sweden Democrats’ ideology and party programme. But even more important are issues revolving immigration and law-and-order. (Jungar and Jupskås, 2014, p. 222)

When it comes to advocating conservative values, the Sweden Democrats are right-wing, but their stance on redistributive policies is not particularly right-wing. Economically, the Sweden Democrats can be placed to the right of the Social Democrats but to the left of the conservative Moderate Party in economic politics (Jylhä, Rydgren and Strimling, 2018, p. 27).

The Sweden Democrat voters are outsiders or non-secure insiders on the labour market, and they have in general become worse off economically over the past decade (Dal Bó et al., 2018, p. 2). Their voters are also highly critical towards immigration – 98 % agree that immigration to Sweden should be mitigated (Jylhä, Rydgren and Strimling, 2018, p. 28).

The Sweden Democrats’ value law-and-order, and criticise ideas of feminism and multi- cultural education (Dal Bó et al., 2018, p. 5). They are also welfare-chauvinist, nationalist and strongly anti-establishment (Jylhä, Rydgren and Strimling, 2018, p. 28). Hence, they can be included in the radical right party family.

The Sweden Democrats’ official policy on environmentalism has a clear nationalist dimension, as it focuses on protecting the homeland and the “Swedish roots”, as they are closely connected to the culture and national identity. They also argue that environmental protection should not come to the cost of individual’s lifestyle and behaviour, for example by raising the price of gasoline (Sverigedemokraterna, 2018).

The Green Party (Miljöpartiet), is a liberal-green party, which has been part of a minority coalition government together with the Social Democrats from 2014 to 2018. In the 2018 election, they got 4.4 % of the votes (Valmyndigheten, 2018), a clear decrease from the previous election when they got 6.8 % (Armingeon et al., 2018). In their election campaign preceding the 2014 election, the Green Party considered the Sweden Democrats to be its’ main antagonist, both due to their opposite stance on the liberal–authoritarian value axis, and due to the fact that they were both aiming at becoming the third largest party (Miljöpartiet, 2018).

3.3 Can all the parties be classified as radical right-wing? Three of the five parties are with near-consensus classified as radical right-wing parties in previous literature: the Danish People’s Party, the Finns Party and the Sweden Democrats. Even though they have very different party history, they have converged ideologically and rhetorically, all three being welfare-chauvinist, anti-immigration, value conservative, and

24 populist. They resemble each other concerning party names and patterns of transnational cooperation, which are ways to indicate a party family (Jungar and Jupskås, 2015, p. 232).

The Norwegian Progress Party is often included in the same party group as the other parties, but due to the fact that it is more accepted by mainstream parties and have a much stronger neo-liberal economic policy, the Progress Party is sometimes excluded. Jungar and Jupskås (2015) argue that the Progress Party can be considered as the Norwegian equivalent of a populist radical right party, as they have the same function in Norway as the SD, PS or DFP in their respective countries.

The Danish People’s Party, the Finns Party, the Norwegian Progress Party and the Sweden Democrats are all labelled as “right-populist parties and ultra-right parties” in the 2018 edition of the Comparative Political Data Set, while the Icelandic Progressive Party is labelled as an agrarian party (Armingeon et al., 2018).

One could argue that the Icelandic Progressive Party could be included in the radical right- wing party family on the same grounds as the Norwegian Progress Party, with the disclaimer that it would be the Icelandic equivalent of a radical right-wing party rather than a clear-cut example of one. Except for Bergmann (2017), the Icelandic party has not been mentioned in previous literature on radical right parties. This could be because of the recent shift of the party, or because Iceland is such a small and peripheral country.

According to Rydgren’s definition of a radical right-wing party, a party is radical if it criticises the establishment, the democratic process and the ideals of liberal democracy, and right-wing if they advocate authoritarianism and socially conservative values, such as law- and-order, anti-abortion and nationalism (Rydgren, 2007, pp. 243–244). As presented above, the Danish People’s Party, the Finns Party, the Icelandic Progressive Party, the Norwegian Progress Party and the Sweden Democrats all criticise the “establishment” or “elites”, they are anti-immigration, especially from Muslim countries, and sceptical towards European integration. They all have a nationalist and nativist rhetoric, and they value law-and-order. These traits are in line with the definition of radical right-wing parties.

All five parties have accepted the democratic procedures, and seek representation through national elections. This differentiates them from the extreme right.

A common way to define a party family is through their patterns of transnational cooperation (Jungar and Jupskås, 2014, p. 232). But since the Sweden Democrats have been shunned to

25 such a great extent by the other Swedish parties, often referred to as extreme right and affected by their neo-Nazi roots, the other Nordic radical right parties have been reluctant to cooperate openly with them. The nationalist or nativist core of the parties also make them more sceptical to foreign counterparts, and more shaped by national contexts than other party families (Ennser, 2012, p. 154). This has made transnational contacts difficult to use as an indicator of a radical right-wing party family.

Today, however, the Sweden Democrats are more accepted by the other Nordic radical right parties, which can be illustrated by the fact that the Sweden Democrats, The Finns Party and the Danish People’s Party are in the same European Parliament party group, “European Conservatives and Reformists”, together with parties such as the Polish Law and Justice and the UK Conservative party.

According to Jungar and Jupskås, social and moral values outrank economic policy in the agendas of the Danish People’s Party, the Finns Party and the Sweden Democrats, but due to the strong anti-tax legacy of the Norwegian Progress Party they do not play as big a role there (Jungar and Jupskås, 2014, p. 222). As the Icelandic Progressive Party is more similar to the Progress Party than the other parties, it is reasonable to assume that social and moral values play a smaller part there as well.

3.5 Hypotheses In this section, two hypotheses are derived from the theories on radical right parties and post- materialist values, and the specific cases presented. The first hypothesis is general for the correlation between post-materialist values and radical right voting, while the second emphasises context-specific factors.

As stated in the theory on environmental values, people who value the environment also tend to embrace other post-materialist values such as freedom and immigration. People who value authoritarianism and nationalism on the other hand, tend to be less supportive of environmental policies. People whose behaviour is directly affected by environmental policies are less likely to be in favour of them. Radical right parties are also anti-environmentalist to a larger extent than other parties. Hence, we can formulate the hypothesis (H1): Voters who think that it is important to care for nature and the environment are less likely to support radical right-wing parties.

Nationalism is a strong feature in radical right-wing ideology, which entails that the radical right-wing parties are to a greater extent than others affected by national context. Therefore, it is plausible to assume that national contextual factors could affect the relationship between post-materialist values and radical right voting differs in the five Nordic countries.

Since the Danish People’s Party, the Finns Party and the Sweden Democrats in their party programs put a larger emphasis on social and moral values than on economic policy (Jungar and Jupskås, 2014, p. 222), we have reason to believe that their voters have the same priorities. Therefore, in line with the post-materialist value thesis, determinant factors for radical right-wing voting would be along a liberal−authoritarian axis, rather than a traditional left−right axis. In this sense, environmental values matter more for radical right-wing voting than for mainstream party-voting.

Another factor affecting how environmental attitudes affect radical right voting could be the history and origin of the different radical right-wing parties.

The Norwegian Progress Party has ever since it was founded had a strong anti-tax agenda. This could indicate that their voters are sceptical to all kinds of public intervention, which environmental policies often are clear examples of. For this reason, it is probable that Progress Party voters are less inclined to care for nature and the environment.

To some extent this could also be the case for the Danish People’s Party, as they were preceded by an anti-tax party, the libertarian Danish Progress Party. However, the Danish People’s Party have developed in a quite different direction from their predecessor, and for the past 20 years the anti-tax agenda has been abandoned.

The Icelandic Progressive Party stands out, as it started out as an agrarian party and remained one until recently. And due to the exceptional role that the Icelandic nature plays for nationalist sentiments, caring for the environment could also have a different effect on voting for the Progressive Party on Iceland, in comparison to the other Nordic radical right-wing parties. This could even entail that caring for the environment has a positive or neutral effect on their vote share, as there may be voters from the party’s traditional electoral base who have not changed attitudes nor party even though the party has changed, especially since the shift has been fairly recent.

The second hypothesis would be (H2): The relationship between caring for nature and the environment, and supporting a radical right-wing party is negative in Denmark, Finland,

Norway and Sweden, and in Iceland it stands out as more positive than the in the other countries.

4 Data and methods

4.1 European Social Survey data To empirically test the hypotheses, I am using data from the European Social Survey, rounds 5-8. Round 5 was conducted in 2010, which is the year when the Sweden Democrats first gained seats in the Swedish parliament. Before 2010, their support was too low to be shown in the data. Another reason is that the Icelandic Progressive Party shifted from mainstream agrarian party to radical right-wing after the economic crisis in 2008 and Gunnlaugsson’s accession to party leader in 2009. This means that from 2010 and onwards, data for all Nordic countries is comparable and can therefore be used in this analysis.

Country Years ESS rounds Denmark 2010, 2013, 2014 5, 6, 7 Finland 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016 5, 6, 7, 8 Iceland 2012, 2017 6, 8 Norway 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016 5, 6, 7, 8 Sweden 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016 5, 6, 7, 8 Table 2: Included ESS rounds

4.2 Data delimitations Iceland only participated in ESS rounds 2, 6, and 8. This means that in this study, only ESS rounds 6 and 8 include data for Iceland, while ESS rounds 5 and 7 do not. Denmark did not take part in ESS round 8 which means that the latest data from Denmark was collected in 2014.

ESS round 6 was conducted in 2012 in all countries except Denmark, where it was conducted in 2013. ESS round 8 was conducted in 2016 in all participating countries except for Iceland, where round 8 was conducted in 2017.

When comparing data from multiple countries, there is a risk that the samples are biased in different ways and therefore not completely comparable. To correct for sampling-related bias,

ESS provides weights which can be applied to the regressions. However, these weights only correct for certain bias caused by sampling methods between countries, thus they do not correct for other biases.

Since the latest Danish data is from 2014, it does not include the new green party The Alternative, which is probably the most evident example of post-materialist values in Danish politics. The Alternative entered the Danish parliament in 2015, after winning 4.8 % of the votes (Armingeon et al., 2018).

4.3 Variables 4.3.1 Dependent variable: Radical right-wing voting Two survey questions from the European Social Survey could be used to measure party sympathies: “Which party did you vote for in the last election?”, and “Which party do you feel closer to?” For this study, I have decided to use “Which party do you feel closer to”, as it increases the number of observations. The European Social Survey is conducted every two years, and parliamentary elections are held every four years in all five countries (not counting snap elections). Therefore, by using the variable for which party the respondent voted, every other observation would be a duplicate of the previous one, effectively halving the number of observations. There is however a risk of a skewed result due to tactical voting, where a respondent feels closest to one party but for strategic reasons vote for another. To control for this I reran the regressions with the variable for which party a respondent voted for in the latest election, which gave similar results.

I created five binary variables, one for each Nordic country, where feeling closest to a radical right party (DFP, PS, FSF, FrP or SD) is coded as 1, and feeling closer to any other party as 0. The responses “other”, “don’t know” and “refuse” have been set to missing. A sixth variable was then created, where the five previous ones were combined into one. The new variable also has the value 1 for feeling closest to a radical right party, and 0 for feeling closest to any other party. This variable is used as the outcome variable in the empirical studies.

When comparing actual election results with the ESS data for feeling closest to a radical right party, one can see that the graphs (Figure 1 and Figure 2 below) for each country have roughly the same shape. This would indicate that the ESS data gives a fair depiction of reality and that the variable “feeling closest to radical right-wing party” can be used to estimate vote share trends.

However, it is also evident in the two graphs that there is a noteworthy difference between election results and ESS data on radical right sympathies. In all five countries and all four ESS rounds, the ESS data shows lower support for radical right parties than the actual election results.

Election results for RRPs

Denmark Finland Iceland Norway Sweden

% 15

0 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Figure 1: Election results for radical right-wing parties in the Nordic countries, 2007-2018 (Parties and Elections in Europe, 2018)

Feeling closest to RRP Denmark Finland Iceland Norway Sweden

% 10

0 5 (2010) 6 (2012) 7 (2014) 8(2016) ESS-ROUND (YEAR)

Figure 2: Feeling closest to radical right party, Nordic countries, ESS 5-8

A plausible reason for the difference between actual election results and ESS responses would be the interviewer effect, where a respondent due to stigma would not want to admit to feeling closest to a radical right party when being interviewed by another person. This could affect the results. Another reason could be that radical right voters are sampled to a lesser extent due to an unknown bias, or that they are more reluctant to participate in the survey.

The difference between mean election results and mean ESS results is largest in Sweden, where the difference is estimated at 7 percentage point, and lowest in Denmark where the difference is estimated at 3 percentage points. The peak in electoral support for the Icelandic Progressive Party in 2013 is also not seen in the ESS data.

The covariance over time and across countries makes it possible to use “Feeling closest to a radical right party” as outcome variable and operationalisation of radical right-wing voting, even though it is lower than the actual results. As the difference between ESS data and election results is consistent and similar in all five countries, it can still be used as an estimate of radical right-wing voting. There is however a risk that correlations will not be significant, since the number of observations will be lower.

The difference between actual election results and the ESS data persists when instead comparing election results to the variable “Which party did you vote for in last election” (see appendix). This variable is used in previous literature (ex. Zhirkov, 2014; Rooduijn, 2018).

As shown in Table 3 below, 10.09 % of the Nordic respondents between 2010 and 2016 felt closest to a populist radical right party, ranging from 12.97 % in Denmark to 5.16 % in Sweden.

Closest to Closest to other party RRP Total

Denmark 2737 408 3145 87.03 % 12.97 % 100 %

Finland 3651 478 4129 88.42 % 11.58 % 100 %

Iceland 1012 118 1130 89.56 % 10.44 % 100 %

Norway 3469 457 3926 88.36 % 11.64 % 100 %

Sweden 4173 227 4400 94.84 % 5.16 % 100 %

Total 15042 1688 16730 89.91 % 10.09 % 100 % Table 3: Percentage of respondents feeling closest to radical right-wing party, ESS rounds 5-8

The low numbers for the Sweden Democrats is likely due to the fact that the party for the first time entered the Swedish parliament in 2010, with 5.7 % of the votes. In the following elections in 2014 and 2018, their support grew. However, the low percentage quota for the Sweden Democrats could be due to a lag in comparison to the other countries where the parties have received a larger vote share for a longer period of time. The Sweden Democrats have also been less accepted by other parties and media, making the interviewer effect due to stigma more probable.

In Sweden, the majority of round 5 ESS interviews were conducted in November 2010, after the results from the September parliamentary elections when the Sweden Democrats won parliamentary representation were final. Had the interviews been conducted earlier the same year, the results could have been more skewed due to stigma.

As the latest published ESS data for Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden is from round 8, it does not account for the rise in electoral support for the Sweden Democrats in the 2018 election, or the election results in Norway 2017.

4.3.2 Independent variable The independent variable, representing environmental attitudes, is the variable “Important to care for nature and the environment”. The variable is measured on an ordinal scale, with responses ranging from 1 to 6. 1 represents that the respondent thinks that the statement that It is important to care for nature and the environment is “not at all like me”, and 6 that the statement is “very much like me”. The variable can be approximated as an interval scale variable.

As the question does not directly ask about environmental policies per se, it could be interpreted as simply “liking the environment”, which would make the results misleading. However, due to the context in which the question is asked, and the way the question is phrased, it is likely that a majority has interpreted “caring for the environment” as it being important to protect the environment.

4.3.3 Control variables In order to further isolate the relationship between environmental attitudes and radical right- wing voting, several control variables are included in the regressions. The first two are attitudinal variables, while the following five are individual.

Political trust: People with less political trust can be expected to be more likely to vote for radical right-wing parties (see Ivarsflaten, 2008; Zhirkov, 2014; Dal Bó et al., 2018; Rooduijn, 2018). I therefore created a variable which measures political trust, by combining the five ESS variables: trust in parliament, trust in politicians, trust in legal system, trust in police, and trust in political parties. The variable for political trust is measured on a scale from 0 to 10, where a higher number indicates higher political trust.

In order to test whether or not the five variables were suitable for an index, they were tested using Chronbach’s Alpha test (which can be found in appendix). The test shows that there is a strong correlation between the five variables, meaning that they can be used to create an index.

Attitudes towards immigrants: Populist radical right parties are often referred to as anti- immigration parties. Therefore, people who are sceptic towards immigrants and immigration are more likely to vote for radical right-wing parties (see Ivarsflaten, 2008; Zhirkov, 2014; Dal Bó et al., 2018; Rooduijn, 2018).

By combining three variables measuring attitudes towards allowing immigrants to come live in the respondent’s country, I created an index ranging from 1 to 4 where 1 stands for “allow none” and 4 for “allow many to come live here”.

The three variables correlate to a great extent, which a Chronbach’s Alpha test confirms (included in appendix).

Attitude towards European integration: Euroscepticism is often associated with radical right- wing parties (Zhirkov, 2014; Rooduijn, 2018). The variable is measured on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 indicates that the respondent thinks that “European unification has already gone too far”, and 10 that “European unification should go further”.

It is important to note that three of the included countries (Denmark, Finland and Sweden) are members of the European Union, while two (Iceland and Norway) are not. This could affect the results.

Education: Environmental values, as well as post-materialist values in general, are often considered to be stronger among well-educated people (see Inglehart, 1977; Inglehart and Norris, 2017). Less educated people are also more likely to vote for radical right-wing parties (ibid.). The education variable is measured on a scale from 1 to 7 according to the International Standard Classification of Education.

Age: Age of respondent. The variable is calculated by the ESS based on the year of birth variable.

Male: Radical right-wing parties have been found to be more popular among men than women. Therefore, I include a dummy variable for sex, where 0 is female and 1 is male.

Income: As socio-economic factors are often mentioned as a determinant of radical right-wing voting, it is viable to control for the effect of income. Income is measured as percentile, on a scale from 1 to 10 where 1 is 1st income percentile and 10 is 10th income percentile.

Domicile: Living in the countryside and thus being closer to nature might make one more inclined to care for nature and the environment. However, according to the theory on post- modernism, the city elites are more likely to embrace post-materialist values such as environmentalism. The variable measures whether the respondent lives in a city or at the countryside, on scale from 1 to 5 where 1 is big city and 5 countryside.

4.4 Methods The dependent variable, feeling closest to a radical right-wing party, is binary. Therefore, the regressions are run using the linear probability model (LPM). The linear probability model is a multiple linear regression model with a binary outcome variable, which means that it is possible to interpret the correlation coefficient as response possibility (Wooldridge, 2013, p. 249).

∆푃(푦 = 1|푥) = 훽푗푥푗

훽푗 measures the change in probability of success given a change in 푥푗. This means that we can use LPM to estimate the effect a one unit change in 푥 will have on the probability of y=1 (Wooldridge, 2013, p. 249).

With this in mind it is possible to use regular ordinary least square (OLS) regressions. The coefficient shows change in probability that occurs when 푥 increases by one unit. The regression model for an OLS is written as

푌 = 훽0 + 훽1푥1 + 훽2푥2 + 휀

This means that the coefficients in the regressions in the results section indicate by how many percentage points the probability of a respondent feeling closest to a radical party changes given an increase by 1 on the scale of environmental attitudes.

A weakness in using LPM when having a binary dependent variable is that it estimates constant marginal effects. For this reason, estimated probability of an LPM model can be less than 0 or larger than 1 (Wooldridge, 2013, p. 594). The assumption of heteroscedasticity cannot be fulfilled as the standard deviation from the fit regression line is not equally distributed across all values of 푥 (Wooldridge, 2013, p. 251).

This weakness can be dealt with by using logistic regression models, which account for a diminishing marginal effect and bind the predicted value between 0 and 1. However, logistic models are more difficult to interpret and use in applied work, as one needs to translate the coefficients into odds ratio. In most cases, OLS statistics and logistic do not differ much, and therefore an LPM will still give satisfactory results (Wooldridge, 2013, p. 252). To correct for some of the heteroscedasticity of the LPMs, robust standard errors are added to the regression models.

In order to separate the relationship between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting and account for country and party specific factors, interaction models are included. Interaction models are useful since independent variables are not always additive, but the correlation between an independent and a dependent variable can vary depending on the value of another variable – in this case the relationship between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting could be dependent on what country the respondent is from. By multiplying two variables, we can estimate their interaction effect on the dependent variable (Friedrich, 1982, p. 797).

The interaction model is written as:

푌푖 = 훽0 + 훽1푥1 + 훽2푥2 + 훽3푥1푥2 + 휀

By interacting environmental attitudes and country dummies in the LPM regressions, it is possible to estimate the differences in how environmental attitudes affect radical right voting in the different Nordic countries. If there are still country specific differences left after adding a satisfactory number of control variables, we can conclude that there are specific traits inherent to the parties or countries which affect the correlation between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting.

The observations are weighted using the design weights provided by the ESS.

4.5 Validity and reliability As the ESS data set is generally accepted as a well conducted survey and used in many academic papers, it would indicate that the reliability of the data is fairly high. However, as the dependent variable was generated based on an analysis and categorisation of the different parties in the Nordic countries, there is a risk that someone repeating the study would make a different call and therefore include other observations in the dependent variable.

Another issue with the validity of the dependent variable is that the share of respondents claiming to feel closest to a radical right-wing party is not representative for the parties’ results in national elections. This problem remains if we instead look at the variable “which party did you vote for last election”. This could be the result of a skewed sample which is not representative for the population as whole, or due to interviewer effect where the stigma surrounding radical right parties has inhibited people from admitting to feeling closest to one.

The independent variable should also be discussed. Using the variable “caring for nature and the environment” as the operationalisation of environmental values or attitudes could be misleading, as respondents may have interpreted the question as appreciating or liking nature. There may also be a possibility that people with nationalist sentiments want to protect their local environment, which would entail that there could be two opposing effects diminishing the actual effect of environmental attitudes on radical right voting.

5 Results and discussion

5.1 Descriptive statistics Table 4 below lists the variables included in the data analysis, and provides information on number of observations, mean, standard deviations and minimum- and maximum value of the observations. All variables are found in or generated from variables found in the ESS data set, rounds 5-8.

Variable Obs. Mean Std. dev. Min Max Closest to RRP 16730 .1009 .3012 0 1 Closest to RRP, 3145 .1297 .336 0 1 Denmark Closest to RRP, 4129 .1158 .320 0 1 Finland Closest to RRP, 1130 .1044 .306 0 1 Iceland Closest to RRP, 3926 .1164 .321 0 1 Norway Closest to RRP, 4400 .0516 .221 0 1 Sweden Caring for nature 27590 4.79 1.08 1 6 and the environment Age 28158 48.6 18.97 15 104 Country 28166 3.07 1.46 1 5 Domicile 28123 3.044 1.271 1 5 Education level 28051 4.159 1.854 1 7 Attitude towards 20640 4.720 2.313 0 10 European integration Income level 25944 5.714 2.823 1 10 Attitude towards 27433 2.896 .72 1 4 immigration Male 28153 .5054 .5 0 1 Political trust 27366 6.016 1.678 0 10

Table 4: Summary statistics

As the bar chart below (Figure 3) illustrates, respondents who feel closer to a Nordic radical right-wing party are slightly less inclined to agree with the statement “it is important to care for nature and the environment”, while people who feel closer to other parties tend to care more for nature and the environment.

Important to care for nature and the environment 45 39,94 40 36,52 35 29,88 30 28,1 25 20,1 19 20 15 9,21 10 8,18 4,87 2,52 5 1,2 0,48 0 Not like me at Not like me A little like me Somewhat like Like me Very much like all me me

Closest to RRP Closest to other party

Figure 3: Respondents' attitudes towards caring for nature and the environment

5.2 Regressions As shown in Table 5 below, there is a negative relationship between caring for the environment and feeling closest to a radical right-wing party. This relationship is significant on a 99 % confidence level. The coefficient is -0.0117, indicating that when 푥 increases by 1 unit, it is 1.17 percentage points less probable that the respondent will vote for a radical right- wing party. On the 6-point scale of caring for nature and the environment, this would indicate that a person who does not at all agree that it is important to care for nature and the environment, and therefore has chosen the alternative “not like me at all”, is 5.85 percentage points more probable to vote for a radical right-wing party, than a person who has responded “very much like me”.

Table 5: Correlation between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) Closest to Closest to Closest to Closest to Closest to Closest to radical radical radical radical radical radical right party right party right party right party right party right party* Important to -0.0117*** -0.00935*** -0.00695*** -0.00516* 0.000581 0.00115 care for nature (0.00242) (0.00238) (0.00232) (0.00268) (0.00275) (0.00277) and environment Political trust -0.0427*** -0.0354*** -0.0298*** -0.0284*** -0.0296*** (0.00177) (0.00167) (0.00193) (0.00201) (0.00208) Positive -0.103*** -0.0928*** -0.0889*** -0.0843*** towards (0.00352) (0.00407) (0.00430) (0.00467) immigration Positive -0.0141*** -0.0138*** -0.0147*** towards (0.00130) (0.00134) (0.00139) European integration Education level -0.00890*** -0.00902*** (0.00157) (0.00158) Age -0.00127*** -0.00121*** (0.000155) (0.000155) Male 0.0414*** 0.0413*** (0.00519) (0.00519) Household's -0.00271*** -0.00202** total net income (0.000991) (0.00101) Domicile -0.00974*** -0.00991*** (0.00214) (0.00215) Constant 0.157*** 0.412*** 0.658*** 0.653*** 0.732*** 0.759*** (0.0121) (0.0168) (0.0198) (0.0229) (0.0268) (0.0278) Observations 16471 16168 15919 11970 11380 11380 Adjusted R2 0.00165 0.0536 0.111 0.119 0.135 0.139 Robust standard errors in parentheses * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01 * Country dummies included but not shown

It is also important to remark that when running the regression on only environmental values and radical right-wing sympathies, we get an 푅2, adjusted for the number of terms, of 0.00165 which means that only 0.165 % of the variance in radical right voting can be explained by these attitudes.

The correlation between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting remains significant on a 99 % confidence level when controlling for political trust and attitudes towards immigration, but the coefficient becomes significantly smaller for each added control variable. When adding a control variable for attitude towards European integration, the coefficient becomes even smaller, -0.00516, but still significant on a 90 % confidence level.

When controlling for the individual variables education level, age, gender, income and domicile, the correlation between caring for the environment and voting for a radical right- wing party is no longer significant. The sign of the coefficient changes from negative to positive, but this shift may be caused by chance since the coefficient is not significant on a 90 % confidence level.

In the sixth regression model in Table 5, country dummies are included but not shown. Since the variable “Country” is on a nominal scale, it cannot be included as a continuous control variable. This means that we instead control for the effect of each country on the relationship between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting. We can see that when including country dummies together with the other control variables, the coefficient is not significant on a 90 % confidence level. And even if it were, the coefficient is so close to zero (0.00115) that one cannot claim to have found a very important correlation between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting.

In Table 6 below, interactions between environmental attitudes and country dummies are included. In regression model 2, only including country dummies and the interactions, the coefficient for caring for the environment and voting for a radical right-wing party is still negative, but very close to zero and not significant on a 90 % confidence level. When adding the same attitudinal and individual control variables as in Table 5, the correlation becomes positive, 0.0165, and significant on a 95 % significance level. This means that for each increase of 푥 by one unit, respondents are 1.65 percentage points more probable to vote for a radical right-wing party.

Adjusted 푅2 is 0.14 when including all control variables, meaning that together, the control variables, country dummies and interactions account for 14 % of the variation in voting for a radical right-wing party.

Table 6: Correlation between caring for nature and the environment and feeling closest to a radical right-wing party, with interaction effects

(1) (2) (3) Closest to radical Closest to radical Closest to radical right party right party* right party* Important to care for nature -0.0117*** -0.00628 0.0165** and environment (0.00242) (0.00661) (0.00796) Denmark * environment 0 0 (.) (.) Finland * environment -0.00604 -0.0134 (0.00875) (0.0101) Iceland * environment 0.0128 0.00120 (0.00976) (0.0112) Norway * environment -0.0222*** -0.0288*** (0.00835) (0.00968) Sweden * environment -0.000647 -0.0161* (0.00746) (0.00912) Political trust -0.0293*** (0.00208) Positive towards -0.0844*** immigration (0.00468) Positive towards European -0.0148*** integration (0.00139) Education level -0.00895*** (0.00158) Age -0.00121*** (0.000155) Male 0.0420*** (0.00520) Household's total net income -0.00212** (0.00100) Domicile -0.00993*** (0.00214) Constant 0.157*** 0.161*** 0.682*** (0.0121) (0.0333) (0.0462) Observations 16471 16471 11380 Adjusted R2 0.00165 0.0124 0.14 Robust standard errors in parentheses * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01 * Country dummies included but not shown

However, it is important to discuss the relevance of the coefficient for the relationship between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting in model 3. It shows how much the probability of one respondent voting for a radical right-wing party changes with a one unit increase on the caring for the environment-scale, when excluding the effect of several attitudinal, individual and country-specific variables. There is a risk that by adding too many control variables which may affect environmental attitudes or which may be caused by the same underlying variable, we remove some of the effect of our 푥 on our 푦.

In that sense, model 2 is perhaps more interesting. When controlling for country dummies and the interactions between environmental attitudes and country, the correlation between environmental attitudes and being closest to a radical right party becomes very close to zero, -0.00628, and is not significant on a 90 % level. This indicates that there are country or party specific factors affecting the relationship between post-materialist values and radical right voting.

From the regression table we can read that the only significant interaction coefficient in model 2 is the Norwegian one. The coefficient is -0.0222 in relation to the reference category which is Denmark, and significant on a 99 % confidence level. This would entail that there is a noteworthy difference in how much environmental attitudes affect radical right voting, in comparison to the other countries.

Another coefficient that stands out is the one interacting being from Iceland with environmental values. Here, the correlation is positive, 0.0128, in relation to the reference category Denmark. However, it is not significant.

When running a logistic regression as control, the results show similar correlations as the LPM regressions in Regression table 1 and 2. For more information, see logistic regression tables included in the appendix.

The same trend is visible in Figure 4 below, which illustrates marginal effects with a 95 % confidence interval. It is based on model 2 in table 6, where interaction effects are included but not attitudinal or individual control variables. The marginal effects show the rate of change in the probability of 푦 = 1, which in this case means voting for a radical right party, when 푥 increases by one unit. Iceland and Norway stand out, with the highest and the lowest marginal effects on linear prediction. Finland, Sweden, and Denmark have fairly similar degrees of linear predictions.

Figure 4: Marginal effects of caring for the environment on radical right-wing voting

For the only interaction effect significant on a 99 % confidence level, the relationship between Norway and caring about the environment, a one unit increase in environmental values will correspond with a person being 2.85 % less probable to vote for a radical right-wing party. This means that a person responding “Not at all like me”, which is the lowest end of the environmental value scale, and a person responding “Very much like me”, which is the highest end of the scale, would be 14.25 percentage points more probable to vote for a radical right-wing party. This correlation holds when adding attitudinal and individual control variables.

When adding the controls, the coefficient for Norway barely changes, as it shifts from -0.0222 to -0.0288 and continues to be significant on a 99 % confidence level. The other interaction coefficients change to a larger extent, and the coefficient for Sweden becomes significant on a 90 % confidence level.

The interaction effect between being Swedish and environmental attitudes is significant on a 90 % confidence level when controls are added. The coefficient would hence be interpreted as when being Swedish, a one unit increase on the caring for the environment-scale will decrease the probability to vote for a radical right-wing party by 1.61 percentage points, in relation to the reference category. When going from the lowest to the highest end of the environment

44 scale, a respondent will be 8.05 percentage points less probable to vote for a radical right- wing party, with a 10 % risk of this relationship being owed to chance. However, when accounting for the value of the reference category coefficient, the correlation becomes very close to zero which indicates a weak relationship.

Figure 5 below shows the predicted values of radical right voting at the different levels of caring for nature and environment, if all other factors affecting radical right-wing voting are held constant. As in the predicted margins plot, the fit lines for Iceland and Norway stand out more than those for Denmark, Finland and Sweden, indicating that in Norway and Iceland, environmental attitudes have a different relationship with radical right-wing voting.

Predicted values 0,25

0,2

0,15

0,1 Linearprediction 0,05

0 Not like me Not like me A little like Somewhat Like me Very much at all me like me like me Important to care for nature and the environment

Denmark Finland Iceland Norway Sweden

Figure 5: Predicted values of radical right-wing voting at different levels of caring for the environment

6 Analysis There is a significant negative correlation between radical right voting and caring for the environment, when not adding any controls. This supports H1, Voters who care more for nature and the environment are less likely to support radical right-wing parties, making it plausible that environmental values play a part in determining electoral support for radical right parties.

However, when adding attitudinal and individual control variables, the coefficient for the relationship between caring for the environment and voting for a radical right-wing party becomes smaller and is no longer significant. This indicates that there would be a spurious correlation, where the individual control variables affect both one’s attitude towards the environment and whether or not someone votes for a radical right-wing party. Then, the correlation between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting is a false correlation, caused by a covariation due to other factors, and H1 can be refuted.

Age and gender are factors which cannot be affected neither by one’s attitude towards the environment nor by party affiliation. It is also highly unlikely that environmental attitudes or radical right-wing party sympathies determine a person’s education level, income, or where they choose to live. This makes interpreting the direction of the relationship intuitive, see the causal model below.

Caring for nature and the Feeling closest to a radical environment right-wing party

Age, gender, education

level, income, domicile

Figure 6: Model showing causal direction between environmental attitudes, radical right-wing voting and individual controls

The causal direction between the attitudinal control variables, caring for the environment and radical right-wing voting is more difficult to isolate. When only including the attitudinal control variables, the relationship between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting remains significant but the coefficient becomes smaller. This means that the attitudinal control variables could be working as intermediate variables, as illustrated in Figure 7. An unknown underlying variable could be affecting environmental values, attitudes towards immigration, political trust and attitudes towards European integration. It is also not unlikely that individual control variables, for example education level or income, affects both the attitudinal control variables and environmental attitudes.

Caring for nature Feeling closest to and the radical right-wing environment party

Political trust, attitude towards immigration, attitude towards European integration

Figure 7: Model showing causal direction between environmental attitudes and attitudinal control variables

The results in Table 5, the regression table with interaction effects, to some extent support H2, The relationship between caring for nature and the environment, and supporting a radical right-wing party is negative in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, and in Iceland it stands out as more positive than the in the other countries.

As the sign of the coefficient is different in different countries, the interaction effect is significant in Norway both before and after adding attitudinal and individual controls and significant in Sweden after adding attitudinal and individual controls, one can argue that the relationship between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting differs from country to country. However, not all coefficients are significant.

In Norway, people with more negative attitudes towards the environment are more likely to support a radical right party, and this relationship is much stronger than in the other Nordic

47 countries. The coefficient does not change particularly much when adding control variables, which would indicate that unrelated to political trust, immigration attitudes, Euroscepticism, age, education level, domicile, income or gender, one’s attitude towards protecting the environment affects one’s probability to vote for the Progress Party. By adding the control variables, we have isolated the correlation between environmental attitudes and radical right- wing voting in Norway.

As the Progress Party has a history of being a strong anti-tax and anti-public intervention party, it is likely that their voters are more sceptical towards policies aiming at environmental protection as well. There could also be a link to Norway’s strong oil-dependency, making environmental policies more salient in the political debate and therefore more important in determining voting behaviour. People working in the oil-industry are less inclined to support environmental policies (Tvinnereim and Ivarsflaten, 2016, p. 369). As presented in the theory section on radical right-wing voters, people working in industries are also over-represented as radical right-wing voters.

As the relationship between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting in Sweden becomes significant when adding individual and attitudinal control variables, this would indicate that the control variables had a suppressing effect on the relationship between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting.

Even for the results that are not significant, we can see the party or country effect on how environmental values are related to radical right-wing voting. The fact that there is a positive relationship between caring for the environment and voting for the Icelandic Progressive party indicates that even though the party has shifted towards becoming a radical right party, they still have voters who have not. It could also point to the strong connection between nature and nationalism in Iceland, making a nationalist party and their voters more inclined to protect nature and environment. The fact that the results are different for the Icelandic party could also be an indication that the Progressive Party should not be included in the radical right- wing party family. However, as the number of observations is rather low for Iceland, and the interaction coefficient is not significant on a 90 % confidence level, the Icelandic results should be interpreted with caution.

In Denmark and Finland, there is no significant correlation between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting. The coefficients for both countries are however negative, even though they should be interpreted with caution as the relationship could be due to chance.

7 Concluding remarks The objective of this thesis has been to answer the research question “What is the relationship between environmental attitudes and support for radical right-wing parties in the Nordic countries?”

Through empirical analysis of ESS data, we can see that the relationship between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting is spurious, as the bivariate effect is negated when adding control variables. Instead, it appears as though age, sex, education level, income and domicile affect both one’s probability to vote for radical right wing parties and how much one cares for nature and the environment.

When separating the relationship between environmental attitude and radical right-wing voting for each of the Nordic countries, we can see that the relationship differs depending on country. In Norway and Sweden, caring for nature and the environment makes one less likely to vote for a radical right-wing party. In Iceland, it appears as though thinking that it is important to care for nature and the environment makes one more likely to vote for the Progressive Party, even though this relationship is not significant. In Denmark and Finland, there is a negative relationship between radical right-wing voting and environmental attitudes, but it is not significant on a 90 % confidence level.

It is difficult to determine whether people who do not find the environment important vote for the Sweden Democrats or the Progress Party because they advocate less environmentalist policies, or if the relationship is the reverse. It is perhaps more likely that people who think caring for nature and the environment is very important will choose not to vote for radical right-wing parties because they have the weakest environmental protection stance.

Following the post-materialist value theory, it is likely that people who care much for the environment also embrace other values that are usually not associated with the radical right- wing parties, such as open immigration and the protection of minorities.

A conclusion to be drawn from this analysis is that environmental attitudes can play a role as electoral determinant of radical right-wing voting in the Nordic countries, but that it is not necessarily the case. The radical right-wing parties of the Nordic countries share many traits, but they are also different, for example regarding party history and how accepted they are by mainstream parties. These differences can affect electoral support, as voters value different issues to different extents.

As one can argue that the Nordic countries make up a region suitable for the most similar systems design, and embrace post-materialist values to a large extent in international comparisons, it is not likely that we would find a correlation between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting in a study which uses a larger number of cases.

This insight is valuable for the understanding of radical right-wing parties and their growing support. When studying the parties as a group, an important dimension can be lost as parties encompassing nationalist ideologies will likely be formed by national particularities to a larger extent than other parties. The intermediate level of abstraction of this thesis makes it possible to lay grounds for future research on electoral support for radical right-wing parties.

7.1 Future research In order to further investigate the relationship between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting, it would be interesting to do more in-depth case studies of the countries presented. Especially the Icelandic Progressive Party has not received much attention in political science, and it would therefore be interesting to further investigate whether or not they have developed towards a radical right-wing party, and if so, if it has only been a parenthesis in the party’s history under the leadership of Gunnlaugsson.

It would also be interesting to do a case study and investigate why the relationship between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting is stronger in Norway than in the other Nordic countries.

A more detailed understanding of the effect of environmental attitudes, and by extension of post-materialist values, on electoral behaviour could be gained by comparing party families, and not only radical right-wing parties to all others. It is likely, for example, that the preference for green parties is affected by one’s attitudes towards environmental issues.

By including factorial interactions where environmental attitudes, the support for radical right-wing parties, country dummies and additional control variables are interacted, one could further develop an understanding for how environmental attitudes affect the electoral support for radical right-wing parties. In this thesis, the individual and attitudinal control variables were added separately, even though there could be an interaction effect where the value of one independent variable affects the value of another, for example being Finnish could affect one’s level of political trust.

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9 Appendix

Appendix 1: Tables showing difference between the variables “Voted for radical right party in last election” and “Feeling closest to radical right party”

Feeling closest to Voted for radical radical right right-wing party Country party Total Country in last election Total 0 1 0 1 DK 2737 408 3145 DK 3298 394 3692 87.03 12.97 100.00 89.33 10.67 100.00 FI 3651 478 4129 FI 3494 456 3950 88.42 11.58 100.00 88.46 11.54 100.00 IS 1012 118 1130 IS 1647 224 1871 89.56 10.44 100.00 88.03 11.97 100.00 NO 3469 457 3926 NO 3936 573 4509 88.36 11.64 100.00 87.29 12.71 100.00 SE 4173 227 4400 SE 5038 271 5309 94.84 5.16 100.00 94.90 5.10 100.00 Total 15042 1688 16730 Total 17413 1918 19331 89.91 10.09 100.00 90.08 9.92 100.00

Appendix 2: Regression between environmental attitudes and radical right-wing voting, with domicile as dummies (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) Closest to Closest to Closest to Closest to Closest to Closest to radical right radical right radical right radical right radical right radical right party party party party party party* Important to care -0.0117*** -0.00935*** -0.00695*** -0.00516* 0.000656 0.00116 for nature and (0.00242) (0.00238) (0.00232) (0.00268) (0.00276) (0.00278) environment Political trust -0.0427*** -0.0354*** -0.0298*** -0.0284*** -0.0296*** (0.00177) (0.00167) (0.00193) (0.00201) (0.00208) Positive towards -0.103*** -0.0928*** -0.0891*** -0.0843*** immigration (0.00352) (0.00407) (0.00431) (0.00467) Positive towards -0.0141*** -0.0138*** -0.0147*** European (0.00130) (0.00134) (0.00139) integration

Education level -0.00874*** -0.00891*** (0.00157) (0.00158)

Age -0.00128*** -0.00122*** (0.000156) (0.000156) Male 0.0416*** 0.0414*** (0.00519) (0.00519) Household's -0.00280*** -0.00210** total net income (0.000995) (0.00101) Domicile

1. Countryside 0 0 (.) (.)

2. Country village 0.00418 0.00349 (0.0110) (0.0110)

3. Town/small -0.0171* -0.0184* city (0.00946) (0.00956) 4. Suburbs of big -0.0178* -0.0199** city (0.0100) (0.0101)

5. A big city -0.0373*** -0.0375*** (0.00968) (0.00972) Constant 0.157*** 0.412*** 0.658*** 0.653*** 0.717*** 0.743*** (0.0121) (0.0168) (0.0198) (0.0229) (0.0269) (0.0280)

Observations 16471 16168 15919 11970 11380 11380 Adjusted R2 0.00165 0.0536 0.111 0.119 0.135 0.139 Robust standard errors in parentheses * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01 * Country dummies included but not shown

Appendix 3: Logistic regression table 1

Important to -0.124*** -0.104*** -0.0870*** -0.0714** -0.000255 0.0146 care for nature (0.0244) (0.0244) (0.0259) (0.0310) (0.0327) (0.0332) and environment Political trust -0.420*** -0.349*** -0.290*** -0.274*** -0.294*** (0.0153) (0.0167) (0.0199) (0.0212) (0.0220) Positive -1.229*** -1.122*** -1.073*** -1.039*** towards (0.0430) (0.0513) (0.0545) (0.0597) immigration Positive -0.174*** -0.170*** -0.176*** towards (0.0166) (0.0170) (0.0170) European integration Education level -0.135*** -0.134*** (0.0215) (0.0216) Age -0.0158*** -0.0149*** (0.00197) (0.00200) Male 0.529*** 0.526*** (0.0733) (0.0734) Household's -0.0383*** -0.0293** total net income (0.0133) (0.0136) Domicile -0.121*** -0.128*** (0.0278) (0.0287) Constant -1.601*** 0.736*** 3.562*** 3.591*** 4.611*** 4.847*** (0.118) (0.144) (0.184) (0.218) (0.278) (0.292) Observations 16471 16168 15919 11970 11380 11380

Standard errors in parentheses * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01 * Country dummies included but not shown

Appendix 4: Logistic regression table 2

(1) (2) (3) (4) Closest to Closest to Closest to Closest to radical right radical right radical right radical right party party party party

Important to care for -0.124*** -0.0545 0.0873 0.199*** nature and environment (0.0244) (0.0562) (0.0708) (0.0773) Denmark * 0 0 0 environment (.) (.) (.) Finland * environment -0.0606 -0.114 -0.157 (0.0759) (0.0952) (0.101) Iceland *environment 0.129 0.0399 0.0138 (0.102) (0.130) (0.132) Norway * environment -0.208*** -0.266*** -0.338*** (0.0714) (0.0908) (0.0964) Sweden * environment -0.0784 -0.192* -0.237** (0.0840) (0.106) (0.114) Political trust -0.307*** -0.291*** (0.0207) (0.0220) Positive towards -1.094*** -1.042*** immigration (0.0558) (0.0598) Positive towards -0.181*** -0.177*** European integration (0.0166) (0.0170) Education level -0.135*** (0.0215) Age -0.0149*** (0.00200) Male 0.540*** (0.0738) Household's total net -0.0309** income (0.0136) Domicile -0.127*** (0.0287) Constant -1.601*** -1.634*** 3.225*** 3.935*** (0.118) (0.280) (0.389) (0.456) Observations 16471 16471 11970 11380

Standard errors in parentheses * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01

Appendix 5: Cronbach’s Alpha test

Variable Political trust (poltrust) Index variables trstprl trstplt trstplc trstprt trstlgl Average interitem covariance 2.428188 Number of items in the scale 5 Scale reliability coefficient 0.8613

Variable Immigration attitudes (imatt) Index variables impcntr imdfetn imsmetn Average interitem covariance 0.4628052 Number of items in the scale 3 Scale reliability coefficient 0.8926