The Rise of A Radical Right Wing Party in Sweden

Kemala Hudaya , Muhadi Sugiono

2016 | Skripsi | Ilmu Hubungan Internasional

ABSTRACT The politics of Sweden has long been controlled by the centre-left wing parties and the centre-right wing parties, or known as mainstream parties. The radical right wing parties showed no significant influence in the Swedish policies in the past. However, the last two elections have been recognized as the awakening of a Swedish radical right party. The Sweden Democrat Party (SD) had successfully received 5.7% votes in 2010 and 12.9% votes in 2014. The rising support for the SD party, which is a radical right populist party with strong anti-immigrant vision, has become a topic of discourse recognizing the well-known image of Sweden as a tolerant country toward immigrants. This undergraduate thesis intends to analyze the influencing factors behind this interesting phenomenon in Sweden. By looking at the ideology that the SD party is using, three factors are brought up to explain the reasons of the rising votes for the party. The first factor is the dynamic of public demands relating to the growing anti-multiculturalism and islamophobia in the Swedish society. The second factor is the party competition in electoral market, where the ideological gap between the mainstream parties and the radical right party gives a great oppostunity for the radical right party to gain more society’s symphathy to vote for them. The third factor is the development of the SD party itself in washing the party’s image from neo-Nazi and fascist images. Nevertheless, the factors that are mentioned are connected to each other and could not stand by itself. The three factors have been supporting the SD party to grow and get bigger votes in the Swedish elections. Keywords: Radical Right Party, Politics of Sweden, Sweden Democrats, Right-wing

Kata Kunci : Politik - Swedia