Justifying and Negotiating Responses to the Radical Right: The Case of the Swedish Labour Movement and the Intra-Organizational Arena | Government and Opposition | Cambridge Core
Justifying and Negotiating Responses to the Radical Right: The Case of the Swedish Labour Movement and the Intra-Organizational Arena
Who are the “People” and what does “Home” mean? A case of frame transformation and counter-framing of the “People’s Home” in the Sweden Democrat Rhetoric 1989–2022
New paper with
@elgenius.bsky.social
in Social Semiotics
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10350330.2025.2604741
Conceptual flipsiding and reversal of liberal-democratic notions: discursive-political strategies in/and the normalisation of illiberal public imagination
New paper with Michal Krzyzanowski and Natalia Krzyzanowska in Social Semiotics
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10350330.2025.2601608
Working-Class Voters Supporting the Radical Right: Do Trade Unions Have a Shielding Effect?
New WP together with Maria Tyrberg.
In this paper we show that: (1) Union membership predicts support for the Sweden Democrats; (2) the salience of economic issues mediates this association and is a likely mechanism; and (3) the local presence of trade unions do not predict support for the SD.
https://su.figshare.com/articles/preprint/Working-Class_Voters_Supporting_the_Radical_Right_Do_Trade_Unions_Have_a_Shielding_Effect_/27222810?file=49774887
Working-Class Voters Supporting the Radical Right: Do Trade Unions Have a Shielding Effect?
This study explores the relationship between class politics and support for the populist radical right, analysing the role of trade unions in understanding the growing working-class support for populist radical right parties. We empirically test the theoretical argument that a strong presence of trade unions will work as a shield against the populist radical right’s attempts to mobilize working-class support. We build our empirical analyses on an original dataset including survey responses on electoral behaviour, workplace characteristics, and union membership from working-class respondents in Sweden. The results render partial support for our theoretical expectations, showing that union membership – but not the local presence of trade unions - predicts support for the populist radical right party the Sweden Democrats. Examining further the potential mechanisms that explain why trade union membership decreases support for populist radical right parties, we find that the salience of economic issues mediates the relationship. Since union membership has decreased rather dramatically the over past decades in Europe, this development may partially explain the growing electoral support for populist radical right parties during this period.
Divided We Fall? Negotiating Responses to a Radical Right-wing Party within the Swedish Labour Movement
This paper analyses the responses of the Swedish labour movement – the Social Democratic Party and the blue-collar union confederation, the LO – to the populist radical right-wing party the Sweden Democrats between 2007 and 2018. Yet it does so from a novel perspective, highlighting the role of 1) temporality and 2) intra-party/organizational dynamics in determining external strategies. The paper shows how intra-organizational learning played a key role in fostering change in the Social Democrats’ and the LO’s strategic responses. Actors learned from the effects of their past strategies and readjusted them accordingly. We hence argue that party responses to challenger parties are best analysed as processes, instead of discrete events, and that acquiring internal consent for strategic shifts represents a central task in this process. The paper is a single-case study of Sweden, a crucial case for studying the de- and realignment of the West European political space since support for the centre-left has declined, while it increased for the radical right. We conduct a chronological, qualitative analysis of intra-party and union sources, defining key events at which strategic shifts took place. Conceptually, we stretch the notion of intra-party politics to include the unions as well, serving as a prime example of the need to internally negotiate external strategies.
Want to read something light during the summer? Why not our book Sociological Insights of Great Thinkers?
Check out e.g., Shakespeare: On Social Stratification; Dante: The Afterworlds Are Hell for Sociologists; and Proust: On Social Status and Capital Forms.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/sociological-insights-of-great-thinkers-9780313384707/
Sociological Insights of Great Thinkers
In this book, leading sociologists expand the scope of their discipline by revealing the sociological aspects of the works of great philosophers, scientists, an…
"The politics of ethnic nationalism, nostalgia and anti-immigrant framing: the trajectory of the Sweden Democrats 1989-2022"
Book chapter together with Gabriella Elgenius. Open access.
https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap-oa/book/9781839100765/book-part-9781839100765-12.xml?tab_body=pdf-copy1&fbclid=IwAR2XSXgTj5UwOdy_PqF7zzdc0Iw-NdB9RujrotnVJZ0Su1ZrEtcORsdzSOE
Chapter 6: The politics of ethnic nationalism, nostalgia and anti-immigrant framing: the trajectory of the Sweden Democrats 1989-2022
This study analyzes the close links between nationalism and migration by exploring the ethno-nationalist rhetoric of nationalist and populist Radical Right parties, taking the Sweden Democrat Party as the case in point. The intersections of nationalism and migration is analyzed by exploring frames and mechanisms of ethnic nationalism, nationalist nostalgia, anti-migrant frames, gatekeeping and resentment. The ethnic nationalism, the nostalgia for the imagined community that once was, alongside the framing of migration and migrants as a threat to the national community, the nation, are defining characteristics of the radical right party family in Europe and elsewhere. Sweden was long considered immune to such ethno-nationalist rhetoric since the Sweden Democrats, compared to the radical right parties of the other Nordic countries, made it into Parliament comparatively late in 2010. Today, and after the parliamentary election of 2022, the Sweden Democrats is the second largest party. Like many other nationalist and populist parties, the Sweden Democrats has modernized its rhetoric over time, as will be outlined. However, the centrality of the party’s ethno-nationalist message and its diagnostic framing of problems identifying migration as a threat to the nation, show remarkable continuity over the period 1989-2022 and is key to explaining how and why the party has appealed to voters. Frame theory is used to analyze central components of ethnic nationalism and anti-migrant framing and the empirical materials used for this study include official party manifestos and position papers between 1989 and 2022.
Finally, our new book is published.
The more affordable ebook version will be available in stores in about a week:
https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/migration-and-nationalism-9781839100758.html?fbclid=IwAR3mjDxum1K2bmTT0R3oSZNwJJ7ARoZbIqoozEwB_x7oh7xL55lq1VR4qmk
If anyone wants to read the introduction chapter, please let me know and I will send it to you.
Migration and Nationalism
‘We cannot separate immigration from nationalism. This book offers fresh insights into this understudied relationship. It helps us understand how populism, right-wing politics, and neoliberalism affect migration policies. To me it shows why the dream of free movement for all seems so distant today.’
– Harald Bauder, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada
Herman van de Werfhorst 🟥
