Social Europe: Dealing with the right-wing populist challenge

 The 2018 Swedish election was a watershed. The incumbent left-wing government, led by the Social Democrats (SAP) in alliance with the Green party (MP) and supported by the left-socialists (V), won one more seat than the alliance of the traditional parties of the right—conservative Moderates (M), Liberals (L), Centre party (C) and Christian Democrats (KD)—but fell far short of a majority. The largest parties of the left and right, the SAP and M, had terrible elections, with the former receiving less than 30 per cent of the vote, its lowest vote share since 1911, and the latter less than 20 per cent. [...]

Scholars generally find that convergence between mainstream parties is associated with the rise of radical parties, because it waters down the profile of the former and gives voters looking for alternatives nowhere to turn. This dynamic is particularly pronounced when mainstream parties converge on positions far from that of a significant number of voters. This, of course, is precisely what happened in Sweden and elsewhere. [...]

By 2018 the failure of the dismissive strategy in Sweden was evident. After the election the conservative and Christian-democrat parties began openly shifting towards what might be called an ‘accommodative’ strategy, indicating they would consider co-operating with the SD to make possible the formation of a right-wing government in 2022. Perhaps more surprising, the Liberal party—which has a more ‘centrist’ profile than the M and KD and took, as noted above, the unprecedented step of breaking with its traditional allies after the 2018 election precisely to shut the SD out of power—recently voted to shift course too. Can an accommodative strategy succeed? [...]

Undercutting support for these parties over the long-term requires, accordingly, diminishing the salience of immigration. Over the past years in-migration in Sweden and other European countries has dropped but concerns about labour-market inclusion, integration, crime and ‘terrorism’ remain. Dealing forthrightly and effectively with these concerns would diminish their importance or salience to voters, enabling them to turn their attention to issues on which the SD, as with other populist parties, lack distinctive positions.

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Social Europe: Why Did The Populist Far Right In Sweden Make Gains?

SD’s success has been closely associated with the fact that men both represent and vote for the party. Of course, one can speculate that men have values ​​that are more attracted to, for example, SD’s second in command Mattias Karlsson’s violent rhetoric of “winning or dying”. Some men can certainly also be attracted to the nostalgia the party represents in terms of traditional gender values or xenophobia. [...]

The conclusion is that SD’s successes are based primarily on the voter’s own experience of getting economically worse off and not from being in contact with immigrants and accumulated negative sentiments. However, they blame their worse-off status on immigrants. [...]

The reason behind the cuts in social security was, however, never to improve the fiscal balance (nor did it lead to this). Taxes were simultaneously reduced correspondingly or indeed even more. The reason that public debt also was reduced was simply that growth outperformed new debt. The changes were instead motivated by a belief that they would increase employment by increasing the income gap between being employed and not being employed: the traditional conservative policy of increased incentives. Whatever the facts, however, all SD voters believe that the deterioration is due to the cost of immigration and that this alone led to savings. [...]

And it can´t explain why it is above all men who are behind SD’s success. One could argue that Swedish women have a marginally lower rate of unemployment (less affected by cuts in social security) but, on the other hand, women are over-represented in sick-leave and often have a lower pension (more affected). Women should, therefore, be at least as vulnerable to the decline in the social security system as men.

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Social Europe: “Us Too!” – The Rise Of Middle-Class Populism In Sweden And Beyond

There are two common explanations for the rise of the Sweden Democrats. The first points to an underlying racism in Swedish culture. The second argues that globalization has led to increased inequality and a more insecure jobs market. Certainly, there is a racist core at the center of Swedish Democrats. But it seems quite improbable that racism in Sweden has increased so dramatically in such a short period. Indeed, recent surveys of the Swedish electorate do not indicate that xenophobia or racism have increased. On the contrary, though there is always a risk that those who have racist values choose not to report them in surveys, most suggest that the level of xenophobia has been quite constant in recent years. Simply put, something that is constant cannot explain a change. [...]

The more basic problem is that the established parties have been deaf to the preferences of their own citizens. Even while popular opinion polls indicated significant dissatisfaction with these policies, all seven established parties supported the so-called, “open door,” policy. Indeed, the Swedish political and cultural elite has been essentially unanimous in support of former Conservative Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt’s famous “open heart” policy. Anyone who questioned this policy – from within the established parties, the media, or academia – was instantly tagged as reprobate or racist and pushed to one side. Swedish voters who wanted a somewhat more moderate refugee policy (perhaps something like that followed in Norway or Denmark) had no party to turn to – except the Sweden Democrats.[...]

The more basic problem is that the established parties have been deaf to the preferences of their own citizens. Even while popular opinion polls indicated significant dissatisfaction with these policies, all seven established parties supported the so-called, “open door,” policy. Indeed, the Swedish political and cultural elite has been essentially unanimous in support of former Conservative Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt’s famous “open heart” policy. Anyone who questioned this policy – from within the established parties, the media, or academia – was instantly tagged as reprobate or racist and pushed to one side. Swedish voters who wanted a somewhat more moderate refugee policy (perhaps something like that followed in Norway or Denmark) had no party to turn to – except the Sweden Democrats.

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Politico: Under threat, Sweden rediscovers its Viking spirit

In an election year, growing support for joining NATO is putting the center-left government of Prime Minister Stefan Löfven under pressure, with the four-party opposition bloc now united in backing membership of the military alliance for the first time. [...]

The country has already reintroduced military service, which was scrapped in 2010, for a limited number of draftees who will be called up for compulsory basic training this year. It has decided to station troops on the Baltic island of Gotland for the first time in a decade, and boosted military spending by 2.7 billion Swedish kronor (€274 million) a year from this year through 2020. [...]

At the same time, political support for NATO membership has been rising. In 2015, two center-right parties, the Center Party and the Christian Democrats, changed their minds on NATO and joined their opposition allies, the Moderate Party and the Liberal Party, in advocating membership.

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