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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Unherd: How populism went mainstream in Denmark

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s the DPP were consistent in their attitudes: they never advocated for the use of violence as a political tool, and argued for the extension of equal rights to all citizens. So long as people lived up to the provisions of the citizenship laws of the country, they did not advocate for discrimination along racial or confessional lines. But they were early in raising the central question that was going to keep returning to Danish (as in all European) politics during the 2000s: how much immigration is enough? [...]

And in the wake of that incident, Denmark got a dose of international attention of a kind it was unused to. As a result, the country’s politicians — and the country itself — were startled into a discussion centred not just on questions of free speech but of integration. Polls showed almost full opposition among the country’s Muslim population to the portrayal of Mohammed. In wider Danish society there was a split but it was fairly even, one Gallup poll showed 48% against the publication and 43% in favour. [...]

So in January 2016, the Danes passed legislation stating that any arrivals who had travelled through multiple safe European countries in order to reach Denmark should expect to help pay for themselves in the country, and not simply expect to rely on the Danish taxpayer. The law was passed with the support of all the main parties, including the Social Democrats. [...]

Throughout this period, the Danish People’s Party did increasingly well in the polls. Their success peaked at the 2015 election in which they became the second largest party in the Folketing, the Danish Parliament, winning 37 of 179 seats. Unlike in neighbouring Sweden, the party had never been excommunicated from politics, in the way that the Sweden Democrats have been. Indeed, within three elections of the party’s founding, it was providing support to the government. [...]

Earlier this month the Danish government released an 800-page report from the Ministry of Justice which concluded that while the Danish public are strongly committed to freedom of speech, immigrant communities have far less of an attachment to the principle. The report found that among immigrants and descendants of immigrants from Muslim-majority countries such as Turkey, Lebanon and Pakistan, 76% thought that it should be illegal to criticise Islam. Just 18% of the Danish population as a whole thought the same thing — and in response to these findings, Tesfaye announced that immigrants who didn’t respect Danish values should leave the country.

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The Atlantic: Why Doesn’t Steve Bannon Matter in Europe?

Yet after all that time, Bannon has little to show for his efforts. Though many far-right parties have made significant gains, further establishing themselves as permanent fixtures on the European political stage, the far-right surge that was expected didn’t come to pass. (This was reaffirmed in subsequent elections across the Continent, where although some parties underperformed, they at least demonstrated their relatively high electoral floor.) [...]

But perhaps the greatest inhibitor of Bannon’s success in Europe has been the very far-right parties he has professed to support. Though the former Donald Trump strategist has appeared alongside some of Europe’s most high-profile far-right leaders—from Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally in France, to Matteo Salvini, the head of the League and Italy’s erstwhile interior minister—few have agreed to unite under his nationalist banner. The Sweden Democrats expressed “no interest” in Bannon’s project. Vlaams Belang, a Flemish nationalist party, called the effort “poorly organized.” The Alternative for Germany said the interests of Europe’s anti-establishment parties are too “divergent” to be united. [...]

But it’s not just Bannon’s Americanness that makes some European nationalist parties resistant to working with him. Their reluctance also stems from what is perceived as a fundamental misunderstanding of the way these parties work. Though many of Europe’s far-right movements are united in their shared views on immigration, the economy, and the role and future of the European Union, these beliefs don’t always manifest themselves in the same political goals. Despite hopes that they would be a dominant force in the European Parliament after elections this May, right-wing populist parties instead had to settle for forming the fifth-largest grouping in the legislature—their national priorities took precedence over any broader project. (The current far-right grouping, led by Salvini, failed, for example, to persuade Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz to join it.) [...]

“The mere fact that you are writing an article about him, I think, is part of his personal strategy,” Eric Maurice, the director of the Brussels-based Robert Schuman Foundation, a European think tank, told me, “of trying to look like someone who is everywhere, pulling the strings, working on a master plan to put the far right … in power.”

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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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