Reputation versus office: Why populist radical right governmental participation has differed between Sweden and Denmark

2021 ◽  
pp. 019251212110205
Author(s):  
Duncan McDonnell ◽  
Annika Werner ◽  
Malin Karlsson

Sweden and Denmark have presented contrasting relationships between centre-right and populist radical right (PRR) parties. In Sweden, the centre-right has refused cooperation with the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) (SD), even when this cost the centre-right office. However, in Denmark, coalitions led by centre-right parties have cooperated with the Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti) (DF) on multiple occasions. Through a controlled comparison, we examine what explains these different outcomes. Using Chapel Hill Expert Surveys and public opinion data, we firstly look at the policy congruence between parties and the social acceptability of cooperation. We then examine interview material with representatives from centre-right and PRR parties in Sweden and Denmark to see their explanations of cooperation and non-cooperation. We conclude that, while the office goals of Danish centre-right parties, along with the policy focus and uncontroversial past of DF, explain that case, the reputation and past of SD has precluded a similar outcome.

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernhard Forchtner ◽  
Christoffer Kølvraa

This article inquires into how contemporary populist radical right parties relate to environmental issues of countryside and climate protection, by analyzing relevant discourses of the British National Party (BNP) and the Danish People's Party (DPP). It does so by looking at party materials along three dimensions: the aesthetic, the symbolic, and the material. The article discusses to what extent the parties' political stances on environmental issues are conditioned by deeper structures of nationalist ideology and the understandings of nature embedded therein. It illustrates a fundamental difference between the way nationalist actors engage in, on the one hand, the protection of nature as national countryside and landscape, epitomizing the nation's beauty, harmony and purity over which the people are sovereign. On the other hand, they deny or cast doubt on environmental risks located at a transnational level, such as those that relate to climate. The article argues that this apparent inconsistency is rooted in the ideological tenets of nationalism as the transnational undermines the nationalist ideal of sovereignty.


2020 ◽  
pp. 55-92
Author(s):  
Duncan McDonnell ◽  
Annika Werner

This chapter focuses on the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, which in 2014 accepted the radical right populists of the Danish People’s Party and the Finns Party, alongside more moderate centre-right parties such as the UK Conservatives. To analyse the reasons behind the group’s composition, it uses Chapel Hill Expert Survey data on party positions in addition to interviews with leading figures from the main ECR parties. The chapter proposes the “respectable radicals” theory of group formation. In other words, radical parties like the Danish People’s Party and the Finns Party play a two-level game in which they value perceived domestic “office” and “votes” benefits of European alliances more than “policy congruence”. In particular, being seen to sit with the UK Conservatives was considered advantageous by the Danish and Finnish parties while, for the UK Conservatives, these parties’ lack of extreme right historical baggage made them acceptable allies.


2010 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 484-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Arter

AbstractThe True Finn Party (PS), which gained virtually 10 per cent of the national vote at the 2009 European Parliament election, lacks a place in the comparative party literature and also defies ready classification. It has been perceived by its supporters as the most left-wing of the non-socialist parties; by Finnish media commentators as a case of right-wing populism; and by researchers as a distinctive centred-based populist party when viewed in a wider European perspective. Based on a careful study of its programmatic output since its inception in 1995, this article seeks to characterize the PS by reference to its core ideological features. It argues that it is in fact a populist radical right party – with national identity or Finnishness as its pivotal concept – albeit without the xenophobic extremism of such continental counterparts as the Danish People's Party or Austrian Freedom Party.


Author(s):  
Duncan McDonnell ◽  
Annika Werner

The 2014 European Parliament elections were hailed as a “populist earthquake” with parties like the French Front National, UKIP and the Danish People's Party topping the polls in their countries and commentators warning about the consequences of a large radical right populist bloc in the Parliament. But what happened after the elections? Based on policy positions, voting data, and interviews conducted over more than four years with senior figures from fourteen radical right populist parties and their main partners, this is the first major study to explain these parties' actions and alliances in the European Parliament. International Populism answers three key questions: Why have radical right populists, unlike other ideological party types, long been divided in the European Parliament? Why, although divisions persist, are many of them now more united than ever? And how does all of this inform our understanding of the European populist radical right today? Arguing that these parties have entered a new international and transnational phase, with some attempting to be “respectable radicals” while others have instead embraced their shared populism, McDonnell and Werner shed new light on the past, present and future of one of the most important political phenomena of twenty-first-century Europe.


Author(s):  
Admink Admink ◽  
Катерина Гайдукевич

Обґрунтовано, що видовища характеризуються специфічними ознаками, серед яких варто наголосити на культурній цінності, що виявляється у використанні видовищем різних складових культури. Доведено, що видовища є показниками суспільних зрушень у системі цінностей, ідеологій, наявних і латентних проблем, устремлінь та бажань громадськості. Показано, що в сучасній культурі України пріоритетною є функція соціальної регуляції й формування  суспільної думки, яка реалізується у форматі імітативних практик та множинних культурних інтерпретацій. Проаналізовано напрями, за якими розвиватимуться видовища й видовищність в Україні: зміцнення й популяризація традиційних видовищних заходів; усталення нових видовищних практик; збагачення видовищної культури інноваційними формами та практиками. It is substantiated that the spectacle is characterized by specific features, among which it is worth emphasizing the cultural value that is expressed in the use by the spectacle of different components of the culture. It has been proved that the spectacles are indicators of social shifts in the system of values, ideologies, existing and latent problems, aspirations and desires of the public. It is shown that in the contemporary culture of Ukraine the priority is the function of the social regulation and the formation of the public opinion that is implemented in the format of imitative practices and multiple cultural interpretations. The directions for development of the spectacles and entertainment in Ukraine are analyzed: strengthening and promoting traditional entertainment events; establishing new entertaining practices; the enrichment of the spectacular culture with innovative forms and practices.


Author(s):  
G. M. Ditchfield

Explanations of the abolition of the slave trade have been the subject of intense historical debate. Earlier accounts tended to play up the role of individual, heroic abolitionists and their religious, particularly evangelical, motivation. Eric Williams argued that the decline in profitability of the ‘Triangular trade’ was important in persuading people that the slave trade hindered, rather than helped, economic progress. More recent work has rehabilitated the role of some abolitionists but has set this alongside the importance of campaigning and petitioning in shifting public opinion. The role that the slaves themselves played in bringing attention to their plight is also now recognized. Consequently, the importance of abolitionism for a sense of Dissenting self-identity and as part of broader attempts to influence social reform needs to be reconsidered.


Author(s):  
Elisabeth Ivarsflaten ◽  
Scott Blinder ◽  
Lise Bjånesøy

The “populist radical right” is a contested concept in scholarly work for good reason. This chapter begins by explaining that the political parties usually grouped together under this label are not a party family in a conventional sense and do not self-identify with this category. It goes on to show how political science scholarship has established that in Europe during the past thirty or so years we have seen the rise of a set of parties that share a common ideological feature—nativism. The nativist political parties experiencing most electoral support have combined their nativist agenda with some other legitimate ideological companion, which provides deniability—a shield against charges that the nativist agenda makes the parties and their supporters right-wing extremist and undemocratic. The chapter goes on to explain that in order to make progress on our understanding of how and why the populist radical right persuades citizens, we need to recognize: first, that nativism is the only necessary ingredient without which the populist radical right loses its force; and second, that nativism in contemporary established democracies has tended not to persuade a large share of voters without an ideological companion.


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