Twenty-First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European ...

Table 9.1 Swedish election results, 1982−2006 (in percentages)
Sweden 139
Year LP Soc. D. Gr. P. Cen. P. Lib. P. Christ. D. Con. P. New Dem. Swe. Dem.
1982 5.6 45.6 1.7 15.5 5.9 1.9 23.6 – –
1985 5.4 44.7 1.5 12.4 14.2 – 21.3 – –
1988 5.8 43.2 5.5 11.3 12.2 2.9 18.3 – –
1991 4.5 37.7 3.4 8.5 9.1 7.1 21.9 6.7 –
1994 6.2 45.3 5.0 7.7 7.2 4.1 22.4 1.2 –
1998 12.0 36.4 4.5 5.1 4.7 11.7 22.9 – 0.5
2002 8.4 39.9 4.6 6.2 13.4 9.1 15.3 – 1.4
2006 5.9 35.0 5.2 7.9 7.5 6.6 26.2 – 2.9
Source: Statistics Sweden (www.scb.se).
that presented themselves for the 1994 election. The economic crisis also
contributed to the shrinking size of the anti-immigrant/immigration niche
by making traditional issues relating to political economy and the Welfare
State more salient, at the expense of those belonging to the socio-cultural
dimension (Rydgren, 2002; 2003b; Holmberg, 2000: 114).
New Democracy’s problem, as we shall also see below, was that these
changes made it more difficult, if not impossible, for the party to keep its
three supporter categories (neoliberals, opponents of immigration/immigrants,
and protest voters/populists) happy all at the same time. This was an
historic coalition of voter groups and one that was only possible during the
late 1980s and early 1990s. In the mid-1990s, however, a combination of
populism, xenophobia and ‘left-wing economics’ (combined in a protectionist
welfare chauvinism) would have been much better suited to mobilize
voters. Most RRP parties, such as the Front National in France, moved in
this direction during that period (Rydgren, 2003b). However, New
Democracy was neither able nor willing to undergo such an ideological and
rhetorical change. This rendered the party even more out of step with the
times from the perspective of vote maximization.
Another badly timed strategic error by New Democracy was to persist in its
defence of the EU. Opposition to Swedish membership rose sharply from 17
per cent to 62 per cent between 1990 and 1992, and even though opinion
swung again in the year before the 1994 referendum (in which 52.2 per cent
voted for and 46.9 against − Lindahl, 1995: 139), the heavy politicization of
the issue presented possibilities for mobilization, in particular for Eurosceptics.
Unlike many populist parties in other countries, New Democracy thus
missed its chance to combine EU opposition with nationalism, xenophobia
and populism, which could have appealed to a significant number of anti-
EU voters who did not share the other political values of the Eurosceptic
camp − made up of the Left, Centre and Green parties (Rydgren, 2002).