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

146 Twenty-First Century Populism
those whose roots lie in extra-parliamentary right-wing extremism. In such
cases, the necessity of reducing electoral stigmatization by increasing legitimacy
may be well worth the price that possibly has to be paid for shrinking
niches on the political arena.
Unlike many other Western European countries (not least Denmark), the
mainstream parties in Sweden have effectively erected a cordon sanitaire
against the Sweden Democrats, avoiding any kind of collaboration. They
have also tried explicitly to avoid appropriating the political programme of
this or any other anti-immigrant party.
The ideology and rhetoric of the Sweden Democrats
The rest of this chapter will discuss the ways in which the Sweden Democrats
have tried to take advantage of mobilization opportunities.
The Sweden Democrats party was formed in 1988 as a direct successor to
the Sweden Party, which in turn was the outcome of a merger in 1986
between the Swedish Progress Party and the BBS (Keep Sweden Swedish)
(Larsson and Ekman, 2001). The Sweden Democrats trace their roots back to
Swedish Fascism, and there were, particularly at the end of the 1980s and for
the first half of the 1990s, distinct overlaps between them and openly antidemocratic,
Nazi and Fascist groupings (Larsson and Ekman, 2001). During
the latter half of the 1990s, however, the party worked hard to erect a more
respectable façade. A ban on uniforms was introduced in 1996 by new leader
Mikael Jansson (who had previously been active in the Centre Party) and, in
1999, the Sweden Democrats openly renounced Nazism. Furthermore, some
of the more provocative paragraphs in the party manifesto were toned down
or eventually deleted (in particular those dealing with capital punishment,
and the banning of both abortion and non-European adoption). However,
and notwithstanding the remarkable continuity in the party manifesto up
to 2002, this softer profile precipitated a split in the summer of 2001 when
a disgruntled ‘traditionalist’ faction broke away to form the National
Democrats.
If we look at the Sweden Democrats’ manifesto and examine its political
rhetoric, it is clear that the party has been increasingly influenced by the
electoral successes of other European RRP parties. While the British National
Front was one of its larger sources of inspiration during the latter half of the
1980s, the French Front National made a profound impression on the ideological
and strategic direction taken by the Sweden Democrats during the
1990s along with, to a lesser extent, the Austrian FPÖ, the Danish People’s
Party, the German Die Republikaner and Italy’s Alleanza Nationale. Indeed,
the leader of Die Republikaner, Franz Schönhuber, appeared as a guest speaker
at a Sweden Democrats election meeting, and the French Front National
made substantial contributions to the party’s 1998 election campaign fund.
The party has also been explicit about its desire to work more closely with