Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

Why Did The Populist Far Right In Sweden Make Gains?

Sandro Scocco 18th October 2018

Sandro Scocco

Sandro Scocco

The success of the xenophobic far right party, Sweden Democrats (SD), has brought international attention to Sweden’s latest general election. As The Guardian noted: “far right gains threaten Europe’s most stable political order”. Sweden is, what’s more, one of Europe’s most stable economies. Unemployment is below the EU average, GDP growth has outpaced almost all other OECD countries and public debt has fallen sharply to levels well below comparable countries. So, why?

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.

All this might be true but values ​​are relatively stable over time and, in addition, traditional gender and nationalistic values ​​have been declining for decades in Sweden. Thus, this cannot explain SD’s success from the mid-2000s. The relevant question is instead: What social changes have made these values a likely and, indeed, actual source of political success?

Newly published research by Dal Bó et al. (see here) gives a partial answer. They established that the common denominator for both SD representatives and voters is that they were losers of the conservatives´ policies during 2006-2014, which substantially increased income inequality. They, however, find no connection between contact with immigrants and SD’s successes.

Blame others

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.


Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content. We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Sign up here

The logic is the usual: immigrants are “costing” the treasury so much that this spells deteriorating conditions for “Swedes”, that is, the losers of the economic policy pursued. In a survey, almost all SD voters (98%) responded that immigration cost the state too much.

Arena Idé has already shown that this is wrong in the long run, but even those economists in Sweden who claim that it is a fiscal burden estimate it to be no more than around 1 percent of GDP. This contrasts with the fact that Sweden has reduced taxes by about 6.5 percent of GDP since the year 2000.

The state’s reduced capacity to support its citizens economically has therefore very little to do with immigration, no matter how you calculate its cost. Especially since the ratio of public debt to GDP has also declined – even with these dramatic tax cuts.

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.

Dal Bó et al.’s economic explanation for SD success is a plausible and is certainly a part of the answer, but maybe not the whole answer. There findings are counter-intuitive when it comes to SD’s 2018 gains, since the group of economic losers did not grow between 2014-2018 under the red-green government.

Average white male

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.

However, it is uncontroversial to say that a social insurance policy that provides security if you become sick or unemployed also has value for the employed. In a newly published report for Arena Idé, researchers Anna Baranowska-Rataj and Björn Högberg have studied how unemployment insurance affects well-being in Europe.

For men, there is a clear connection between weaker unemployment insurance and a significant deterioration in sense of well-being. This applies regardless of whether they are unemployed or employed. Of the employed, those with fixed-term employment and/or in involuntary part-time work are worse off than those with more secure employment, which is logical. What is remarkable, however, is that this relationship between unemployment insurance and well-being does not apply to women. Especially as women have both higher levels of insecure employment and involuntary part-time work and should therefore be more affected.


We need your support


Social Europe is an independent publisher and we believe in freely available content. For this model to be sustainable, however, we depend on the solidarity of our readers. Become a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month and help us produce more articles, podcasts and videos. Thank you very much for your support!

Become a Social Europe Member

The report points out that this could be due to the fact that jobs are evaluated differently, which is in line with previous EU-wide research which shows that men experience unemployment and insecure employment as a greater failure than women do. This is attributed to conservative beliefs among men about the male breadwinner. Men with such values feel therefore worse off when protection against the consequences of unemployment is weakened. They are also likely to be more susceptible to nationalistic and conservative politics that put the blame on women and/or immigrants.

The whole picture

SD’s election success in 2018 might be surprising if one focuses only on economic “losers”, when employment in Sweden recently has risen and unemployment fallen. However, when the analysis extends to the consequences for well-being of both unemployed and employed, the success of SD and the dominant role of men within that become more logical. The future potential for SD is also significantly greater, in line with the 2018 election or above.

What then has spurred SD voters is increased economic insecurity – both for unemployed and employed. This has, above all, decreased the well-being of men, whether in or out of work, with traditional gender and nationalistic values and they have therefore turned their back on ruling parties with more progressive and so-called secular-rational values. The combination of increased economic insecurity and strong traditional values among large groups in society is a perfect storm for populism.

Prolonging a conservative agenda with continued tax cuts, weaker labor laws and further shrinking of social security buffers will hardly make this wider circle of losers feel like winners.

Even though Sweden remains without a government, SD is contributing to this evolution through its obvious support for a conservative government. If the conservative parties do form the government this would paradoxically increase support for SD – as long as its voters continue to believe that the deterioration in welfare is due to immigration. The fact that a populist party can win electoral support by disadvantaging its own core voters shows the complexity of handling parties built on popular dissatisfaction.

Sandro Scocco

Sandro Scocco is Chief Economist at the Stockholm-based think tank Arena Idé and has a background as the Chief Economist of the governmental research institute ITPS. He is also a former Director at the Labour Market Board and served during the 1990s as an adviser to several Swedish social democratic ministers.

You are here: Home / Politics / Why Did The Populist Far Right In Sweden Make Gains?

Most Popular Posts

Russian soldiers' mothers,war,Ukraine The Ukraine war and Russian soldiers’ mothersJennifer Mathers and Natasha Danilova
IGU,documents,International Gas Union,lobby,lobbying,sustainable finance taxonomy,green gas,EU,COP ‘Gaslighting’ Europe on fossil fuelsFaye Holder
Schengen,Fortress Europe,Romania,Bulgaria Romania and Bulgaria stuck in EU’s second tierMagdalena Ulceluse
income inequality,inequality,Gini,1 per cent,elephant chart,elephant Global income inequality: time to revise the elephantBranko Milanovic
Orbán,Hungary,Russia,Putin,sanctions,European Union,EU,European Parliament,commission,funds,funding Time to confront Europe’s rogue state—HungaryStephen Pogány

Most Recent Posts

reality check,EU foreign policy,Russia Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—a reality check for the EUHeidi Mauer, Richard Whitman and Nicholas Wright
permanent EU investment fund,Recovery and Resilience Facility,public investment,RRF Towards a permanent EU investment fundPhilipp Heimberger and Andreas Lichtenberger
sustainability,SDGs,Finland Embedding sustainability in a government programmeJohanna Juselius
social dialogue,social partners Social dialogue must be at the heart of Europe’s futureClaes-Mikael Ståhl
Jacinda Ardern,women,leadership,New Zealand What it means when Jacinda Ardern calls timePeter Davis

Other Social Europe Publications

front cover scaled Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship
Women Corona e1631700896969 500 Women and the coronavirus crisis
sere12 1 RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?

ILO advertisement

Global Wage Report 2022-23: The impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power

The International Labour Organization's Global Wage Report is a key reference on wages and wage inequality for the academic community and policy-makers around the world.

This eighth edition of the report, The Impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power, examines the evolution of real wages, giving a unique picture of wage trends globally and by region. The report includes evidence on how wages have evolved through the COVID-19 crisis as well as how the current inflationary context is biting into real wage growth in most regions of the world. The report shows that for the first time in the 21st century real wage growth has fallen to negative values while, at the same time, the gap between real productivity growth and real wage growth continues to widen.

The report analysis the evolution of the real total wage bill from 2019 to 2022 to show how its different components—employment, nominal wages and inflation—have changed during the COVID-19 crisis and, more recently, during the cost-of-living crisis. The decomposition of the total wage bill, and its evolution, is shown for all wage employees and distinguishes between women and men. The report also looks at changes in wage inequality and the gender pay gap to reveal how COVID-19 may have contributed to increasing income inequality in different regions of the world. Together, the empirical evidence in the report becomes the backbone of a policy discussion that could play a key role in a human-centred recovery from the different ongoing crises.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

The EU recovery strategy: a blueprint for a more Social Europe or a house of cards?

This new ETUI paper explores the European Union recovery strategy, with a focus on its potentially transformative aspects vis-à-vis European integration and its implications for the social dimension of the EU’s socio-economic governance. In particular, it reflects on whether the agreed measures provide sufficient safeguards against the spectre of austerity and whether these constitute steps away from treating social and labour policies as mere ‘variables’ of economic growth.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound webinar: Making telework work for everyone

Since 2020 more European workers and managers have enjoyed greater flexibility and autonomy in work and are reporting their preference for hybrid working. Also driven by technological developments and structural changes in employment, organisations are now integrating telework more permanently into their workplace.

To reflect on these shifts, on 6 December Eurofound researchers Oscar Vargas and John Hurley explored the challenges and opportunities of the surge in telework, as well as the overall growth of telework and teleworkable jobs in the EU and what this means for workers, managers, companies and policymakers.


WATCH THE WEBINAR HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

The winter issue of the Progressive Post magazine from FEPS is out!

The sequence of recent catastrophes has thrust new words into our vocabulary—'polycrisis', for example, even 'permacrisis'. These challenges have multiple origins, reinforce each other and cannot be tackled individually. But could they also be opportunities for the EU?

This issue offers compelling analyses on the European health union, multilateralism and international co-operation, the state of the union, political alternatives to the narrative imposed by the right and much more!


DOWNLOAD HERE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

The macroeconomic effects of re-applying the EU fiscal rules

Against the background of the European Commission's reform plans for the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), this policy brief uses the macroeconometric multi-country model NiGEM to simulate the macroeconomic implications of the most relevant reform options from 2024 onwards. Next to a return to the existing and unreformed rules, the most prominent options include an expenditure rule linked to a debt anchor.

Our results for the euro area and its four biggest economies—France, Italy, Germany and Spain—indicate that returning to the rules of the SGP would lead to severe cuts in public spending, particularly if the SGP rules were interpreted as in the past. A more flexible interpretation would only somewhat ease the fiscal-adjustment burden. An expenditure rule along the lines of the European Fiscal Board would, however, not necessarily alleviate that burden in and of itself.

Our simulations show great care must be taken to specify the expenditure rule, such that fiscal consolidation is achieved in a growth-friendly way. Raising the debt ceiling to 90 per cent of gross domestic product and applying less demanding fiscal adjustments, as proposed by the IMK, would go a long way.


DOWNLOAD HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube