Are immigrants taking our jobs? A study about ethnic antagonism in the Sweden Democrats’ parliamentary motions

The study aims to answer whether there is ethnic antagonism in the Sweden Democrats’ parliamentary motions. The analysis has been performed by applying Bonacich’ theory of ethnic antagonism on a narrow selection of the Sweden Democrats’ motions. The selected method has been a directed qualitative content analysis. Some aspects of ethnic antagonism can be found in the motions. SD considers immigrants to lower the wages of Swedes mostly because; they are used to bad labor conditions in their home countries; the government subsidizes immigrants’ labor through various labor market programmes such as instegsjobb (entry jobs) and nystartsjobb (new start jobs). The government, EU, and the labor unions are considered responsible for the perceived worsening of the labor market. The party aims to act in the labor interests of the Swedes by excluding immigrants i.e. cheaper labor, from entering the country. For future research, it could be of interest to study how ethnic antagonism is reflected in other parties