The existence of populism within Swedish party politics : A comparative study of the Left Party & the Sweden Democrats

This thesis aims to examine the existence of populism in Swedish party politics, specifically inthe cases of The Sweden democrats on the right and The Left party on the left side. Two partiesthat can be considered each other's opposites in Sweden. The research questions revolve aroundif both parties can be considered to populist, if there are any differences in the type of populismthat the parties express and finally if there have been any changes of populism within the partiesin recent years. The definition of populism that is applied is created by Mudde & Kaltwassser (2017) and seespopulism as a thin-centered ideology with “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite,” andargues that politics should be an expression of the will of the people. The thesis also usespopulist subtypes from Jagers & Walgrave (2007) to discern different types of populism. The methods used consist of a comparative research design and a qualitative content analysis toexamine the questions of the thesis, based on speeches made by the parties in Almedalen. Theresult shows that both parties can be considered to be populists, but there are differences betweenthe parties based on subtypes and in who they see as the people or the elite. There have not beenany considerable changes in the expressed populism in any of the parties.