Radical Right Populist Parties and the use of Religion in Rhetoric : A textual analysis of the framing strategies used by the Danish People's Party and the Sweden Democrats when constructing Islam as a religious threat

The aim of this case study is to examine differences in the political framing of immigration questions by the Danish People’s Party and the Sweden Democrats in relation to religious sentiments. The material analysed consists of speeches in records from Danish and Swedish parliamentary debates, and through textual analysis it is found that variations exists regarding how religion is used to highlight homogeneity and heterogeneity. The Danish People’s Party and the Sweden Democrats both use religion to assemble heterogeneity, and emphasise human rights to demonstrate how Islam fundamentally opposes a modern Western worldview. However, the Danish People’s Party makes more extensive use of religion to emphasise homogeneity than the Sweden Democrats do, and this framing strategy seems to have superimposed a sense of religious conflict on the debate in Denmark. A perceived dispute between Islam and Christianity has made the Danish People’s Party set forth proposals aimed to strengthen religious homogeneity, protect Christian dominance, and restrict the influence of Islam in the social sphere. The empirical findings are discussed in relation to different secular paths in Denmark and Sweden, and to theories that take into account the constitutive elements of a Scandinavian religious identity, and the circumstances under which religious identity may attain renewed significance.