Constructing ‘The People’, ‘The Other’ and ‘The Elite’ in populist right-wing discourse; A qualitative case study on the Sweden Democrats

Abstract

The research is designed as a qualitative case study, where theoretical concepts of populism and identity are employed to investigate how the Sweden Democrats construct identities in their populist right-wing discourse. To execute the study, the concepts of ‘the People,’ ‘the Other,’ and ‘the elite’ are used to analyze how these popular subjects are discursively constructed and articulated in parliamentary activities. These concepts lie at the very core of populism, used to drawn upon these identities to legitimize political action. The study found that the Sweden Democrats construct a positive representation of the people through processes of differentiation, often drawing upon a working-class demographic. Contrastingly, it discursively constructs ‘the Other’ as a threat and danger to a Swedish and European identity by shifting the blame on a national and international elite. Through discursive strategies, the Sweden Democrats’ discourse is centered around the idea of a constructed “good” native identity by using exclusionary nationalistic rhetoric in their populist discourse. The research contributes by analyzing how identity plays a vital role, and how ‘the People,’ ‘the elite,’ and ‘the Other’ are constructed in parliamentary activity by the Sweden Democrats. The focus on the role of identities is essential, as it lies at the very core of right-wing populism and is used to legitimize political action, as well as exclusion. Moreover, as populism and right-wing parties have surged over the last few decades, investigating how they draw upon these discursive identity constructs can be vital to understanding their growth.