En högerpopulistisk våg över Europa : En komparativ idéanalys över Sverigedemokraternas och det polska partiet Lag & Rättvisas högerpopulistiska och nationalistiska karaktärsdrag, åren 2019-2023

Sammanfattning: Despite the differing settings, two right-wing and nationalist parties, the Sweden Democracts and the Polish Law & Justice, have established themselves as powerful political contenders in Europe. The Sweden Democrats have since their entry onto the parliamentary arena in 2010, only increased their share of the votes. In Poland, Law & Justice have twice between 2015 and 2023, been able to lead a majority government. Considering the scarcity of comparative studies that have been written on the topic of right-wing populism in relation to Poland and Sweden, and by applying idea analysis we have in this study aimed to give an account of the right-wing populist as well as nationalistic traits pertinent to the Sweden Democrats and Law & Justice, to subsequently be able to compare said traits between the two parties. The hypothesis that has been put forward is that despite the differing historic, political as well as socioeconomic contexts present in these two countries, there are palpable similarities in terms of components pertinent to the right-wing populist and nationalistic ideology. Relevant to nativism, it was found that both parties highlight symbolic nativism as meaningful and even though the emphasis wthin this category was partially different, this could more be seen as a nuance difference reflective of the varying contexts, rather than a de facto difference. With regards to the sub-categories of populism, it was found that the focus on people’s centrism is a unifying trait while the presence of antielitism is only present in the case of the Polish party. The strong authoritarian tendencies in the documents of both the Sweden Democrats and Law & Justice also speak in favour of the thesis while the differing emphasis within the sub-categories speak against the hypothesis but could be exaplained by the differing contexts with Poland having had a much lower rate of immigration. All in all it can be said the hypothesis is corroborated.