Högerpopulismens Europa : En komparativ statistisk studie av 20 europeiska länder

Sammanfattning: The aim of this thesis is to analyse the extent to which European electorates have opinions that are in agreement with the three cornerstones of right-wing populist ideology. In today’s research, it’s indicated that there’s a contradiction in current findings. Whereas voting for radical right-wing populists almost is perceived of as pathological deviancy, support for these parties is rising all over Europe. The thesis uses Cas Mudde’s theory to operationalize three key features of populist radical right ideology – nativism, populism and authoritarianism to explore the magnitude of this support. The study is based on a statistical analysis with mean value analysis of 20 European countries and regression analysis, which utilizes data from the European Social Survey from 2014. In the regression analysis, eleven control variables are added with the aim of investigating whether personal qualities affect the result or if it’s only differences between countries that contribute to the result of the thesis. The regression analysis show that a combination of the control variables together with the country variables have the biggest affect on the populist right ideology in Europe. The findings of the thesis show that support for all three key features of the right-wing populist ideology are wide-spread in Europe. However, some countries distinguish themselves more than others. Among the countries where support is most widespread are the Eastern European countries Hungary, Slovenia, Poland and Portugal. On the other hand, although levels of support are still high, opinions that are in agreement with right-wing populism are much less widespread in economically developed countries in North Western Europe, like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland and Germany.