Staging Appeal? A longitudinal study of the Sweden Democrat's programmatic development, between 1989 and 2014

Sammanfattning: Can the Sweden Democrats (SDs) be accountable for their own success? If so, how can it be explained over time? This study sets out to measure the ideological appeal of the SDs and explain it via three stages of party development. Ideological appeal is conceptualised using saliency theory and explained via supply theory that centres on the behaviours of the SDs to win votes. To test behaviours, it develops an explanatory mechanism that predicts the process leading up to programmatic offerings. Ideological appeal is measured using unique primary data produced by analysing the content of the SD’s party programmes and explained via process tracing that accumulates empirical evidence on mechanisms leading up to change. The study finds compelling alterations in ideological appeal in 2003- and 2011-year’s party programme. Furthermore, it finds that stages of party developments are good predictors for behaviours to explain these changes. Conclusively, the strategic behaviours of the SDs are a vital component to understand their rise and a stage-like perspective on party development is a valuable analytical tool to explore the impact of explanatory factors over time. Ultimately, this study innovates the way Populist Radical Right parties are researched from a perspective of agency.