Populism i Örebro kommunfullmäktige : En kvalitativ studie av Örebropartiet

Sammanfattning: With a recent rise in popularity, populism has become a frequently studied subject for political science research. However, despite the expansive research, academia still struggles to properly define the phenomenon which has resulted in several conflicting understandings of populism. The aim of this study is to compare two prominent definitions of populism: Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser’s thin-centered ideology approach and Benjamin Moffitt’s political style approach on a previously unexplored case in the form of Örebropartiet, a local populist party in Sweden. Using a qualitative content analysis, the party program and the party leader’s commentary is analysed to determine whether the definitions manage to identify the party as a populist one. The results are mixed: both definitions manage to capture the antagonistic divide between “the people” and “the elite” while still struggling in other aspects, more specifically in regards to Mudde and Kaltwasser’s host ideology aspect and Moffitt’s performance of crisis aspect. The study concludes with an acknowledgement that both definitions have inherent problems identifying Örebropartiet as a populist party which needs to be corrected if we want to expand our collective knowledge on both Örebropartiet and populism in general.