Högerpopulismens ansikte i svensk politik - En studie om imaginaries, othering och appropriering av feminism i svensk högerpolitik

Sammanfattning: Abstract The right-wing populist party The Sweden Democrats became the second largest party in the Swedish election of 2022. Their electoral success can be traced to populistic discursive methods. There are several political strategies commonly used by right-wing populist parties. This paper aims to analyze such strategies in the Sweden Democrats rethorics but also in other right-wing parties not commonly referred to as populists, namely the Christian Democrats and the Moderates. The intention is to study the following populistic strategies: othering, nationalistic imaginaries and appropriation of feminism. Othering is a false portrayal of a certain group as the enemy, while imaginaries are a constructed myth that can have real impact on society. Lastly, appropriation of feminism occurs when a political group advocates against feminist ideas except when sexist discrimination appears in another ethnic group than their own, thus using feminist ideas to demonize said ethnic group. The empirical material that was used was the parties official principle programs and a speech from each of the party leaders. Using Laclau and Mouffes discourse analysis all mentioned strategies were found in each of the parties studied.