Policy Impact of the Radical Right: Refugee reception in Sweden

Sammanfattning: The radical right has established themselves as permanent actors in the European party system over the last decade. The determinant factors explaining their increased electoral success have been thoroughly researched. Despite this fact the knowledge of their policy impact is largely unknown. This thesis argues that the local level in Sweden offers unique opportunity to study the policy impact of the radical right as refugee reception is decided by the municipal councils. In addition the use of municipalities as units of study bypasses the usual issue of comparing across different context and institutional arrangements. By theoretically differentiating between direct and indirect policy impact this study aims at exploring under which circumstances the radical right has the ability to change policy. With the use of TSCS-analysis this thesis find support for two scenarios in which the SD negatively affect the level of refugee reception in Swedish municipalities; when they hold the balance of power and when local right-wing coalition representatives have tough view on refugee reception. The results indicate that the SD has direct policy impact through collaboration with the mainstream parties or indirect through policy co-optation by right-wing parties