Did the fascists get you? : The New Right's influence on right-wing populism

Sammanfattning: An experimental survey (N = 415) is used to evaluate fascist qualifications within party preference groups, regarding susceptibility to a neofascist communication style and gravitation toward fascist ideas. Testing the notion by fascism expert Roger Griffin, that the influence of the neofascist intellectual movement the New Right (la Nouvelle Droite) is successfully shaping the 21st century wave of right-wing populism, it is hypothesized that sympathizers of the Swedish right-wing populism equivalent (the Sweden Democrats) are more susceptible to a neofascist communication style and more preconditioned to agree with covertly fascist ideas (as based on the writings of the Nouvelle Droite). The results strongly support this hypothesis, although the potential for generalizability beyond the collected sample is limited. Using a causal networks approach, the failure to falsify the hypothesis is however considered a small but valid observation that bolsters its probability. The study contributes to the current research by further strengthening the bridge between the fields of populism and fascism.