Det beslöjade partiet : En diskursanalys avsverigedemokratiska texter

Sammanfattning: The Veiled Party: A Discourse Analysis of Sweden Democratic Texts aims to further the understanding of the underlying ideology of the Sweden Democratic party, by revealing whether or not there is any ideological content that include race, racialization, and racism in the party’s political texts. The study offers a background description of the discursive change in the social and political climate of debate in Sweden, which opened a policy window for xenophobic agenda setting. In addition, the study delivers a presentation of the public debate regarding the Sweden Democrats, as well as statements by party representatives.Through a social constructionist and discourse analytic framework, the study aims at understanding how the application of racial ideas are done and mapped. The core of the theoretical framework is a critical race and whiteness theoretical approach. Throughout the study, race is treated as a social construct. Furthermore, a presentation is made of the theoretical arguments on an essentialist view of culture and its changing discourse, imbuing culture with the same functions as the concept of race in relation to (biological) racism. It is a reduction of man to a vessel of spiritual, transferrable cultural characteristics, which through racialization becomes embodied categories. The analysis of the texts shows that the party is imbued with essentialist beliefs regarding culture, nation, and people. The human essence is perceived as being passed down through the generations in an undefined and mysterious manner, and equips people with the same meaning as the mystical concept of racial souls. The Sweden Democrats’ ideological reasoning thus creates a concept of culture that becomes a functional synonym to the idea of race.