Ahead of Sweden’s September 13, 2026 election, Associate Professor Anders Hellström argues that the Sweden Democrats’ influence can no longer be measured only by their vote share. Positions once treated as extreme have increasingly become “the default position, the standard,” while nativist rhetoric has become “a kind of ‘common sense.’” He also warns of growing resistance to the consequences of this restrictive turn, especially the expulsion of people deeply rooted in Swedish society, noting that “many Swedes feel that rejudification has gone too far.” For Assoc. Prof. Hellström, the deeper democratic challenge is whether mainstream parties can construct an inclusive national vision without reproducing SD’s exclusionary understanding of belonging, welfare, identity, and Swedishness.
Interview by Selcuk Gultasli
As Sweden heads toward the September 13, 2026 general election, the country faces a political landscape increasingly shaped by the long-term normalization of the Sweden Democrats (SD) and by a broader mainstreaming of restrictive positions on migration, integration, citizenship, and national belonging. Once treated as a stigmatized outsider, SD has become a central actor in Swedish politics and is now deeply embedded in the governing architecture created through the Tidö Agreement. At the same time, the party continues to compete with the Moderates (M) for leadership of the Swedish right, while its core themes have increasingly influenced the language and policy priorities of mainstream parties.
In an interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Associate Professor Anders Hellström, Senior Lecturer in International Migration and Ethnic Relations at Malmö University and affiliated with the Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare (MIM), argues that the most important transformation may not be SD’s electoral strength alone, but the extent to which ideas once considered politically extreme have become normalized. According to Assoc. Prof. Hellström, positions on immigration that would have been regarded as beyond the mainstream a decade ago have increasingly become “the default position, the standard.”
This development, he suggests, has altered the political balance between stigmatization and accommodation. SD, once able to mobilize as an excluded underdog, has become part of the establishment. Yet mainstream accommodation has not necessarily weakened the party. As Assoc. Prof. Hellström puts it, from the voter’s perspective, “why should we vote for the copy when we have the original?” He also argues that nativist rhetoric has itself become “a kind of ‘common sense,’” reflecting a deeper transformation in the boundaries of legitimate political discourse.
The interview situates these developments within broader struggles over national identity, political myth, welfare chauvinism, and the meaning of Swedishness. Assoc. Prof. Hellström emphasizes the continuing importance of Folkhemmet as a powerful national narrative whose boundaries can be drawn inclusively or exclusively. He also highlights SD’s restorative vision of Sweden, built around nostalgia for an earlier and more homogeneous society.
At the same time, Assoc. Prof. Hellström points to growing resistance against the consequences of increasingly restrictive policies. He notes that many Swedes are uncomfortable with the expulsion of people who were born in Sweden, speak fluent Swedish, and have contributed to Swedish society, concluding that “many Swedes feel that rejudification has gone too far.”
Against the backdrop of the September 13 election, the interview therefore moves beyond the immediate question of who will govern Sweden. It asks whether the deeper transformation lies in SD entering government—or in the extent to which the political mainstream itself has already been reshaped by SD’s language, assumptions, and conception of national belonging. As Assoc. Prof. Hellström observes, “the Sweden Democrats have already won” in one important sense: Sweden’s major parties now broadly accept the need for a highly restrictive immigration policy.
