In this ECPS interview, Associate Professor Karl Loxbo of Stockholm University examines Sweden as an increasingly striking case of radical-right mainstreaming. He argues that the Sweden Democrats’ electoral decline should not be confused with diminishing political influence, since the party’s rhetoric and policy positions—especially on immigration—have become widely normalized. Assoc. Prof. Loxbo stresses that Sweden has moved “from one extreme to the other,” with SD incorporated into the right-wing bloc and restrictive migration policies broadly accepted across mainstream politics. He also discusses changing boundaries of political acceptability, elite cues, the “bandwagon effect,” Social Democratic accommodation, and the wider European consequences of legitimizing the radical right. Ultimately, he links these developments to “the declining legitimacy of mainstream politics.”
Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Associate Professor Karl Loxbo, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Political Science at Stockholm University, argues that Sweden has become an unusually far-reaching case of radical-right mainstreaming. For Assoc. Prof. Loxbo, the Sweden Democrats’ electoral setback in the September 13 election should not be read as evidence that their political influence has receded. On the contrary, he stresses that the party’s ideas, rhetoric, and policy preferences have become deeply embedded in Swedish political competition. “Sweden is a special—or I would even dare to say extreme—case,” he says, pointing to the speed with which the Sweden Democrats have been incorporated into the right-wing bloc and accepted by other parties.
The central paradox of the interview is therefore the growing distance between electoral support and ideological influence. Although SD lost votes, Assoc. Prof. Loxbo argues that the party has helped transform the boundaries of acceptable political debate, particularly on immigration. Sweden, he notes, has moved from a comparatively liberal migration regime to a radically more restrictive one, a transformation that is “largely due to the SD.” More significantly, he observes that there is now “no opposition in principle to this among the mainstream parties.”
This process, in Assoc. Prof. Loxbo’s account, goes beyond policy convergence. Restrictive positions on immigration have become “highly normalized throughout the political debate and in the media,” while SD’s “rhetoric and policy positions have been extensively normalized in Sweden.” The result is not simply that the radical right has entered the mainstream, but that the mainstream itself has shifted.
Assoc. Prof. Loxbo also emphasizes how dramatically the boundaries of political acceptability have changed. “What would not have been considered acceptable 10 years ago certainly is today,” he says, adding that these boundaries have been “completely erased and redrawn.” In his view, this transformation is reinforced when mainstream elites adopt positions previously associated with the radical right, creating what he describes as a “bandwagon effect” in which citizens either shift their views or become more willing to express preferences they already held.
The Swedish experience, Assoc. Prof. Loxbo warns, carries broader European implications. Once mainstream right parties legitimize the radical right, he argues, “the party system can be reshaped beyond recognition.” Sweden’s incorporation of SD into the right-wing bloc has already produced long-term changes that, while perhaps not fully permanent, now appear deeply entrenched.
Ultimately, Assoc. Prof. Loxbo situates radical-right mainstreaming within a wider crisis of representation. The radical right, he argues, is “just a symptom of a broader phenomenon: the declining legitimacy of mainstream politics.” The democratic challenge, therefore, is not merely whether SD loses votes, but whether mainstream parties can once again develop distinctive agendas and reclaim the capacity to shape political conflict on their own terms.
In this ECPS interview, Associate Professor Karl Loxbo of Stockholm University examines Sweden as an increasingly striking case of radical-right mainstreaming. He argues that the Sweden Democrats’ electoral decline should not be confused with diminishing political influence, since the party’s rhetoric and policy positions—especially on immigration—have become widely normalized. Assoc. Prof. Loxbo stresses that Sweden has moved “from one extreme to the other,” with SD incorporated into the right-wing bloc and restrictive migration policies broadly accepted across mainstream politics. He also discusses changing boundaries of political acceptability, elite cues, the “bandwagon effect,” Social Democratic accommodation, and the wider European consequences of legitimizing the radical right. Ultimately, he links these developments to “the declining legitimacy of mainstream politics.”
Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Associate Professor Karl Loxbo, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Political Science at Stockholm University, argues that Sweden has become an unusually far-reaching case of radical-right mainstreaming. For Assoc. Prof. Loxbo, the Sweden Democrats’ electoral setback in the September 13 election should not be read as evidence that their political influence has receded. On the contrary, he stresses that the party’s ideas, rhetoric, and policy preferences have become deeply embedded in Swedish political competition. “Sweden is a special—or I would even dare to say extreme—case,” he says, pointing to the speed with which the Sweden Democrats have been incorporated into the right-wing bloc and accepted by other parties.
The central paradox of the interview is therefore the growing distance between electoral support and ideological influence. Although SD lost votes, Assoc. Prof. Loxbo argues that the party has helped transform the boundaries of acceptable political debate, particularly on immigration. Sweden, he notes, has moved from a comparatively liberal migration regime to a radically more restrictive one, a transformation that is “largely due to the SD.” More significantly, he observes that there is now “no opposition in principle to this among the mainstream parties.”
This process, in Assoc. Prof. Loxbo’s account, goes beyond policy convergence. Restrictive positions on immigration have become “highly normalized throughout the political debate and in the media,” while SD’s “rhetoric and policy positions have been extensively normalized in Sweden.” The result is not simply that the radical right has entered the mainstream, but that the mainstream itself has shifted.
Assoc. Prof. Loxbo also emphasizes how dramatically the boundaries of political acceptability have changed. “What would not have been considered acceptable 10 years ago certainly is today,” he says, adding that these boundaries have been “completely erased and redrawn.” In his view, this transformation is reinforced when mainstream elites adopt positions previously associated with the radical right, creating what he describes as a “bandwagon effect” in which citizens either shift their views or become more willing to express preferences they already held.
The Swedish experience, Assoc. Prof. Loxbo warns, carries broader European implications. Once mainstream right parties legitimize the radical right, he argues, “the party system can be reshaped beyond recognition.” Sweden’s incorporation of SD into the right-wing bloc has already produced long-term changes that, while perhaps not fully permanent, now appear deeply entrenched.
Ultimately, Assoc. Prof. Loxbo situates radical-right mainstreaming within a wider crisis of representation. The radical right, he argues, is “just a symptom of a broader phenomenon: the declining legitimacy of mainstream politics.” The democratic challenge, therefore, is not merely whether SD loses votes, but whether mainstream parties can once again develop distinctive agendas and reclaim the capacity to shape political conflict on their own terms.
Here is our interview with Associate Professor Karl Loxbo, edited lightly to enhance clarity, readability, and overall flow for publication.
SD’s Decline Reflects a Shift in Voters’ Political Priorities
Sweden’s 2026 general election produced a narrow parliamentary majority for the red-green parties, with 176 seats compared with 173 for the Tidö parties. The Social Democrats remained the largest party with 28 percent of the vote, followed by the Moderates at 19.8 percent and the Sweden Democrats at 17.5 percent. Source: SVT.
Professor Loxbo, welcome! Let me begin with the recent election result and what it may tell us about the Sweden Democrats’ position. After years of growth, SD fell to around 17.5 percent in the September 13 election, while the centre-left bloc won a very narrow majority. How should we understand this setback? Has SD reached an electoral ceiling, or is this more likely a temporary decline linked to its role in supporting the Tidö government?
Assoc. Prof. Karl Loxbo: It’s difficult to say, but what is clear is that the issues they own, especially the immigration issue have not been that salient among the electorate during this election campaign. In fact, the electorate has turned back to more traditional materialist and redistributive issues during this election. This is one of the reasons why the focus has not been on the urgency of the topics they raised and, as a result, on which they had increased their support in all elections so far since 2010. I guess there is a perception among the electorate that these issues are not as important as they were in the last election.
That result also raises an important question about the difference between electoral support and political influence. SD lost votes, but many of its positions on migration, integration, deportation, crime, and assimilation have become more mainstream. Should we therefore distinguish between electoral loss and ideological success? Can a radical-right party lose support because other parties have adopted parts of its agenda?
Assoc. Prof. Karl Loxbo: Sweden is a special—or I would even dare to say extreme—case, in the sense that, in a very short time, the Sweden Democrats have been incorporated into the right-wing bloc as almost a full member. They are now fully accepted by all of the other parties, including the Liberals, and I am not really aware of a similar situation elsewhere.
Their current position, and what you referred to as the mainstreaming of their issues, has to be understood in light of that. The mainstreaming of their agenda is closely connected to their incorporation as a completely normal part of the right-wing bloc. In a very short period—roughly four years—it is almost like moving from one extreme to the other.
Sweden’s Immigration Policy Has Gone from One Extreme to the Other
This connects directly to your research on how radical-right parties shape political debate. You describe SD as an “issue entrepreneur” that helped make immigration more central to Swedish politics. If immigration is now firmly established on the agendas of mainstream parties, has SD become less necessary to voters? Can a party lose ownership of the issue it helped make dominant?
Assoc. Prof. Karl Loxbo: This again needs to be seen in light of the Sweden Democrats being incorporated into the right-wing bloc as a fully accepted part of it, and that also applies to their position on immigration. At the same time, the leading party on the other side, the Social Democrats, have also adopted this position, so in that sense, maybe the Sweden Democrats can lose ownership of the issue.
But when immigration is highly salient in an election campaign, they are bound to benefit from it. The thing is, it was not really a highly salient issue in this election.
Sweden stands out as a rather special case because immigration policy has gone from one extreme to the other. Before the refugee crisis, Sweden had a highly liberal immigration policy compared with many other European countries. This has changed completely, and it is largely due to the SD. And there is no opposition in principle to this among the mainstream parties. None.
This also raises the question of how mainstream parties react to SD’s success. When established parties adopt stricter positions on immigration to compete with SD, do they weaken the party—or do they instead help normalize SD’s language and way of defining political problems?
Assoc. Prof. Karl Loxbo: Going back to the previous question, you have to distinguish between the issue of immigration and the actor. Whereas the policy position of being strict on immigration is now highly normalized throughout the political debate and in the media, this was not always the case. The view of the actor itself—the radical right as a political actor—is different. The Sweden Democrats have been mainstreamed within the right-wing bloc, but there is still some tension surrounding the party itself. At the same time, it is certainly the case that their rhetoric and policy positions have been extensively normalized in Sweden.
Policy Influence Does Not Automatically Translate into Electoral Reward
Sweden Democrats’ Square Meeting in Umeå. Jimmie Åkesson speaks to the people on the city square where opposition left-wingers have formed a chain and protest in Umeå, Sweden on August 14, 2018. Photo: Shutterstock.
There is also a puzzle about the relationship between influence and electoral reward. SD had considerable influence over migration and criminal-justice policy during the last four years, yet it still lost support. Does this suggest that voters distinguish between getting the policies they want and supporting the party that first promoted them?
Assoc. Prof. Karl Loxbo: Again, voting depends very much on issue saliency, and in this election, the issue was not particularly salient. But it could, of course, be that many voters effectively free-rode on the Sweden Democrats: the policies had already been advanced, and the work had, to some extent, been done.
Let me turn to the relationship between SD and Social Democracy. Your research shows that Social Democrats can sometimes reduce losses to the radical right by taking a tougher line on immigration. But does this create a longer-term problem? Can Social Democrats win back working-class voters without also accepting the idea that welfare and solidarity should be more closely tied to nationality?
Assoc. Prof. Karl Loxbo: No. In the short term, it seemed that they could do this in some Scandinavian countries, as we saw in Denmark. The Swedish Social Democrats attempted to do the same, but in this election they won little or nothing back from the Sweden Democrats.
So, this appears to be a losing gamble, as much of the research in this field suggests. Accommodation generally does not work, and it works particularly poorly for social democratic parties. In that sense, voters tend to go with the original.
That creates a very slippery slope for social democracy. In the Swedish case, they seem to have adopted this position in order to neutralize the issue and make it less salient, but it has not won them votes. It is difficult to say whether this contributed to the Social Democrats’ weak election result or whether the more important factor was the general ambiguity of their campaign.
Immigration Has Become a Lasting Feature of Swedish Party Competition
This brings us to the wider structure of political conflict in Sweden. Your research suggests that immigration has become more important in shaping how voters understand left and right, while traditional economic issues have become less central. But cost of living, healthcare, welfare, and household finances were also important in 2026. Are economic issues becoming more important again, or has immigration permanently changed Swedish party competition?
Assoc. Prof. Karl Loxbo: Yes, immigration has become a lasting feature of Swedish party competition—although “permanent” may be too strong a word. Party competition in Sweden has clearly changed, and there is no longer a stable political supply of long-term redistributive platforms.
At the same time, demand for such platforms is highly fragmented and no longer consistently sustained over time. The reason is that the main dimensions of political conflict have become increasingly intertwined. Cultural and economic issues now overlap to a much greater extent, and party competition reflects this development. As a result, Swedish politics has become increasingly centered on cultural issues, particularly immigration.
The election also showed clear geographical differences. SD remained strong in many smaller towns and rural areas but faced more resistance in large and diverse cities. How should we understand this divide? Are different parts of Sweden developing increasingly different political cultures around immigration, identity, and social change?
Assoc. Prof. Karl Loxbo: You see the same divide everywhere between cities and rural areas. The radical right tends to be stronger in rural areas and somewhat less strong in more affluent urban environments. This is not a division that is specific to Sweden. But to answer your question, yes, for sure, there are different political cultures. Sweden, however, does not deviate in any significant sense from other countries in this respect.
Younger Generations Remain More Libertarian and Cosmopolitan
Greta Thunberg, climate activist, has been demonstrating on Fridays outside the Swedish Parliament. Photo: Liv Oeian
Another interesting result concerns younger voters. SVT’s exit poll suggests that SD lost significant support among 18–21-year-olds. What might explain this? Are younger voters becoming less attracted to radical-right politics, or are they simply moving between parties more easily than older voters?
Assoc. Prof. Karl Loxbo: Younger voters are not generally that attracted to radical right-wing politics. In fact, the general tendency is that younger generations are more libertarian or more cosmopolitan in their mindset. However, in the last election, it was clear that the SD was strong among young men. The decline now probably also reflects the decline in issue saliency. There are other issues on the agenda, and they are not the issues that the SD own. As a result, you see a decreasing gap between young girls and boys, who are becoming less likely to support the radical right.
Let me turn to the question of normalization. In your earlier work, you argued that strong criticism and isolation of SD could sometimes help the party present itself as an outsider and strengthen its internal unity. Today, SD is much more established. How has the line between what is seen as racist, xenophobic, radical-right, or simply legitimate migration policy changed in Sweden?
Assoc. Prof. Karl Loxbo: It has changed dramatically—substantially. As I said before, it is like moving from one extreme to the other. What would not have been considered acceptable 10 years ago certainly is today.
The boundaries around these issues have been completely erased and redrawn. One example is the recent debate about why the right-wing side lost the election. The Sweden Democrats quickly argued that this was because immigrants vote for the left, and the narrative seemed to imply that these votes somehow did not count.
Yet hardly anyone reacted to that, except on the left. Ten years ago, it would have caused a major scandal. Today, it does not, and that illustrates how profoundly the boundaries around this issue have shifted.
Democracies Should Be Wary When Political Arguments Target Particular Groups
That leads to a difficult but important distinction. Democratic states clearly have the right to control migration and set rules on citizenship and integration. At what point does a restrictive migration policy become nativist or exclusionary? What signs should scholars and people look for?
Assoc. Prof. Karl Loxbo: You should look for signs such as the one I just mentioned: when political rhetoric begins to single out specific groups. When particular groups become the focus of political argument—when people are told to be wary of this group or that, or when individuals are treated as if they act collectively—that is, at least from the Swedish case, one warning sign.
Your research with Mike Farjam also shows how people respond to what they think the majority believes. Could this help explain the normalization of radical-right ideas? If restrictive views are increasingly presented as “common sense” or the voice of a “silent majority,” can this make people more willing to accept or express such positions?
Assoc. Prof. Karl Loxbo: Yes, definitely. It’s the same mechanism here, but it is more about people revealing preferences they already hold. They do so in response to elite cues. When elites shift their positions on these issues, people often shift as well.
The key point is that this broader change does not occur simply because the Sweden Democrats move in a certain direction. They tend to reach a more limited electorate, particularly those who already hold strongly anti-immigrant views. The broader shift comes when mainstream parties also change their positions.
In the Swedish case, that can produce a bandwagon effect: people either shift their positions on these issues or become more willing to express views they already held. That is what redraws the boundaries.
Swedish Exceptionalism Was Greatly Exaggerated
Jimmie Åkesson speaks to the people on the city square where opposition left-wingers have formed a chain and protest in Umeå, Sweden on August 14, 2018.
This also connects to Sweden’s image as a highly trusting and tolerant society. You have questioned the idea that high social trust automatically means high tolerance toward outsiders. Looking at Sweden’s shift toward a more restrictive migration debate, was the idea of Swedish exceptionalism always somewhat exaggerated?
Assoc. Prof. Karl Loxbo: Yes, somewhat exaggerated, perhaps. But if you compare Sweden with many other countries, it is still more tolerant. Although these issues have been normalized here as well, the idea of Swedish exceptionalism has certainly been greatly exaggerated. The belief that Sweden was immune to radical-right populism was actually widely held around 20 years ago. That turned out to be highly naive and reflected an exaggerated belief in the liberalism of Swedish public opinion.
Let me broaden the discussion to Europe. Your recent research with Brigitte Pircher suggests that European integration has reduced conflict in some economic areas while leaving more room for political conflict over identity and social protection. Could this help explain why migration, borders, and national identity have become so important for radical-right parties?
Assoc. Prof. Karl Loxbo: Yes, and this is a traditional explanation in the literature for the general rise of right-wing populism: the convergence of established parties on economic issues. To some extent, European integration has pushed them toward similar positions on issues that were previously more politicized. As a result, this creates political space that can be exploited by other parties, including the radical right. So yes, I believe that.
Sweden Shows the Risks of Mainstream Conservatives Embracing the Radical Right
The Swedish case also has wider European relevance. Germany faces the AfD, France the National Rally, and Britain Reform UK. What lessons can these countries draw from Sweden about isolating the radical right, adopting parts of its agenda, or giving it influence over government?
Assoc. Prof. Karl Loxbo: As soon as mainstream right parties legitimize the radical right—not only by accommodating its main issues and adopting the same positions, but by actively saying that it was right all along—the party system can be reshaped beyond recognition. I doubt that will happen in Germany with the AfD, but if it does, the consequences would be profound.
That is what happened in the Swedish case. When the right-wing bloc included the Sweden Democrats, it produced long-term shifts that now look almost permanent, although I would hesitate to call them fully permanent.
So, it is a significant risk, as the Swedish conservatives have shown. If the German CDU were to follow the same path, I would be worried.
The Radical Right Is a Symptom of the Declining Legitimacy of Mainstream Politics
Finally, let me end with the broader democratic question. If SD continues to lose votes but much of the political agenda it helped create remains in place, how should we judge democratic resilience? Is it enough for the party itself to weaken, or do mainstream parties also need to regain the ability to shape political debate on their own terms?
Assoc. Prof. Karl Loxbo: Yes, definitely. Otherwise, someone else will come along. I would say that the radical right is just a symptom of a broader phenomenon: the declining legitimacy of mainstream politics.
This does not occur in a vacuum. It is the result of a long-term decline in the legitimacy of mainstream parties, which in turn creates space for the mobilization of new parties. So, if the radical right declines, someone else will come along, as long as we have voting rights.
So yes, of course, mainstream parties need to develop clear agendas and political issues of their own again. The question is: can they?
In this ECPS interview, Associate Professor Ov Cristian Norocel of Lund University examines how the Sweden Democrats’ electoral decline can coexist with the continued normalization of their political agenda. He argues that Sweden’s mainstream right has itself shifted, noting that on immigration “the other parties [are] radicalizing themselves, rather than the Sweden Democrats normalizing their political messaging.” Norocel discusses the emergence of a Swedish “right-wing continuum,” welfare chauvinism, differential grievability, the racialized reinterpretation of the folkhem, gender equality, masculinities of crisis, and youth radicalization. His central argument is that SD’s influence cannot be measured by vote share alone: even as the party loses electoral ground, ideas it helped mainstream remain politically powerful and continue to shape debates over migration, welfare, belonging, and Swedish identity.
Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Associate Professor Ov Cristian Norocel of the Department of Sociology at Lund University argues that the Sweden Democrats’ (SD) electoral decline in Sweden’s 2026 election should not be mistaken for a retreat of the political ideas the party has helped normalize. Rather, he emphasizes that the more consequential development may be the transformation of Sweden’s mainstream right itself. As he puts it, on immigration “we see the other parties radicalizing themselves, rather than the Sweden Democrats normalizing their political messaging.”
At the center of Norocel’s analysis is what he calls the crystallization of a Swedish “right-wing continuum” bringing together SD, the Moderates (M), the Christian Democrats (KD) and, to a certain extent, the Liberals (L). While the SD have moderated elements of their presentation in pursuit of governmental legitimacy, Norocel stresses that this has occurred alongside movement in the opposite direction by established center-right parties: “the M, KD, and L, to a certain extent, have radicalized their political messaging.” The result, he argues, is a convergence in which parties that once occupied more distinct ideological positions “have been drawn to one another.”
This convergence is particularly pronounced on migration. Norocel notes that SD has remained “very persistent and consistent” on the issue, while other parties have moved increasingly closer to it. He therefore rejects a simple interpretation of the 2026 result as evidence that the radical right’s influence is waning. Indeed, he argues that “the party had already achieved part of its policy agenda,” as ideas associated with welfare chauvinism and restrictive migration policy have been “appropriated and transformed into policies by the parties in power.”
The interview also broadens the discussion beyond immigration alone. Drawing on his work on “differential grievability,” Norocel explains how political discourse ranks some lives as “more deserving of the state’s concern than others,” linking migration politics to welfare, ethnicity, race and national belonging. He similarly traces how SD’s reinterpretation of the folkhem has become increasingly “narrow and nationalistic,” turning the welfare-state ideal of “the people’s home” into “a home only for the Swedish people.”
Taken together, Norocel’s analysis points to a central paradox of contemporary Swedish politics: SD may be losing votes while the ideological terrain it helped reshape remains firmly in place. The crucial question, therefore, is no longer only how many voters support the SD, but whether mainstream conservative parties will “continue along the path of further radicalization and closer alignment with the SD” in the post-Tidö period.
Associate Professor Ov Cristian Norocel of the Department of Sociology at Lund University.
Here is our interview with Assoc. Prof. Ov Cristian Norocel, edited lightly to enhance clarity, readability, and overall flow for publication.
The Sweden Democrats Have Already Achieved Part of Their Policy Agenda
Professor Norocel, welcome! Let me begin with the idea of normalization, which runs through much of your work. You have shown how the Sweden Democrats moved from fringe nationalism and open racism toward welfare chauvinism, cultural racism, and a more acceptable conservative language. Yet SD lost support in the September 13 elections after four years of major influence through the Tidö Agreement. Does this electoral setback tell us very little about normalization? Could SD be losing votes while the political ideas it helped normalize are becoming more deeply rooted?
Assoc. Prof. Ov Cristian Norocel: Yes, this is a very interesting question, because if we look at the results and how electoral support has been distributed among the mainstream parties, but also pay attention to the parties that have fallen below the 4% threshold, the picture becomes quite complicated.
On the one hand, we could argue that the universe of ideas—of welfare chauvinism, of an increasingly restrictive migration policy, and also of a very aggressive migration policy, have gained a solid foothold among the mainstream parties. Here, of course, it is worth bearing in mind that the Tidö Agreement, and thus the government that had been in power until now, had been deeply dependent on the support of the Sweden Democrats, and the Sweden Democrats have had a major impact on the policy agenda of that government.
That conceptual universe had been appropriated and transformed into policies by the parties in power. So, this means that, in a sense, the party had already achieved part of its policy agenda. At the same time, their ambition to be able to nominate their own ministers and to hold specific portfolios in a future Tidö 2 agreement had not materialized. So, on the one hand, the ideas had been appropriated and had partly been transformed into policies. We have seen clear avenues for these to be continued further by the Sweden Democrats, and they were very explicit about what they were planning to do should the Tidö Agreement continue into a Tidö 2. However, at the same time, if we look further to the right of the party, particularly at the parties that have landed below the 4% threshold, we see an even higher radicalization of the same kind of ideological content as that of the Sweden Democrats. This is something that tells us that, across the ideological—or ideational—continuum of these parties, certain ideas have seeped into the mainstream and gained political currency. At the same time, the Sweden Democrats, as the vehicle of this ideological content, are considered not radical enough, particularly among the voters of Alliance for Sweden (AfS) or the Örebro Party—the local regional party in Örebro city and county.
So those 50,000 votes that basically made the difference between the red-green side of the political spectrum and the conservative side could have come from those voters who voted further to the right. On the other hand, I am quite skeptical that those votes would automatically have been transferred to the Sweden Democrats.
So, my argument would be that the Sweden Democrats actually suffered a significant defeat. If we look at the final data, they registered a decrease of 3.05% in voter share. And I would argue that those 50,000 that went to the smaller parties do not really account for that entirety, but that actually a lot of these votes, most probably went to the main conservative right party, the Moderates (Moderaterna / M), as well as the conservative-right Christian Democrats, or Kristdemokraterna (KD).
A Clear Right-Wing Continuum Is Crystallizing in Swedish Politics
That brings us to your idea of a “right-wing continuum.” In your work with Felicia Hägerbäck, you describe the growing alignment between SD, the Moderates, and the Christian Democrats, especially on migration and welfare. In the 2026 elections, SD declined while M and KD gained. Does this suggest that voters can now move between these parties without leaving the broader restrictive policy framework? Has the deeper change taken place in the mainstream right rather than simply in SD’s vote share?
Assoc. Prof. Ov Cristian Norocel: I think part of my earlier answer was pointing exactly to this aspect: on the one hand, we see the crystallization of a clear right-wing continuum in which not only the conservative-right Moderates, or the conservative-right Christian Democrats, and, to a certain extent, the so-called Liberal Party are included, but also the Sweden Democrats.
What I find extremely interesting—and this is something that I am working on at present in a manuscript—is paying attention to the dual forces in the creation of this right-wing continuum. On the one hand, we have a normalization of the radical-right populist parties. So, in our case, we have the Sweden Democrats, which, in pursuit of being perceived as more ready to be part of a governmental coalition, had toned down some of their more radical messaging. At the same time, what has happened is that the other parties themselves—Moderaterna, Kristdemokraterna, and Liberalerna to a certain extent—have radicalized their political messaging. So, we see how, from rather different positions on the ideological map these parties have been drawn to one another.
What I find interesting, however, is that on the issue of immigration, which is the core issue of the Sweden Democrats, they have not moderated their messaging. So, they have accepted negotiations and compromises on other policy areas. However, immigration has actually been an issue on which we see the other parties radicalizing themselves, rather than the Sweden Democrats normalizing their political messaging.
So, this also leads me to be rather skeptical of the interpretation that the Sweden Democrats have lost at the hands of the small radical parties. I would rather argue that their voters had perhaps been attracted to a more mainstream packaging of the same anti-immigration message.
Certain Lives Are Considered More Deserving of the State’s Concern Than Others
This convergence is also visible in debates about welfare and belonging. Your concept of “differential grievability” shows how migrants can be presented as less deserving of welfare protection and social concern. After four years of the Tidö framework, has welfare chauvinism moved beyond SD and become more firmly embedded in Swedish center-right politics?
Assoc. Prof. Ov Cristian Norocel: I would argue that it very much has. To explain in lay terms what grievability means—and this is a concept for which I am very much indebted to the scholarship of Judith Butler, who articulated it—my colleague Felicia and I have used the concept in our research to examine how, in political debates in the Swedish Parliament, certain lives are considered more valuable, and certain lives are considered more deserving of the state’s concern than others.
In that context, we noticed that when it comes to welfare provision, the lives of Swedish citizens and of Swedes, narrowly defined as an ethnic and racial community, are clearly placed higher on a hierarchical ladder than the lives of people of migrant descent, first-generation migrants, and people whose allegiance to the Swedish state and its values is constantly questioned. That is the distinction we identified.
What we also noticed in that research, and what I am continuing to explore at the moment, is that while the Sweden Democrats had accepted certain compromises in other policy areas—such as tax reduction, privatized schools, and privatized welfare infrastructure—they have been very persistent and consistent on migration. By the same measure, we noticed how both Moderaterna and Kristdemokraterna, and, to a certain extent, Liberalerna, had moved closer and closer to the Sweden Democrats.
In that context, we saw—and now we have tangible evidence of this, because our article was written before the Tidö Agreement came into force and before we could see its political effects—that the anti-immigration policies pursued over the past couple of years have become increasingly repressive. We also see policies that question the sincerity of people who have gone to great lengths to demonstrate, to a certain extent, even assimilation into Swedish society. Their sincerity is still being questioned.
That manifests itself, for example, in very young children from migrant families being expelled from the country, or in people who do not meet a rather high threshold of self-sufficient employment being forced to leave for that reason. So, we see how, on the issue of immigration, the right-wing continuum is very clearly taking shape. Not only that, but we also see how the mainstream parties have actually moved in a more radical direction, rather than the Sweden Democrats budging in any way on this issue.
SD’s Migration Agenda Endured Even as Voters Prioritized Other Issues
A Sweden Democrats (SD) campaign poster ahead of Sweden’s September 13, 2026 parliamentary elections, featuring the slogan “This is how we make Sweden Sweden again” and highlighting the party’s policies on immigration, crime, Islamism, citizenship, welfare, and the economy.
This creates an important paradox. SD lost around three percentage points, but migration, crime, citizenship, integration, and welfare deservingness remain central political issues. Could this be a case of electoral weakness combined with broader ideological success? How should we distinguish between losing votes and successfully changing the boundaries of acceptable political debate?
Assoc. Prof. Ov Cristian Norocel: Here we need to take a step back and acknowledge that, on the one hand, the Sweden Democrats had been rather successful in imposing their understanding of migration matters on the Tidö parties. To a certain extent, the Social Democrats have also started talking more about, and leaning more toward, a restrictive approach to migration.
However, in the context of the 2026 elections in Sweden, migration as a specific policy issue was not highest on the agenda of the Swedish electorate. There were other topics that voters considered much more important, and here one could point to two in particular: the economy and economic matters, and the climate and the issue of climate change. Matters of migration and law and order therefore ranked significantly lower on the political agenda of the electorate.
We could then argue, perhaps—and my colleagues, like Anders Hellström, would perhaps agree on this matter—that the party had been out of sync with the wider electorate. Even though the Sweden Democrats maintained their direction on migration and remained very critical on migration matters and law-and-order issues, the electorate had moved on and prioritized slightly different topics.
The Liberal Party Is Becoming a Party Without an Electorate of Its Own
The Liberals offer another interesting example of this normalization. After facing the risk of falling below the electoral threshold, they reached around 5.4 percent and moved toward accepting SD participation in government. Does this show that normalization can happen not only through ideological change but also through coalition strategy and political survival? How important is it when a liberal party begins to see cooperation with the radical right as necessary?
Assoc. Prof. Ov Cristian Norocel: On this matter, the Liberal Party has had a very surprising journey. If you think back to the 2022 elections, and even earlier, the Liberals were one of the parties that took a very clear stance against allowing the Sweden Democrats to have any influence on governmental matters whatsoever. However, it seems that, under a series of party leaders, this red line has been crossed several times: from actively trying to prevent the Sweden Democrats from gaining any meaningful influence on governmental matters, to presenting themselves as the party that would guarantee, in a governmental constellation like the Tidö Agreement, that the Sweden Democrats’ policy influence would not be as significant as if the party were itself in power and in government; and, nowadays, to the present leader of the Liberals physically embracing the Sweden Democrats’ leader and saying that a vote for the Liberal Party actually secures a continuation of the Tidö political agenda.
So, we see how the party, at least its leadership, seems to have dropped any ethical concerns regarding its policy guidelines, what sits at its core, and what the core values of the party are. From this point of view, if I may go back to the electoral results, and particularly the VALU research on the party’s voter profile, what I find extremely telling is that, if we compare the 2022 elections with the 2026 elections, only around a third of the original electorate that had voted for the Liberal Party in 2022 continued to vote for the party in 2026.
This means that support for the Liberals had come from elsewhere. Interestingly, that elsewhere was actually the Moderate Party. People who had voted for the Moderate Party in 2022 constituted approximately 40% of the Liberal Party’s new voters in 2026. So it seems that, at present, one could even go so far as to argue that the Liberal Party is no longer a party with a clear ideology of its own or an electorate of its own. Rather, it is a party without its own electorate and is supported mainly by a specific wing that previously backed the conservative-right Moderate Party.
The Folkhem Is Becoming a Home Only for the Swedish People
Celebrating Sweden’s National Day in Norrköping, Sweden, on June 6, 2014. Immigrants and native Swedes participate together in National Day celebrations. Sweden’s National Day is an official public holiday. Photo: Dreamstime.
Let me turn to SD’s use of the Swedish welfare tradition. Your earlier work shows how SD reinterpreted the ‘folkhem’ around a distinction between a deserving national “us” and outsiders. Have the September 13 elections changed this strategy, or shown how durable it has become? Is SD support about more than immigration—about a wider idea of who belongs within Swedish welfare and solidarity?
Assoc. Prof. Ov Cristian Norocel: It is becoming increasingly clear that the way the Sweden Democrats understand and deploy the concept of the folkhem—which, in plain English, means “the house of the (Swedish) people”—makes it self-evident that it is about Swedish people. In this sense, it is becoming more and more of a right-wing project.
Previously, the party had used the concept of the folkhem to mobilize an electorate around the idea that the Social Democrats—the party that had dominated Swedish politics for most of the 20th century and the early 21st century—had forgotten the ideals of the folkhem. The Sweden Democrats then sought to present themselves as its true defenders. Nowadays, however, this use of the concept is becoming increasingly narrow and nationalistic. We are no longer talking simply about a home of the people, as the concept itself would be translated, but increasingly about a home only for the Swedish people. It is defined within the confines of the national community, with a very clear racial and ethnic dimension.
At the same time, and also as part of their participation in the Tidö Agreement, the Sweden Democrats have moved further to the right. The folkhem, as it is now used and deployed by the party, is not only becoming more racialized—a project for the Swedish nation, ethnically and racially defined—but also increasingly a right-wing project in which tax reductions, punitivity, and privatization have become more important.
Even within this understanding of a folkhem for the Swedish people, a certain hierarchy appears to be constructed, in which only certain Swedish people are included in the Sweden Democrats’ folkhem: those who are comfortably middle class and who live in specific locations across Sweden—not in areas with significant migration, but in places with a rather distinct profile, somewhere between rural and highly urbanized areas, in peri-urban locations across the country.
SD’s Vision of Future Sweden Is Necessarily Ethnically and Racially Swedish
Your intersectional research broadens this question further. You show that radical-right ideas about “us” and “them” are shaped through gender, class, ethnicity, race, sexuality, welfare, and traditional values at the same time. Does this help explain why SD can remain strong even when immigration is not always the top concern? Are voters responding to a broader social and moral worldview rather than one issue alone?
Assoc. Prof. Ov Cristian Norocel: At least in the research I’ve been publishing over the past decade or so, gender has been a very important lens for better understanding the ideological universe of the Sweden Democrats. Gender, and intersectionality in particular, has been one of the main theoretical lenses that has allowed me to understand the articulation and re-articulation of the folkhem concept. It is through this intersectional perspective that I became aware of the growing stratification of the folkhem.
As I was just saying, I became aware of a certain racial stratification that excludes migrants, regardless of how much they attempt to become integrated or even assimilated into Swedish society. There is always a distinction, as reflected in statements by several highly ranked Sweden Democrats who have basically argued that no one of migrant descent will ever be able to consider themselves fully Swedish.
This extends to a certain social stratification within the folkhem, and this is part of what I have described as the mainstreaming of the radical-right populist party in Sweden. The moment tax reductions become important for the party or at least become part of the governmental package that the party supports, this leads to a tacit stratification of the folkhem. Comfortably middle-class Swedes become the preferred members of the folkhem, as opposed to working-class Swedes who may live in highly diverse neighborhoods and who, together with people of migrant background, have other, more socially acute political priorities, such as rent control, redistribution of resources, proper schools, and proper welfare infrastructure.
From that point of view, intersectionality has been very important because it has allowed me to see this stratification and how the concept of folkhem has, little by little, undergone a similar process in which certain people are discursively sorted out and the concept becomes focused on a rather narrowly defined group, not only in terms of ethnicity and race, but also in terms of class.
The issue of gender is also very important here, because we have seen how the party, over at least the past 10 or 15 years, has become increasingly adamant not only about preserving Sweden as it is, but also about ensuring that future Sweden—the future generations of citizens living in this country—will necessarily be ethnically and racially Swedish. This means that there is a very purposeful idea, in rather mechanicistic terms, about who is to be encouraged to reproduce.
Here, of course, this goes back to the idea of turning their gaze toward women and defining their task narrowly as those entrusted with reproducing the Swedish nation and ensuring that this traditional worldview continues into future generations that are, according to the Sweden Democrats, necessarily ethnically and also racially Swedish.
From that point of view, we can see how this understanding of the folkhem, and of the tasks allocated respectively to men and women, has also had certain electoral consequences, because the party still has a significant gender imbalance among its members. We can also look at the leadership, which is dominated by men, with very few women in positions of power. Those few women who do reach positions of power generally leave after a relatively short time, so there are very few who were promoted within the party from the beginning and have continued to occupy a central place in it.
This has also allowed me to see how gender has repercussions both in the way it is articulated politically by the Sweden Democrats and in the party’s internal structure. We see how the party structure does not allow women to progress easily into the leadership, and we also see the consequences among the electorate. There is still a significant difference between how men and women across all age groups and across the country vote for the Sweden Democrats, with a clear imbalance toward the male electorate across all age groups.
SD Presents Itself as Returning to What “Gender Equality Once Meant”
Children enjoy the Malmö Festival in Malmö, Sweden. Photo: Kim Carlson / Dreamstime
Gender equality is a particularly interesting part of this picture. You have shown how radical-right actors can support gender equality rhetorically while using it to contrast a supposedly modern Swedish majority with a racialized and patriarchal migrant “other.” Has this way of speaking spread beyond SD? Has gender equality itself become a way of drawing boundaries around migration, Islam, citizenship, and Swedish identity?
Assoc. Prof. Ov Cristian Norocel: This is also part of an ongoing research project that I’m working on at the moment. Together with a colleague from Sciences Po, we have been very interested, on the one hand, in the crystallization of the right-wing continuum and, on the other hand, specifically in the issue of gender equality: how and to what degree this concept has been used both by the Sweden Democrats and by the other parties along the right-wing continuum, and how it has changed over time.
It is rather interesting because, when it comes to gender, the party clearly takes a stance against what it considers to be” feminism that has gone too far.” The various efforts toward emancipation pursued by feminist actors, including civil society organizations and political parties that have embraced such an agenda, have been portrayed by the Sweden Democrats as their enemies. The party has instead consistently claimed to promote a return to what “gender equality once meant.”
They have a rather mechanicistic understanding of gender equality in this respect. Their approach is, on the one hand, to count very strictly how many men and how many women have access to specific positions and, on the other hand, to emphasize that gender quotas are not something to be pursued. The party has consistently opposed gender quotas across all sections of society, arguing that every individual, whether woman or man, should demonstrate their own qualities and that this assessment should be reflected in the positions they are able to attain in society.
In this sense, they are largely impervious to questions of structural inequality and the structural barriers that prevent women from reaching certain positions in Swedish society. Interestingly, parties that previously supported a rather different and more encompassing approach to gender equality, women’s advancement, and emancipation—such as the Liberal Party and, to a certain extent, the Moderate Party—are now also gradually moving toward this narrower understanding of gender equality.
Gender equality thus comes to mean, basically, having a certain number of women and men in particular positions in society, while emphasizing that this balance should be achieved not through state intervention or governmental policies, but through each individual’s own qualities and willingness to attain those positions. It is a very interesting change in tone among these parties.
The Far-Right Has Been Quicker to Incorporate Crisis into Its Political Agenda
Your work on far-right masculinities also focuses on the politics of crisis. You describe a “masculinity of crises,” in which repeated crises help create an embattled “us” and strengthen ideas of hierarchy and protection. Sweden has faced debates framed around migration, crime, welfare, energy, and security crises. Has crisis become a permanent political language through which authority, masculinity, and national belonging are organized?
Assoc. Prof. Ov Cristian Norocel: Unfortunately, we are living through very interesting times, and these times are indeed marked by a continuing series of crises. This means that all parties in Parliament, as well as those outside it, have to develop their own strategies for dealing with these issues and package those responses in ways that make sense to their potential electorate. My analyses have led me to argue that, along this right-wing continuum, and even further to the right, these actors have been much quicker to incorporate crisis into their political agendas.
Looking specifically at gender, I noticed a clear resonance between the idealized masculinities these actors promote and the politics of crisis. This led me to develop the concept of “masculinities of crises” as a way of conceptualizing these idealized models circulating in these political circles. Put simply, masculinities of crisis refer to a type of masculinity articulated along the ideological continuum further to the right that is not merely a reaction to repeated crises, but a specific construct that actually thrives in a context of crisis. I would go so far as to say that these masculinities would not have the same political impact they have today if there had not been so many crises in recent years.
What we are witnessing in relation to economic inequalities, insecurity, climate denialism, and war very close to our borders has therefore been conducive to the type of masculinity that is crystallizing and being promoted in these circles.
Young Men Are Being Attracted to Parties Further to the Right of SD
The youth vote adds another dimension. SD appears to have lost support among the youngest voters, while young men remain more right-leaning than young women. Should we distinguish between support for SD as a party and the wider spread of nativist or anti-egalitarian ideas among young men? Could younger men move to other right-wing parties while keeping political identities partly shaped by radical-right discourse?
Assoc. Prof. Ov Cristian Norocel: I haven’t had a very close look at exactly how young men and young women, respectively, are voting for and supporting right-wing populist parties, as well as parties further to the right. But from the little I have already seen, a very interesting picture is taking shape. The Sweden Democrats are beginning to lose their appeal as outsiders on the political landscape, while younger men in particular are being attracted to parties further to the right of the Sweden Democrats.
What I find extremely telling is the episode playing out in one of the most privileged social settings in Sweden: Manillaskolan, one of the most prestigious schools in central Stockholm. Interestingly—“interesting” in quotation marks—the Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) received votes from a significant number of young people at the school.
This raises questions about the interaction between, on the one hand, a younger generation, particularly men, who find the messaging of the more extreme manifestations of right-wing and far-right ideology more appealing, and, on the other hand, class distinction, because Manillaskolan is actually a setting for highly privileged segments of Swedish society. So we see a stronger resonance between social class, upper-class distinctions, and far-right ideology.
The Key Question Is Whether the Mainstream Right Will Continue Its Radicalization
And finally, Professor Norocel, let me return to the larger question of political success. SD lost votes and seats in the September 13 elections, yet many ideas it helped introduce about migration, welfare, belonging, and national identity remain influential, and cooperation with SD has become more accepted. Should we therefore look beyond SD’s vote share and ask how deeply its ideas about belonging, deservingness, gender, welfare, and Swedish identity have entered the political mainstream?
Assoc. Prof. Ov Cristian Norocel: Yes, this is something we will definitely have to research in the coming years. As we can see from the results, the party registered a significant decline, with the Sweden Democrats losing around 3% of the vote and experiencing a notable decrease in parliamentary representation. This is not the first time such a decline has occurred, as it was already evident in the [2024] European Parliament elections. So, for the time being, the party appears to be on a downward trajectory.
However, these ideas will remain important in the years to come, because it is still unclear how the conservative parties—both Moderaterna and the Christian Democrats—will react in a post-Tidö context. We are still at a very early stage. At the moment, we do not know what the future governmental constellation that will lead Sweden during the coming mandate will look like. This is still to be decided.
The Social Democrats will be the ones to lead the first negotiations on forming a government. We do not yet know exactly whether all the parties involved will be willing to negotiate and agree on a governmental formula. So, it remains to be seen whether, in this post-Tidö context, the social-conservative Moderaterna and the conservative Christian Democrats will return to their previous positions on migration, social welfare, gender equality, and so on, or whether they will continue along the path of further radicalization and closer alignment with the Sweden Democrats in preparation for another decisive moment, perhaps in 2030, with the next national elections.
In this commentary, Associate Professor Anders Hellström examines why the Sweden Democrats emerged as one of the main losers of Sweden’s 2026 election after years of sustained growth and political influence. He identifies three factors: SD’s transformation from an anti-establishment challenger into part of the political establishment; growing resistance to increasingly restrictive immigration policies; and a mismatch between SD’s signature issues and voters’ wider priorities, particularly healthcare, education, and the economy. Assoc. Prof. Hellström also places the election within a broader debate about populism as democratic protest and the narrative foundations of representative politics. He argues that SD has successfully shaped dominant stories about integration, immigration, and Swedish identity, but that the 2026 result may indicate an opening for alternative political narratives as “the pendulum has swung back.”
When populists become the establishment, voters may seek new ways to protest the elite, as Sweden’s recent election suggests. The pendulum has swung back. This article outlines three reasons why the Sweden Democrats (SD) suffered electoral setbacks. It concludes by arguing that research needs to acknowledge the storytelling dimension of representative politics to open up space for progressive stories to be told in the future. What will be the dominant narrative in the years to come? But first, let us return to the election itself.
On 13 September, Sweden held local, regional, and national elections. At the national level, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s Tidö coalition faced an opposition led by the Social Democrats (S). The election resulted in a narrow victory for the center-left bloc. Among the opposition parties, the Social Democrats won 28.3% of the vote, followed by the Left Party (V) (8.4%), the Center Party (C) (7.0%), and the Green Party (MP) (6.1%) (see Table 1).
Three of the four Tidö coalition parties increased their vote share. The Moderate Party (M) rose to 19.9%, remaining the second-largest party, while the Christian Democrats (KD) and Liberals (L) increased to 6.2% and 5.2%, respectively. The main loser was the Sweden Democrats, whose support fell from 20.5% to 17.5% (see Table 1).
After all votes were counted, S leader Magdalena Andersson’s bloc secured 176 seats to the Tidö coalition’s 173. Over the past four years, the SD-backed government has tightened immigration policy, promoted repatriation, made temporary residence permits the norm, and introduced tougher criminal penalties. The Social Democrats did not consistently oppose these measures and have themselves embraced a more restrictive approach to immigration. Yet, despite this broad political consensus, the opposition won.
Why is it that the Sweden Democrats (SD) emerged as one of the election’s losers? I outline below three possible explanations.
1.From anti-establishment challenger to part of the establishment. After decades of rapid growth, often doubling its vote share from one election to the next, the Sweden Democrats’ momentum slowed in 2022 and turned into decline in 2026.
Initially, in the beginning of its parliamentary journey, the party was often portrayed as a devil in disguise of sorts, who concealed an extremely shady past under a fancy costume. Meanwhile, its elected representatives were sometimes ridiculed as political clowns (Hellström & Nilsson, 2010). They faced immense criticism in mainstream media and from the other mainstream political parties. Both the Moderates under Fredrik Reinfeldt and the Social Democrats under Mona Sahlin united in a show of repugnance against the Sweden Democrats, denying them any political influence and refusing to cooperate with them.
But times change.
As the Sweden Democrats have entered the political mainstream, they have sought to portray themselves as a responsible governing partner. Meanwhile, mainstream parties have moved closer to SD on immigration. M leader Ulf Kristersson has endorsed SD leader Jimmie Åkesson’s concerns about immigration, integration, and crime (Kristersson, 2026), while the Social Democrats also support lower immigration and stricter integration measures (Social Democratic Party, 2025).
As a result, political positions widely regarded as extreme a decade ago have become mainstream today. And when the extreme has become mainstream, young radicals are looking for even more extreme alternatives, as SD has become too moderate according to them.
2.Sweden’s immigration policy, which the SD actively promotes, has become too restrictive. Many voters, both natives and immigrants, now see Sweden’s immigration policy as too restrictive. When well-integrated immigrants face deportation, barriers to family reunification, uncalled-for surveillance of well-behaved immigrant voters, or demanding income requirements (ridiculously high), these policies may generate protest rather than public support. Can these protests be framed in populist terms? For some scholars, the answer is affirmative. In this regard, populism can be understood as a form of democratic protest (Abbott, 2007) rather than merely an anti-democratic force. To shed light on this issue, it helps to revisit Margaret Canovan.
Canovan (1999) identifies two faces of democratic politics: redemption and pragmatism. Democracy, understood as an ideal, embodies a redemptive vision through which citizens can collectively pursue and realize “the good society.” The pragmatic face, by contrast, is concerned with maintaining institutions capable of managing conflict and disagreement peacefully, without allowing political competition to become destructive. In its institutional form, this pragmatic dimension is reflected in arrangements such as free and fair elections, a multiparty system, and the rule of law. Representative politics, however, extends beyond politics-as-usual by also emphasizing redemptive impulses. In this reading, voters who feel that political developments have gone too far reject established politics (pragmatism) and instead support an alternative vision (redemption). Populism is not synonymous with the far right. It can also be understood as a democratic protest against a political system that, in the eyes of its critics, has become overly technocratic.
3.Sweden Democrats’ profile issues were not at the top of the political agenda. There was a clear mismatch between the Sweden Democrats’ priorities and those of the average voter. More broadly, no single issue dominated the election campaign. While some voters focused on climate change, others were concerned about their finances, healthcare, or education. Although society remained polarized, the SD’s agenda did not fully align with voters’ main concerns.
Some voters were protesting against climate change, while others were concerned about their personal finances or health. Even in a polarized political environment, it is fair to say that there was no perfect match between what average voters considered the most important issues and the priorities of the Sweden Democrats. According to the Swedish Television exit poll (SVT Nyheter, 2026), the three most important issues for voters in the 2026 election were healthcare, education, and the Swedish economy (ibid.). According to the same 2026 VALU exit poll, Sweden Democrats’ voters were primarily motivated by concerns about law and order, immigration, and integration (ibid.).
The Sweden Democrats have successfully built a consensus around their narrative of where Sweden is heading and what Swedish national identity is. This lies behind their policies and political rhetoric, at least up to now. I will end this article with two examples of when their narrative has established a consensus and achieved hegemony.
First, consider the failure of integration mantra. While many agree that integration has failed, few agree on what integration actually means. The SD offers a simple explanation: excessive immigration has weakened social cohesion and caused fragmentation. Yet this narrative is often one-sided. Immigrants now constitute more than one-fifth of Sweden’s population, and many have integrated successfully into Swedish society. But as long as the dominant (and only) narrative is that integration has failed, the SD stands to benefit.
A second example is the oft-repeated claim that Sweden must never return to 2015. Yet 2015 created opportunities for both regressive forces and progressive mobilization (Bevelander & Hellström, 2019). While many municipalities worried that immigration was stretching their capacity to the limit, civil society organizations, churches, and private citizens mobilized to help refugees by providing housing, language cafés, and other forms of support. These examples are seldom heard now.
Living with diversity in everyday life gives rise to social tensions in the population and between groups. Sweden has now elected a new parliament. Let us see what the new government will look like. Members of the Tidö government have packed their bags. Which narratives will the new government base its law proposals on? What will be the dominant story? Populism invites us to acknowledge the storytelling dimension of representative politics. It invites us, as researchers of populism, to expand beyond politics as usual. Since the pendulum has swung back, there is reason to hope that the story, Swedish case, will have a happy continuation.
(*) Anders Hellström is Associate Professor in Political Science. He is a senior lecturer in IMER at the Department of Global Political Studies and is connected to the Migration Research Institute MIM at Malmö University. He has published widely in the areas of populism, nationalism, the far right, racism, discourse theory, and the politics of migration and identity. He has published widely in academic journals, such as Government and Opposition, Journal of International Migration and Integration, and Ethnicities. His most recent article is “You Are Not a Racist, Right?”: Racism as a Political Activity, which examines the intersection between discourse and ideology in contemporary struggles over the meaning of racism.
References
Abbott, P. (2007). ‘“Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan”: Democratic Theory, Populism, and Philip Roth’s ‘American Trilogy’.” Canadian Review of American Studies, vol. 37, no. 3: 431–452.
Canovan, M. (1999). Trust the People! Populism and the Two Faces of Democracy. Political Studies, 47(1), 2-16.
Hellström, A. and Nilsson, T. (2010). “‘We Are the Good Guys’: Ideological Positioning of the Nationalist Party Sverigedemokraterna in Contemporary Swedish Politics’.” Ethnicities, 10(1), pp. 55-76.
Kristersson, U. (2026). Statement by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. Stockholm: Government Offices of Sweden.https://www.government.se/ (accessed: 15 September 2026).
Mudde, Cas. (2019). The Far Right Today.
Social Democratic Party. (2025). Social Democrats Adopt New Program with Adjusted Immigration Policy. Available at: Sweden Herald. (accessed: 15 September 2026).
In this ECPS interview, Dr. Gefjon Off examines the Sweden Democrats’ 2026 electoral setback against the backdrop of their continuing political and ideological influence. She argues that declining vote share should not automatically be read as “denormalization,” stressing that electoral strength is only one measure of radical-right success. SD’s “agenda-setting power and policy influence have been very significant,” she notes, extending beyond the Tidö parties as migration-critical positions have spread across the wider party system. Dr. Off also discusses issue salience, youth voting, gender gaps, economic insecurity, tactical voting, coalition fragmentation, and comparisons with Germany’s AfD. Her central insight is that electoral losses can coexist with enduring normalization: “The influence of the Sweden Democrats is clear.”
Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Gefjon Off, a postdoctoral research associate in Comparative Politics at the University of Hamburg, argues that the Sweden Democrats’ electoral setback in Sweden’s September 13, 2026 election should not be mistaken for a corresponding decline in the party’s broader political influence. At the center of Dr. Off’s analysis is a distinction between electoral strength and normalization. While acknowledging that electoral growth can be one indicator of normalization, she stresses that it is far from the only one. “There are many other indicators of normalization,” she notes, including how a party is treated by the media, discussed in public debate, and regarded as a legitimate political actor. For this reason, she cautions against reading SD’s losses as evidence of “denormalization”: “Electoral growth can be an indicator of normalization, but there are many other indicators that matter, too.”
This distinction becomes particularly important because, in Dr. Off’s assessment, SD’s agenda-setting and policy influence have extended well beyond its own electoral constituency. She observes that the party has exercised “considerable policy influence and agenda-setting power” and that this influence has not been confined to the Tidö parties. The Social Democrats have also moved toward more immigration-critical positions, leading Dr. Off to conclude that “SD’s agenda-setting power has extended beyond the right-wing bloc and some center parties.”
The interview therefore explores a central paradox of contemporary radical-right politics: a party may lose voters while some of the issues, narratives, and positions it helped elevate become increasingly embedded in mainstream political competition. Dr. Off suggests that once immigration and crime become widely politicized across the party system, the Sweden Democrats may lose part of the credibility advantage they previously enjoyed as the most prominent owners of those issues. “These issues have become mainstream,” she says, adding that SD’s earlier agenda-setting advantage “has become smaller.”
Yet electoral losses remain consequential. Dr. Off emphasizes that votes are ultimately indispensable to sustaining political leverage: “Without votes, a party eventually loses influence.” Still, she insists that the broader picture cannot be captured by vote share alone. “The influence of the Sweden Democrats is clear,” she concludes, and their “agenda-setting power and policy influence have been very significant.”
The interview thus examines SD’s 2026 setback not simply as an electoral story, but as part of a larger process through which radical-right ideas can reshape political agendas, party competition, coalition strategies, and the boundaries of what is considered politically mainstream.
In this ECPS interview, Dr. Gefjon Off examines the Sweden Democrats’ 2026 electoral setback against the backdrop of their continuing political and ideological influence. She argues that declining vote share should not automatically be read as “denormalization,” stressing that electoral strength is only one measure of radical-right success. SD’s “agenda-setting power and policy influence have been very significant,” she notes, extending beyond the Tidö parties as migration-critical positions have spread across the wider party system. Dr. Off also discusses issue salience, youth voting, gender gaps, economic insecurity, tactical voting, coalition fragmentation, and comparisons with Germany’s AfD. Her central insight is that electoral losses can coexist with enduring normalization: “The influence of the Sweden Democrats is clear.”
Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Gefjon Off, a postdoctoral research associate in Comparative Politics at the University of Hamburg, argues that the Sweden Democrats’ electoral setback in Sweden’s September 13, 2026 election should not be mistaken for a corresponding decline in the party’s broader political influence. At the center of Dr. Off’s analysis is a distinction between electoral strength and normalization. While acknowledging that electoral growth can be one indicator of normalization, she stresses that it is far from the only one. “There are many other indicators of normalization,” she notes, including how a party is treated by the media, discussed in public debate, and regarded as a legitimate political actor. For this reason, she cautions against reading SD’s losses as evidence of “denormalization”: “Electoral growth can be an indicator of normalization, but there are many other indicators that matter, too.”
This distinction becomes particularly important because, in Dr. Off’s assessment, SD’s agenda-setting and policy influence have extended well beyond its own electoral constituency. She observes that the party has exercised “considerable policy influence and agenda-setting power” and that this influence has not been confined to the Tidö parties. The Social Democrats have also moved toward more immigration-critical positions, leading Dr. Off to conclude that “SD’s agenda-setting power has extended beyond the right-wing bloc and some center parties.”
The interview therefore explores a central paradox of contemporary radical-right politics: a party may lose voters while some of the issues, narratives, and positions it helped elevate become increasingly embedded in mainstream political competition. Dr. Off suggests that once immigration and crime become widely politicized across the party system, the Sweden Democrats may lose part of the credibility advantage they previously enjoyed as the most prominent owners of those issues. “These issues have become mainstream,” she says, adding that SD’s earlier agenda-setting advantage “has become smaller.”
Yet electoral losses remain consequential. Dr. Off emphasizes that votes are ultimately indispensable to sustaining political leverage: “Without votes, a party eventually loses influence.” Still, she insists that the broader picture cannot be captured by vote share alone. “The influence of the Sweden Democrats is clear,” she concludes, and their “agenda-setting power and policy influence have been very significant.”
The interview thus examines SD’s 2026 setback not simply as an electoral story, but as part of a larger process through which radical-right ideas can reshape political agendas, party competition, coalition strategies, and the boundaries of what is considered politically mainstream.
Here is our interview with Dr. Gefjon Off, edited lightly to enhance clarity, readability, and overall flow for publication.
A Party Can Become More Normalized Even Without Continuing to Grow
Sweden’s 2026 general election produced a narrow parliamentary majority for the red-green parties, with 176 seats compared with 173 for the Tidö parties. The Social Democrats remained the largest party with 28 percent of the vote, followed by the Moderates at 19.8 percent and the Sweden Democrats at 17.5 percent. Source: SVT.
Dr. Off, welcome! Let me begin with your distinction between mainstreaming and normalization.In your work with Anna-Sophie Heinze, you distinguish between mainstream parties adopting far-right positions and the wider normalization of those positions in society. SD fell to around 17.5 percent in the September 13 elections after four years of major influence through the Tidö Agreement. Does this show that normalization does not necessarily lead to continued electoral growth? Can a radical-right party become more normalized even while losing votes?
Dr. Gefjon Off: Electoral growth is one indicator of normalization. As a party grows—especially a party that is new and was originally considered extremist, at least when it was founded, and clearly not normalized at that point—we can consider electoral growth an indicator of normalization.
But there are many other indicators of normalization. How does the media deal with this party? How is it talked about? Is it considered a legitimate political actor in society? So even people who do not vote for the party might consider it a legitimate party and a democratic actor in the political party landscape of the country.
And so, I wouldn’t say that a decline in electoral growth is a sign of denormalization or something like that. I would rather say that electoral growth can be an indicator of normalization, but there are many other indicators that matter, too.
It Is Quite Unusual for Center-Right Parties to Win Voters Back from the Far Right
This raises an important question about who benefits from mainstreaming. SD lost support even though migration, citizenship, integration, and crime remain central issues on the Swedish right. Can a radical-right party shape the agenda so successfully that mainstream conservative parties eventually benefit from positions it helped normalize? And does Germany show that policy mainstreaming can develop even when a party like the AfD remains formally excluded?
Dr. Gefjon Off: Usually, comparative research from other countries shows that center-right parties do not gain electorally by accommodating far-right positions. This pattern has been observed across many European countries, and there is quite a strong consensus on this in the research. So, yes, we would not normally expect center-right parties to win votes by accommodating the far right.
It is therefore quite unusual for center-right parties to win back voters from the far right, as has happened to some extent in Sweden. We usually do not expect this because far-right voters tend to support the party they consider most credible on the issues they care about. If immigration is especially important to them, the far-right party is usually seen as the most credible opponent of immigration because it made the issue its own in the first place. When a center-right party adopts a similar position, it may be seen as less credible because the far-right party was there first.
According to the exit polls, 7% of those who voted for the Sweden Democrats in 2022 voted for the center-right Moderate Party this time, and this is something we have not really seen much elsewhere, so it is quite unusual.
In Germany, regarding your second question—can policy mainstreaming develop even when a party like the AfD remains formally excluded? —yes, that is definitely happening. The center-right CDU still says it will not collaborate with the AfD or form coalitions with it, either at the national or federal-state level. This remains a formal exclusion rule. But, of course, the CDU is still adopting anti-immigration policies, and not only the CDU; we also see other parties doing this. So yes, the influence is still there, even though the AfD remains excluded from formal collaboration.
Can Now Use the Outsider Argument to Re-Establish That Image
Sweden Democrats’ Square Meeting in Umeå. Jimmie Åkesson speaks to the people on the city square in Umeå, Sweden on August 14, 2018.
SD’s position during the last four years was also unusual. It remained outside government but had major influence through the Tidö Agreement. Could its decline partly reflect the cost of becoming associated with government while losing some of its outsider appeal? And does the AfD’s exclusion in Germany help it preserve that outsider position?
Dr. Gefjon Off: I don’t think SD lost votes because it lost its outsider appeal. This is not a mechanism I would expect to find in other countries either, including cases where far-right parties have entered government. But this morning (Friday), the Sweden Democrats’ party leader, Jimmie Åkesson, made exactly this claim at the press conference. He argued that the party had lost some of its outsider appeal because it had worked with established parties.
I find this unlikely for two reasons. First, since becoming party leader in 2005, Jimmie Åkesson has consistently tried to make the Sweden Democrats appear more established. The party was founded by extremists, including Nazis, and since Åkesson came to power within the party, he has worked to clean up its image. Some people were expelled, the rhetoric was de-radicalized, and for a long time his strategy was precisely to make the party appear more established. So now, to claim that they lost votes because they worked with established parties—which has always been their goal—does not seem entirely convincing to me.
Of course, this is also rhetoric he can now use to re-establish more of an outsider image. The other reason is that, even though Åkesson himself does not usually engage in this kind of behavior—or does so only to a limited extent—there are leading figures within the party who have been around for a long time and who have made very controversial statements and sparked highly provocative public debates. In that sense, they have not always acted in an established way. They use provocative language, make controversial statements, and regularly trigger debates over whether such behavior is appropriate.
So, overall, I don’t think it is straightforward to say that SD lost votes because it worked with established parties.
Regarding the second question about the AfD: does its exclusion in Germany help it preserve its outsider position? Yes, of course. The AfD can use this exclusion to construct an identity around the idea that “we are the ones who are being unfairly excluded.” This strengthens an “us against them” group identity and helps the party build a partisan identity around being unfairly excluded.
The Right-Wing Bloc Remained Strong Despite SD’s Electoral Losses
The movement of voters within the Tidö bloc is also interesting. The Moderates moved ahead of SD, while the Liberals survived with around 5.3 percent, helped partly by tactical voting. Does this suggest that voters can move between parties for strategic reasons without changing their broader ideological views? Can SD lose votes while the wider right remains strong?
Dr. Gefjon Off: The exit polls show that the Liberal Party gained votes mostly from the Moderate Party, but not particularly from the Sweden Democrats. So, in this case, tactical voting was taking place, but not so much among Sweden Democrat voters. The Sweden Democrats’ losses therefore do not appear to have been driven by their voters switching to the Liberal Party.
This is also in line with what SD leader Jimmie Åkesson said. A few weeks before the election, he urged his own voters not to support the Liberal Party or engage in strategic voting. So, strategic voting did occur, but it came mainly from other right-wing parties, not from the Sweden Democrats, at least according to the exit polls.
The reason the rest of the right-wing bloc remained strong is probably, first of all, that the Sweden Democrats lost 3 percentage points, some of which went to the Moderate Party. But the Social Democrats also lost 2.3 percentage points, and some of that support went to the Moderate Party as well. This probably helps explain why the right-wing bloc remained quite strong overall.
In general, there was not much movement apart from the losses of the Social Democrats and the Sweden Democrats, who lost 2 and 3 percentage points, respectively. Otherwise, voter shifts were relatively limited. The election was also very tight. So, overall, we are talking about relatively small voter movements.
Once SD’s Issues Become Mainstream, Its Electoral Advantage Can Become Smaller
Your research also distinguishes between what people believe and which issues they consider most important. Could the 2026 election show that restrictive views on migration or crime remain widespread even if these issues no longer benefit SD as strongly at the ballot box? Can a radical-right party win the battle over the agenda but lose some of the electoral advantage once its issues become mainstream?
Dr. Gefjon Off: Yes, I would say these issues have become mainstream. In that sense, if other parties can act credibly in line with what SD stands for, it seems that other right-wing parties have become credible enough to SD voters on immigration and crime as well. That may mean the credibility advantage the Sweden Democrats gained through their agenda-setting power—by raising these issues, or at least by raising them most prominently in the first place—has become smaller. That could be one interpretation of the results.
Compared with 2022, however, immigration and crime were also somewhat less important to voters in 2026. They were still among the top-ranked issues, but we can see some movement. Healthcare, for example, has become even more important than before, and that is also a rather left-wing issue.
So perhaps part of the shift reflects the fact that immigration and crime have become less important in voters’ eyes. The question, then, is why. I can think of at least two possible explanations. One is that immigration and crime rates have gone down, so these issues may simply feel less urgent to many voters.
The other is that some of the immigration and crime policies proposed by the Tidö government were perceived by parts of the public as very harsh and therefore generated considerable public criticism. For example, debates about deporting children and teenagers, as well as incarcerating teenagers, sparked strong reactions. It may be that some voters reacted against the way these policies were ultimately implemented in practice.
So, these are two possible explanations for why immigration and crime may no longer have been as important as before. And that, in turn, could also have affected why SD was not as successful as it had been previously.
Values Tend to Remain Stable, but the Salience of Issues Can Change
This brings us to the importance of issue salience. Your earlier research showed that when gender equality becomes politically prominent, conservative gender attitudes can become more closely connected to SD support. Should we focus less on whether voters changed their values in 2026 and more on which issues parties successfully made important? Is radical-right support often about activating existing attitudes rather than creating entirely new ones?
Dr. Gefjon Off: Usually, research assumes that values are relatively stable. Attitudes may change somewhat more, but values are the deeper underlying beliefs people hold. Views on immigration or gender equality are often closely connected to values developed at an early age. People are generally socialized into these values while growing up, particularly during their teenage years and early adulthood, which we consider the formative years. After that, values tend to remain relatively stable. So, we would not expect people to completely change their minds between elections.
What can change are other factors: whom people trust, how they view political leaders, whether scandals occur, how the government performs, and so on. Another important factor is how salient a particular issue becomes. For instance, after 2015, when immigration increased in many countries, immigration became a more important political issue. It was discussed extensively by politicians, the media, and, of course, the far right. The same applies to other developments, such as the economic crisis or, later, worldwide feminist movements. When events like these occur, certain issues become more salient.
When an issue becomes more salient, the attitude people already hold toward it becomes more important in their vote choice. So, it is less about changing attitudes than about how important those attitudes become politically. This happens through major events, but also through the way political parties politicize particular issues.
Far-right parties across Europe—although the Sweden Democrats somewhat less so—have increasingly politicized anti-gender and anti-feminist views, as well as women’s rights and LGBTQI+ rights, by positioning themselves against these issues. Of course, if I am, say, a far-right voter who sympathizes with such a party and consumes its rhetoric and positions, this can also influence me. By politicizing an issue, the party therefore also increases its salience.
SD Lost 7%Points Among First-Time Voters, but the Broader Youth Picture Is More Stable
People shop in Gamla Stan (Old Town) in Stockholm, Sweden on August 23, 2018.
The youth vote is especially interesting in this respect. SD lost support among younger voters, while the gender gap between young men and young women remains substantial. Does this suggest a weakening of SD specifically rather than a reversal of the wider rightward movement among young men?
Dr. Gefjon Off: It’s interesting. According to the exit polls, the Sweden Democrats lost 7 percentage points among first-time voters. That is quite substantial, considering that they lost 3 percentage points in the electorate overall. Among 18- to 21-year-olds—a very small group—they lost 7 percentage points.
I don’t think this is easy to explain, except by noting that first-time voters are a very volatile group. They are not yet fully socialized into the political system, do not really have a partisan identity, and have not yet developed strong partisan attachments. So perhaps it is not too surprising that voting patterns among first-time voters can change considerably from one election to another.
Still, it is quite striking that the Sweden Democrats lost 7 percentage points in this group. But if you look at slightly older voters, the picture is more stable. Among 22- to 30-year-olds, they actually gained 1 percentage point, according to the exit polls. So, what is happening among young voters depends a great deal on how you define “young.”
I prefer to include voters up to the age of 29 or 30, because if you focus only on first-time voters, the group becomes very small, making it difficult to draw substantive conclusions. Among somewhat older young voters, the Sweden Democrats still gained a little. So, the overall picture really depends on which age group you examine.
We Do Not Yet Fully Understand Why Youth Gender Gaps Are Widening
Your comparative research also warns against assuming that all young men are moving toward the far right in the same way. What conditions determine whether culturally conservative young men support a radical-right party rather than a mainstream conservative party? How important are economic conditions, party strategies, and political institutions?
Dr. Gefjon Off: We see that in some countries, young men have been moving toward the far right, and Sweden was one of these countries until this election. For this election, however, we still need to see the numbers to know whether this trend is continuing.
Sweden has been one such case. But in many other countries, the youth gender gap is driven more by young women becoming more progressive. So, the explanatory factors shaping these patterns remain somewhat unclear. We do not really know why young women become more progressive in some places while young men become more conservative in others. What we do see is a widening gender gap in many countries.
The patterns differ, however, and we do not yet fully understand why. Some research suggests—although this still needs to be tested more rigorously—that in countries where gender equality is more advanced, more young men may move toward the far right. But this remains tentative.
As for economic conditions and party strategies, these certainly matter. They matter for many far-right voters, not just young men. A great deal has to do with economic grievances related to housing, prices, inflation, and perhaps job conditions. But it is also very much about perceived grievances. People’s own economic situation may not always be objectively bad, but they may feel that it is worsening or could worsen in the future. So it is often more about perceptions than about objective conditions. The two can, of course, go hand in hand, but they do not always have to.
This does not necessarily affect men and women differently, however. Everybody experiences economic insecurity when it occurs. Party strategies, on the other hand, do matter. Far-right parties are very effective at mobilizing on social media. And because of gender differences in social media algorithms, far-right content is more often shown to young men than to young women. So, we do think that these party strategies, especially in social media communication, matter.
Political institutions probably matter as well, perhaps in terms of the level of gender equality in a country, but this remains very tentative, as I said.
Voters Can Change Parties Without Changing Their Broader Cultural Values
Your concept of “protective masculinity” helps connect these developments to wider cultural attitudes. It brings together views about immigration, gender equality, sexuality, crime, hierarchy, and national identity. Could these attitudes remain stable even when party support changes? Can voters move between SD and mainstream right-wing parties without changing their broader cultural outlook?
Dr. Gefjon Off: “Protective masculinity” is a concept coined by Katarzyna Wojnicka; it’s not my concept. But I think it is much more about underlying cultural values concerning both immigrants and women, as well as the relationship between men and women, than about specific attitudes that might change from one election to another. That is why I expect these values to remain relatively stable. It is largely about how people view societal relationships between different groups. So, I do think these values remain stable, and they probably do not change even if, in this example, a person decides to vote for a party other than SD.
A More Diverse Electorate Is More a Sign of Far-Right Success Than a Hindrance
Black Lives Matters Protest in Stockholm, Sweden on June 3, 2020.
Your work also shows that radical-right voters are far from a single, uniform group. SD has drawn support from anti-immigration voters, economically insecure groups, former Social Democrats, and younger right-wing voters. Does its 2026 decline suggest that this coalition has become harder to hold together?
Dr. Gefjon Off: The growth of far-right parties necessarily means that their electorates become more diverse. As a party grows, more and more people vote for it, which naturally brings a wider range of voters into its electorate. This is more a sign of success than a hindrance. Being able to attract different population groups shows that these parties have become more successful, so I would not consider this a disadvantage for them. It is probably a good thing.
What is more interesting is that, at least in this case, some SD voters did not identify strongly enough with the party to remain loyal to it. This suggests that the partisan identity far-right parties often create very successfully may not have been as strong among some parts of the electorate. That is quite interesting. It suggests that in Sweden, perhaps this year at least, it was somewhat easier to win back voters from the far right than, for instance, what we have been seeing in Germany.
Far-Right Rhetoric Draws Heavily on a Sense of Unfair Treatment
Threat perceptions are another important part of your research. You show that cultural concerns can become stronger when combined with economic insecurity, distrust, and feelings of unfair competition. How useful is this framework for understanding Sweden today? Could these grievances remain strong while increasingly being expressed through parties other than SD?
Dr. Gefjon Off: As I said before, perceptions of economic insecurity, as well as the feeling of being unfairly disadvantaged in one’s own economic situation, can help fuel far-right support across Europe, not just in Sweden. But again, much of this is about perceptions and a sense of unfair treatment. This is something the far right often draws on in its rhetoric. They may tell people that they are being treated unfairly and that immigrants, for example, are being advantaged at their expense.
We have also seen some of this discourse directed toward men, especially young men, although less so in Sweden. They are told that they are being discriminated against, treated unfairly in society, and deprived of opportunities. This is part of the rhetoric, and it draws heavily on these kinds of perceived grievances.
At the same time, we see that many workers also vote for the far right. Workers traditionally voted for the Social Democrats, and they still do to a large extent, but many voters have also shifted from the Social Democrats to the far right. This has happened in both Sweden and Germany.
This year, 25% of workers voted for the Sweden Democrats, compared with 17.5% of the electorate overall. So, a substantial proportion of workers, who often live in more precarious economic circumstances, supported the party. Economic insecurity, therefore, definitely plays a role.
SD’s Agenda-Setting Power Has Extended Beyond the Right-Wing Bloc
Sweden’s Social Democrats campaign ahead of the general election in Malmö, Sweden, on September 2, 2022, in support of then-Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson’s bid for a second term. Photo: Francis Joseph Dean / Dreamstime.
The election also shows why different forms of political influence need to be separated. SD remains a major party, but electoral strength, policy influence, agenda-setting power, coalition leverage, and government participation are not the same thing. How useful is it to distinguish these different forms of normalization when assessing SD’s position?
Dr. Gefjon Off: I think this is important. As I said, electoral strength is one indicator of a party’s normalization, but there are many other ways to assess how successful it is. Over the past few years, SD has had considerable policy influence and agenda-setting power.
This influence has not been limited to the Tidö parties; it has gone beyond the coalition leverage SD exercised as a support party. The Social Democratic Party has also adopted more immigration-critical positions. So, SD’s agenda-setting power has extended beyond the right-wing bloc and some center parties.
There is therefore a great deal of influence, and it is useful to look at different indicators when assessing it.
The Rise of the Far Right Has Made Coalition Building More Complicated
Government formation shows how SD has affected the wider party system as well. The Center Party rejects dependence on SD, while also resisting Left Party participation in government, and the Left Party is demanding influence if its support is needed. Does this show that the rise of the radical right reshapes coalition choices even among parties that oppose it?
Dr. Gefjon Off: Yes. Since the rise of the far right across different European countries, party systems have become more fragmented, making coalition formation more difficult. Different countries have responded to this challenge in different ways.
For instance, in Germany, we have seen more grand coalitions over the past 20 years, with the center-left and center-right forming governments together to secure a majority. In Sweden, by contrast, we have not seen such grand coalitions in the past decade. Instead, governments have relied on minority arrangements supported by other parties. The Tidö government, for example, was a minority government that depended on the support of the Sweden Democrats.
A similar arrangement may now emerge with a new, more left-wing or center-left government, which could also be a minority government relying on support from another party. So, there are different ways of dealing with this challenge, but the broader pattern is that the rise of the far right has contributed to greater fragmentation in the party landscape, making coalition building more complicated.
The Liberals Survived with Help from Tactical Voting by Other Tidö Voters
The Liberals are particularly interesting here. Their survival strengthened the Tidö bloc, but the party has also struggled internally over cooperation with SD. Does this reveal a tension between electoral survival, ideological identity, and coalition strategy? Can the same tactics that help a party survive also make governing alliances more difficult?
Dr. Gefjon Off: The Liberals are a very interesting case because, traditionally, they were in favor of welcoming refugees. When they joined the Tidö government, which relied on the support of the Sweden Democrats, many prominent members left the party. There was also considerable internal disagreement, which significantly weakened the party. For a long time, it remained below the 4% threshold required to enter Parliament.
Now they have made it. But Simona Mohamsson, their party leader, has only been in the role for about a year. There were also strong disagreements between her and Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Åkesson over what it means to be Swedish and who can be considered a Swede, especially given Mohamsson’s own background as the daughter of immigrants.
So, the situation has been very unstable. In this case, what probably helped the Liberals survive was tactical voting by supporters of the other parties in the Tidö government—not so much by Sweden Democrat voters, but by voters of the other parties.
Swedish Opposition to SD Is Directed More at Its Policies Than at Its Legitimacy
Your experimental work with Amy Alexander and Nicholas Charron suggests that polarization can grow through both conservative backlash and liberal countermobilization. Could the September 13 elections reflect this two-sided process? Might years of SD influence have mobilized not only its supporters but also voters who are specifically concerned about its growing normalization?
Dr. Gefjon Off: I think there were definitely people reacting against some of the policies of the Sweden Democrats and the Tidö government. We see left-wing counterreactions to some of these policies, but I do not think we see a broader questioning of SD’s legitimacy as a political party. So, I would say that people are reacting more against particular policies than against the normalization of the party itself.
I am therefore not sure that there is such a strong concern in Swedish society about the normalization of the Sweden Democrats. In my impression, the question of whether SD is a legitimate democratic actor is not especially prominent in public debate. The opposition is directed more toward the party’s positions than toward its existence as a political actor.
In Germany, by contrast, there are major public debates about whether the AfD is a legitimate political actor, whether the party should be banned, or whether certain branches of it might be banned. Some branches have been labeled right-wing extremist and unconstitutional, the youth organization was dissolved, and a new organization was founded last year. So there is much more public debate, including formal statements by government authorities about whether the party can be considered a legitimate democratic actor and how it should be dealt with if it is not.
There have also been waves of demonstrations in which hundreds of thousands of people across different German cities have taken to the streets. These protests occur relatively regularly and are directed against the AfD as a political party and political actor.
So, I think the way people have reacted to normalization is quite different in the two cases. The counterreactions to particular policies may be similar, but the reaction to the normalization of the party itself is different.
Electoral Support Matters, but It Tells Only Part of the Story of SD’s Influence
And finally, Dr. Off, let me return to the broader meaning of radical-right success. Should we measure it mainly through vote share and government participation, or also through policy influence, agenda-setting power, mainstream adoption of its positions, and the weakening of stigma around them? If a party loses votes while many of its ideas become more accepted, does that suggest that electoral results alone tell us only part of the story?
Dr. Gefjon Off: Yes, I agree with this. SD lost votes, and it was also the party that lost the most votes in this election, which is probably an indication of the significance of that loss. But the party has gained considerable influence, and that influence remains.
It will be very interesting to see how the Social Democrats, having also lost votes, formulate migration policy in their coalition agreements. Will they continue along the rather conservative path they have been moving toward, or will they try to appeal to their more left-wing coalition partners and step back somewhat from these anti-immigration positions?
So, the situation is quite interesting, but the influence of the Sweden Democrats is clear. I am not sure they themselves would consider this a success, given that they lost votes. Of course, electoral support may still be the most important indicator because, without votes, a party eventually loses influence.
Still, their agenda-setting power and policy influence have been very significant, and that is certainly part of their success.
In an interview with the ECPS, Professor Adam Bodnar, Poland’s Minister of Justice from 2023 to 2025, reflects on Poland’s experience of democratic backsliding and rule-of-law recovery, arguing that electoral victory alone cannot reverse years of institutional capture. He stresses that democratic resilience depends on protecting independent institutions while strengthening civil society, civic education, professional associations, media, and academia before illiberal pressures intensify. Poland’s experience, he notes, showed that democratic forces had won “only partial power within the state” after 2023 and that restoration must proceed within constitutional constraints. For Professor Bodnar, civil society proved indispensable: “We would not have been able to win the elections in 2023 without civil society.” His broader lesson for Europe is preventive — democracies must build durable institutional and civic safeguards before the next crisis arrives.
Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Adam Bodnar, a constitutional lawyer, human rights scholar and Senator of the Republic of Poland who served as Poland’s Minister of Justice from 2023 to 2025 and previously as Commissioner for Human Rights from 2015 to 2021, argues that the durability of democracy ultimately depends not only on constitutional design, courts, or European enforcement mechanisms, but also on the strength of civil society before an illiberal challenge emerges. His work has placed him at the center of both resistance to democratic backsliding and the difficult process of rule-of-law recovery. In this interview, we examine what Poland got right and wrong after the defeat of the Law and Justice Party (PiS), the dilemmas of restoring captured institutions, and the broader lessons for liberal democracy in Europe. We also discuss Hungary, Germany, EU enforcement, judicial independence, accountability, civil society, and democratic resilience.
Drawing on Poland’s experience of democratic backsliding and subsequent rule-of-law recovery, Professor Bodnar presents democratic resilience as an ecosystem in which independent institutions, civic organizations, professional associations, public-interest lawyers, judges, media, and citizens reinforce one another.
A central lesson of Poland’s experience, he stresses, is that electoral victory does not automatically translate into institutional control or democratic restoration. Looking back at the 2023 election, Professor Bodnar recalls that the democratic camp treated the result “as more or less a total victory,” only to discover that it had won “only partial power within the state.” The deeper difficulty was that eight years of PiS rule had transformed not only laws but also institutional personnel, incentives, and expectations. State capture, he explains, involved “filling institutions with people who are loyal to you” and producing “a chilling effect” on those seeking to remain independent.
For Professor Bodnar, however, the answer cannot lie solely in redesigning constitutional safeguards. His strongest emphasis is preventive: democracies must cultivate civic resilience before institutions come under sustained pressure. “Protecting ourselves against illiberal democracy also requires strengthening civic education and civil society,” he argues, adding that civil society actors must possess the capacity to protest, monitor governments, and make institutional capture more difficult. Poland’s own experience reinforces that conclusion. “We would not have been able to win the elections in 2023 without civil society,” Professor Bodnar says, recalling periods when civic organizations continued protesting even as political parties were preoccupied with political competition.
This leads to the interview’s broader argument: democratic resilience should be treated as a permanent institutional and societal investment rather than an emergency response. Professor Bodnar describes government support for civil society as “a form of insurance for unknown times to come.” His concluding principle is equally clear: following Timothy Snyder’s injunction to “protect institutions,” democracies must preserve as many independent strongholds of the rule of law as possible, while ensuring that civil society, professional associations, media, academia, and local institutions retain sufficient autonomy to sustain political pluralism.
The interview therefore moves beyond the question of how democracy can recover after capture. It asks a more fundamental question: how can democratic societies build enough institutional and civic resilience that, when illiberal actors return, the state is no longer so easy to capture?
In an interview with the ECPS, Professor Adam Bodnar, Poland’s Minister of Justice from 2023 to 2025, reflects on Poland’s experience of democratic backsliding and rule-of-law recovery, arguing that electoral victory alone cannot reverse years of institutional capture. He stresses that democratic resilience depends on protecting independent institutions while strengthening civil society, civic education, professional associations, media, and academia before illiberal pressures intensify. Poland’s experience, he notes, showed that democratic forces had won “only partial power within the state” after 2023 and that restoration must proceed within constitutional constraints. For Professor Bodnar, civil society proved indispensable: “We would not have been able to win the elections in 2023 without civil society.” His broader lesson for Europe is preventive — democracies must build durable institutional and civic safeguards before the next crisis arrives.
Giving an interview to the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Adam Bodnar, a constitutional lawyer, human rights scholar and Senator of the Republic of Poland who served as Poland’s Minister of Justice from 2023 to 2025 and previously as Commissioner for Human Rights from 2015 to 2021, argues that the durability of democracy ultimately depends not only on constitutional design, courts, or European enforcement mechanisms, but also on the strength of civil society before an illiberal challenge emerges. His work has placed him at the center of both resistance to democratic backsliding and the difficult process of rule-of-law recovery. In this interview, we examine what Poland got right and wrong after the defeat of the Law and Justice Party (PiS), the dilemmas of restoring captured institutions, and the broader lessons for liberal democracy in Europe. We also discuss Hungary, Germany, EU enforcement, judicial independence, accountability, civil society, and democratic resilience.
Drawing on Poland’s experience of democratic backsliding and subsequent rule-of-law recovery, Professor Bodnar presents democratic resilience as an ecosystem in which independent institutions, civic organizations, professional associations, public-interest lawyers, judges, media, and citizens reinforce one another.
A central lesson of Poland’s experience, he stresses, is that electoral victory does not automatically translate into institutional control or democratic restoration. Looking back at the 2023 election, Professor Bodnar recalls that the democratic camp treated the result “as more or less a total victory,” only to discover that it had won “only partial power within the state.” The deeper difficulty was that eight years of PiS rule had transformed not only laws but also institutional personnel, incentives, and expectations. State capture, he explains, involved “filling institutions with people who are loyal to you” and producing “a chilling effect” on those seeking to remain independent.
For Professor Bodnar, however, the answer cannot lie solely in redesigning constitutional safeguards. His strongest emphasis is preventive: democracies must cultivate civic resilience before institutions come under sustained pressure. “Protecting ourselves against illiberal democracy also requires strengthening civic education and civil society,” he argues, adding that civil society actors must possess the capacity to protest, monitor governments, and make institutional capture more difficult. Poland’s own experience reinforces that conclusion. “We would not have been able to win the elections in 2023 without civil society,” Professor Bodnar says, recalling periods when civic organizations continued protesting even as political parties were preoccupied with political competition.
This leads to the interview’s broader argument: democratic resilience should be treated as a permanent institutional and societal investment rather than an emergency response. Professor Bodnar describes government support for civil society as “a form of insurance for unknown times to come.” His concluding principle is equally clear: following Timothy Snyder’s injunction to “protect institutions,” democracies must preserve as many independent strongholds of the rule of law as possible, while ensuring that civil society, professional associations, media, academia, and local institutions retain sufficient autonomy to sustain political pluralism.
The interview therefore moves beyond the question of how democracy can recover after capture. It asks a more fundamental question: how can democratic societies build enough institutional and civic resilience that, when illiberal actors return, the state is no longer so easy to capture?
Here is our interview with Professor Adam Bodnar, edited lightly to enhance clarity, readability, and overall flow for publication.
‘We Won the Election in 2023, but Not Full Power Within the State’
A father and child display their support for Poland’s membership in the European Union ahead of the 2023 parliamentary elections. Photo: Wieslaw Jarek / Dreamstime.
Professor Bodnar, welcome! Let me begin with Poland’s 2023 democratic breakthrough. Poland’s October 2023 election demonstrated that an illiberal governing party can be defeated through democratic mobilization. Yet your subsequent work makes clear that electoral turnover and democratic restoration are very different things. Looking back from 2026, what did Poland get right after removing the Law and Justice Party (PiS) from government, and where did the democratic camp underestimate the depth, durability, or legal complexity of state capture?
Professor Adam Bodnar: I think one of our major mistakes, or perhaps political miscalculations, was to treat the 2023 election as more or less a total victory because we had this sense of a revolutionary moment. The Polish elections of 2023 were quite often compared to the elections of 1989.
But, to be honest, looking back, we did not win full power, only partial power within the state, because the presidency remained in the hands of someone associated with the ancien régime and the previous political leadership. Moreover, we believed that we would be able to achieve significant progress in restoring the rule of law after the subsequent presidential election in June 2025. There was great hope—I would not say certainty, but certainly great hope—that a pro-European, pro-democratic candidate would win. Basically, we failed.
We are therefore still left with a parliamentary majority committed to rule of law recovery and a president affiliated with the right-wing camp who is not interested in that process. He is interested in polarization, in undermining the credibility of the current government, and in bringing the right-wing parties back to power.
In my opinion, this is the major problem because, at the end of the day, what we can achieve in terms of restoring the rule of law depends to a great extent on existing regulations, existing legislation, and the interpretative use of different institutions. We cannot proceed in the same way as is being done right now in Hungary; we never had that possibility. Moreover, we do not even have the ability to override the presidential veto, which makes things much more complicated. So, it is not even easy to pass legislation that would comply with basic rule of law standards.
Eight Years of State Capture Cannot Be Reversed Overnight
PiS was able to transform Poland’s Constitutional Court, prosecution service, public media, civil service, and judicial institutions without possessing a constitutional majority, often through ordinary legislation, institutional faits accomplis, and practices that violated constitutional constraints. Why has reversing those transformations proved so much harder? Does this reveal an inherent asymmetry whereby liberal democracy is procedurally constrained in repairing damage that illiberal actors were willing to inflict without equivalent restraint?
Professor Adam Bodnar: First of all, please note that this process of change lasted for eight years. Even without a constitutional majority, if you have the possibility to change legislation, you can achieve quite a lot because you can change the way institutions operate.
And it is not only about changing legislation. It is also about filling institutions with people who are loyal to you, or who at least will not create problems for you, and about creating a chilling effect on other actors who would like to remain independent.
Over such a long period, you can achieve a great deal. Sometimes we had the sense that this was the end of a liberal regime and that the Law and Justice (PiS) government would last forever. Interestingly, quite many judges, prosecutors, civil servants, and public media officials seemed to think: okay, we are going to work under this new power. We are going to serve this new power, or at least we are going to do our jobs. But we will not interfere in political relations. So, I will sit somewhere in the public media, remain silent, do my work, and basically they will not bother me. I will simply retain the possibility to earn money.
In this way, they were able to exploit different weaknesses in the Polish system and the fact that, through legislative acts, you can change the way institutions operate. Sometimes it was also about passing legislation that abused the language of the Constitution.
But please look at the major, most important reform, which began in 2015–2016 and concerned the political subordination of the Constitutional Court. Once that happened, even if legislation was passed that went against constitutional values, there was nobody able to check it because judicial review had effectively come under the control of the ruling party.
At the second stage—and I think this is quite interesting—you could see pieces of legislation aimed at gluing or cementing the legal system. A good example is the prosecution service. Just half a year before the elections, the law on the prosecution service changed the way deputy prosecutors general are appointed and dismissed. Basically, they have to be appointed after obtaining the opinion of the President of the Republic, but they cannot be dismissed without confirmation by the President.
So, even now, three years later, we still have deputy attorneys general who cannot be dismissed because of this law. As a result, you have to find different ways to circumvent their powers or limit their impact on the daily operation of the prosecution service. This is one of the difficulties we face today in restoring the rule of law.
Chairperson of Law and Justice (PiS), Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Photo: Tomasz Kudala.
Restoring the Rule of Law Requires More Than Formal Legalism
This asymmetry creates what might be called the central paradox of democratic restoration: a new government is expected to restore constitutional legality while operating through institutions partly captured by actors who violated that legality. How far can a democratic government legitimately go in correcting unconstitutional appointments, restructuring captured bodies, or refusing to recognize decisions produced by improperly constituted institutions without itself weakening legal continuity and the rule of law?
Professor Adam Bodnar: That’s a very good question, because we face this dilemma and debate on a daily basis. There is no easy or quick answer, but, at the end of the day, you should work in good faith to restore the proper functioning of constitutional institutions.
Second, you should adopt an approach that prevents existing institutions from paralyzing this effort. You should not be blocked by certain formal rules when adopting particular solutions. If you relied solely on formal legalism, you would simply end up doing nothing. So, you need to be somewhat constructive in taking certain actions, while also ensuring that those actions have political legitimacy.
Consider three central institutions that were important from the perspective of rule of law recovery: the public media, the National Council of the Judiciary (NCJ), and the Constitutional Court. In each case, legal action aimed at recovering those institutions was preceded by resolutions of the Polish Parliament. By adopting those resolutions and identifying the legal and constitutional problems, their sources, and the relevant jurisprudence of the Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, Parliament was essentially saying: we see a problem, we are going to repair it, and we are going to use certain measures that may not be typical but that we believe are necessary from the point of view of law. Even so, those measures were adopted in accordance with basic rules. Interestingly, they were still not accepted by the president who was serving the previous regime.
I think the most interesting and exemplary case of these dilemmas is the recovery of the National Council of the Judiciary (NCJ). Under the Polish system, the NCJ is composed of 25 members. It is a hybrid body, with roughly 10 politicians and 15 judicial members. The key question is: who appoints those judicial members? Traditionally, under Polish law, they were appointed by their peers—other judges.
But in 2018, Parliament changed the law so that those judicial members would be elected by Parliament, on the grounds that the sovereign should have more influence over the operation of the NCJ. Interestingly, after 2023, we twice passed legislation that would have returned this power to judges. But both laws were vetoed by the presidents—first Duda, then Nawrocki.
So, in the end, the ruling majority decided to appoint the judicial members in accordance with the existing law. Parliament formally voted to select them, but the preselection of candidates was carried out by judges themselves. They organized local general assemblies and selected the judges they wanted to see on the NCJ. In this way, we essentially implemented the constitutional spirit.
Although we did this on the basis of existing law, which should not be binding, we had no other solution in such circumstances. So, basically, you have to resolve these dilemmas constructively, while adhering very closely to constitutional language and constitutional values, and keeping in mind the ultimate need to restore and recover certain state institutions.
Poland Must Resolve the “Neo-Judges” Question Without Creating Chaos in the Judiciary
President Karol Nawrocki campaigning ahead of Poland’s 2025 presidential election in Łódź, Poland on April 27, 2024. Photo: Tomasz Warszewski.
Your work anticipated that the status of so-called “neo-judges” would become one of the most difficult questions of Poland’s transition. How should a recovering democracy distinguish between judges who actively participated in political capture, those who accepted promotion within a distorted system, and those who simply continued functioning within it? Is individualized review the only defensible solution, even if it makes restoration painfully slow?
Professor Adam Bodnar: You’re absolutely right that the status of neo-judges was the central issue in resolving these problems. I spent more or less the whole of 2024 trying to find a legislative solution to this dilemma: how to make the process, on the one hand, as automatic as possible and, on the other, how to provide remedies and individualize the assessment. There was also a third consideration: within this group of so-called neo-judges, there were different categories.
There were judges who voluntarily accepted first appointments or higher positions in the judiciary, but there were also those who were simply graduates of the School of Judiciary and had little say in how the nomination process unfolded in their cases.
In my opinion, we found a solution, and we presented it more or less in March or April 2025. This solution was subject to the opinion of the Venice Commission. But because of the result of the presidential election in June 2025, we no longer have any real political chance of implementing it. So, to some extent, this has become a theoretical discussion, based on existing draft laws, but with a low probability that the law could ever enter into force.
In general, our idea was to proceed in this direction: on the one hand, we wanted to secure the proper functioning of the judiciary; on the other, we tried to make the process as swift as possible. The third element was that, in cases involving promotion, a judge would either be sent back to the court from which their position and career originated or be dismissed from the judicial position and return to another legal profession—as an attorney, legal advisor, prosecutor, or scholar—with remedies allowing an appeal to the court.
But please note that this was only a proposal. As I said, it was enshrined in the draft law, but it did not enter into force. To be honest, we are now in a very difficult moment because we still have one year to go before the parliamentary elections due to take place in October 2027. It seems to me that the issue of what to do with these new judges will become part of the political debate in the context of the elections. But my feeling is that there will be little willingness on either side of the political spectrum to reach a compromise.
On the other hand, we have jurisprudence from the Court of Justice, as well as the European Court of Human Rights, questioning the status of these judges. So, we cannot avoid thinking about what to do with them and how to evaluate their status, or at least how to confirm it. Most probably, this discussion will continue after the elections of October 2027. At the end of the day, we will have to find some kind of compromise solution to this question.
But let me add one more point. The general philosophical difficulty with this problem is that, on the one hand, you can argue that these judges should be questioned from the point of view of the legitimacy and legality of their appointments. On the other hand, they have been adjudicating cases in courts on a daily basis.
Moreover, it has been difficult to determine what should happen to judgments issued by them, because if we were to say, simply by virtue of legislation or some other measure, that all those judges were invalid, it would create a total disaster for the Polish judiciary. So, it has been a little like repairing the sails while the boat is still moving.
But, as I said, this discussion is now much more abstract because of the position of the president. The president maintains that all his judicial appointments are valid and is not going to accept any challenge to them. So, the question will be whether, after the elections, there will be some room for compromise and for finding solutions that could serve everyone.
Public Demands for Immediate Justice Can Collide with the Rule of Law
The Constitutional Tribunal (Trybunał Konstytucyjny), Poland’s constitutional court, in Warsaw, Poland, on December 31, 2021. Photo: Dreamstime.
You have stressed that recovery requires accountability for abuses—from the partisan use of public funds to Pegasus surveillance—but that accountability must proceed through fair-trial guarantees rather than revolutionary justice. How can a democracy satisfy legitimate public demands for accountability without allowing transitional justice to be portrayed as political revenge? And conversely, at what point does excessive procedural caution turn constitutional immunity into practical impunity?
Professor Adam Bodnar: First of all, to be honest, we do not have a proper theory of transitional justice for periods like this. If you look at typical theories of transitional justice, they usually concern moments following major reconfigurations in a nation’s history. We can point to different examples of transitional justice in the United States, after wars, or after periods of authoritarian or totalitarian rule.
In Poland, certainly, we are a liberal democracy, but if you look at the level of rights abuses, it was, of course, significant. There were numerous abuses involving freedom of assembly, police brutality, surveillance, and so on. But still, this is incomparable to communist times, when people were killed in prisons, police stations, or police units, or when there were sweeping restrictions on fundamental rights. The same applies to Hungary. There have been different abuses of rights, but you still cannot compare them to the situation before 1989.
So, the broader problem we face as a community is what kind of transitional justice system we should adopt and to what extent we should create new institutions to implement it. Once again, Hungary is an interesting example because they created this Office for the Recovery of State Assets. It is quite an interesting institution. If I had tried to create that kind of institution, I would simply have faced a presidential veto, and that would have been the end of it. I would have had no chance of creating such an institution.
So, I had to rely either on the regular operation of the Polish Prosecution Service or on investigative committees established in the Polish Parliament. Basically, I could pursue accountability through existing procedures for auditing, investigating, and examining the conduct of previous authorities. We have been extremely creative in doing this.
But then, if you do this and provide voters with a great deal of information—if you disclose different abuses and try to recover assets—what becomes apparent quite quickly, and this was to some extent a surprise to me, is that people expect immediate results. People think that because they suffered so much, all those political actors they hated will almost immediately be prosecuted, jailed, convicted, and put behind bars.
When you proceed in accordance with fair-trial guarantees, however, you cannot do things just like that, because you do not have revolutionary mechanisms. Moreover, if you follow fair-trial standards, the process takes time. A proper investigation takes time, the defense needs time to prepare, immunities have to be lifted, and so on.
Why do I mention this? Because the absence of immediate results creates frustration among voters. They start to say: okay, if you have not delivered on this, if we still see all those actors who perpetrated political abuses in the past, then maybe you are not competent enough, maybe you are not effective enough. So, there is this sense that, while you are carrying out rule of law recovery, you are also expected to act like a sheriff who restores order and uses every possible mechanism to do so.
In my opinion, one of the mistakes we may have made is that perhaps we promised too much. There was this political promise when we were fighting for power: sooner or later, those guys will be prosecuted and jailed. Maybe we should instead have promised that we would do everything possible to disclose the truth and engage all state institutions in a general state audit and a broad investigation into different cases. But perhaps we should not have promised that we knew what results the courts would deliver or what judgments they would issue, because we have no influence over that.
So, if I were now advising a government in a similar situation, I would probably say: be careful with this. Check your resources. Check the loyalties of people working in institutions such as the Prosecution Service, the secret services, or the police. Promise only those things that you can realistically deliver. Of course, be energetic in pursuing accountability, but perhaps you should promise the delivery of truth—an account of how the state operated—rather than the delivery of convictions. Otherwise, you may create too much frustration and dissatisfaction among voters, and that may ultimately undermine your future electoral prospects.
It Is Easy to Demand Faster Restoration in Retrospect
Donald Tusk speaks at an election rally after a televised debate on government television at the end of the campaign in Warsaw, Poland on October 9, 2023. Photo: Shutterstock.
In an earlier essay you warned that “time is of the essence” when European institutions confront rule-of-law deterioration. Does the same principle apply to democratic restoration? Looking back at the first years after 2023, did the Polish government move quickly enough on the Constitutional Tribunal, judicial governance, prosecution service, and accountability—or did constitutional obstacles and the desire to proceed legally create delays that allowed the old institutional networks to consolidate their defensive positions?
Professor Adam Bodnar: No, by now we are all wiser about what worked and what did not. It is easy to criticize in retrospect, but I remember that we really tried to use every day to pursue rule of law recovery properly and to repair the state. I also think we do not sufficiently appreciate the scale of the damage we had to repair after those eight years—how many abuses there were and how much time it takes to properly examine them. So, in my opinion, it is quite easy to say: you should have moved faster, you should have acted immediately, you should not have waited, and so on. But, to be honest, when I look back, I do not see any really good examples of what could have been done more efficiently.
I also remember moments when I considered possible political compromises with the president in order to avoid a veto and move forward with the restoration of the rule of law. But, at the same time, there was no appetite or support for political compromise. There was a sense that because we had won the elections, we should pursue all possible changes without making moral or legal compromises.
Maybe one of our mistakes was that we assumed the presidential election result would be in our favor. If we had had a pro-democratic, pro-European president, then by the end of 2025 we would have had all the necessary laws passed. They would already have been in force and would have made it possible to restore the rule of law. After that failure, we had to look for alternatives and other solutions.
But when I look at the situation now, the National Council of the Judiciary, as I said, has been resurrected and is functioning properly. There is a certain chance that the Constitutional Court will also begin to operate properly. The Prosecution Service may not be a perfect institution, but its current shape still guarantees the independent exercise of prosecutorial power and accountability.
Interestingly, we have a very good example today. One of my successes, and something I am really proud of, was Poland’s joining the European Public Prosecution Office (EPPO). Today, the EPPO won an important victory in the Polish Parliament because it obtained consent to lift parliamentary immunity and also consent to arrest a member of Parliament. What is particularly interesting is that this member of Parliament is associated with the existing ruling coalition.
So, if the EPPO is able to go after a member of the existing coalition, it shows that we are restoring quality in terms of the independence of the prosecution service and the operation of European institutions on Polish soil. The vote in the committee was something like 14 votes in favor and two against. So, there was no defense of “our guy” by the ruling coalition against the accusations made by the EPPO.
In my opinion, a lot of things also happen on a daily basis at this symbolic level. When you look at the operation of the courts and the prosecution service, they are much more independent and much more trusted than they were during the illiberal period. I think this is also the consequence of a certain approach to, and a certain way of thinking about, the state.
Democratic Recovery Also Means Restoring Public Servants’ Trust in the State
Your recent comparison of Poland and Hungary argues that democratic transition is not merely constitutional or legislative reconstruction but also a matter of regaining the trust of institutions and citizens. What actually restores that trust? Is it successful prosecution of abuses, functioning public services, impartial courts, transparency, political restraint—or the visible demonstration that institutions will no longer be treated as spoils of electoral victory?
Professor Adam Bodnar: I think the truth lies in all the things you have mentioned, but creating institutions that are genuinely independent from politicians—and that also project an image of independence through real action—is extremely important.
One aspect that is often neglected is how the legislative process works and how transparent the operation of the state is. My feeling is that trust in the legislative process is now much greater than it was before. Moreover, decisions are made with a high degree of transparency regarding how the state operates, even if this sometimes comes at a daily political cost.
But, in my opinion, one of the most neglected aspects of recovery is the question of people: to what extent those serving in the judiciary, the prosecution service, public media, and other institutions feel that they have regained trust in the state and can act in accordance with their professional oath, ethical commitments, and the law. My feeling is that when politicians stop pushing the state in particular directions, judges and prosecutors gradually regain the sense that what they are doing is simply part of the ordinary, day-to-day functioning of the state. In turn, this affects public perceptions.
Let me give you one example. It was certainly not a typical rule of law recovery case, but recently there was a case involving a drunk driver who killed four people in a car accident in Warsaw. He escaped to Germany, was brought back under the European Arrest Warrant, and was subsequently convicted. The trial was conducted properly and did not last very long—only a couple of months. The court sentenced him to 25 years in prison and provided a very strong justification for the judgment. What I found particularly interesting was that the judgment was applauded across the political spectrum: left, right, far right, extreme right—whatever. Everybody was basically satisfied with both the court’s decision and the reasoning behind it.
In my opinion, when you have that kind of moment, you can see that something is changing. The case is no longer interpreted politically but is instead understood simply as a matter of public interest and as an instance in which justice has been done. So, I would hope that we will see more and more cases like this, in which courts are assessed on the basis of what they actually do, rather than through calculations about whether this or that judge is politically affiliated.
TISZA Must Avoid Reproducing the Winner-Takes-All Logic It Inherited
Péter Magyar speaks at a public demonstration near the Hungarian Parliament building in Budapest on April 6, 2024. Photo: Istvan Balogh / Dreamstime.
You argue that Péter Magyar’s victory and TISZA’s constitutional majority potentially give Hungary far greater room for institutional reconstruction than Poland possessed after 2023. But does that greater capacity also create a greater democratic danger? How can Hungary dismantle deeply entrenched Orbán-era structures without reproducing Orbán’s own winner-takes-all constitutional logic under new political ownership?
Professor Adam Bodnar: I remember when I made this point, it was just at the beginning of the transition in Hungary. But it seems to me that Péter Magyar is handling this quite intelligently, and even the reconstruction concerning the President of the Republic has been carried out in a way that respects some basic guarantees. The clearest proof of this is that the person who accepted the position of the new president is one of the judicial dissidents from the Orbán era—András Baka. So, let’s hope that Hungary continues in this direction.
What concerns me more is the accountability process. With the passage of time, there may be growing dissatisfaction among voters with what TISZA is doing. People will expect miracles and major economic change; they will look at the promises that were made, and the government will not be able to deliver on everything. We may also begin to see a struggle for power within the TISZA movement. We can imagine all kinds of things happening.
The question is whether accountability will proceed effectively, especially at the local level. If the prosecution service and the secret services were built over 16 years by Orbán, there are many people within those institutions who received their appointments to a great extent thanks to Fidesz. They may have developed internal networks and connections that are not even visible to the general public, particularly at the local level. The question, then, is how this will affect the accountability process and how strong that process will ultimately be. This is where I see the major danger in Hungary’s transition.
Civil Society Is Democratic Insurance for Unknown Times to Come
One lesson from Poland and Hungary seems to be that constitutional democracies often assume political actors will exercise self-restraint, respect conventions, and accept institutional pluralism. Populist governments exploit precisely those assumptions. Should European democracies now redesign their constitutional architecture on the premise that future governments may be deliberately hostile to liberal-democratic constraints—through stronger appointment rules, dispersed powers, entrenched judicial protections, independent prosecution, and more robust safeguards for public media?
Professor Adam Bodnar: In my opinion, they should, but the question is whether they will have enough popular support to make that kind of change. Some countries are already moving in this direction. Look at the Netherlands or Germany. We also have solutions at the European level, such as the European Media Freedom Act, which is intended to support public media.
But, to be honest, I believe that protecting ourselves against illiberal democracy also requires strengthening civic education and civil society. Society needs instruments of resilience and pressure, and civil society actors need the capacity to protest and keep the democratic flame alive when populists come to power. They should be able to monitor government actions, scrutinize what is actually being done, and make institutional capture much more difficult.
The question, then, is whether European societies have enough energy for this. A great deal can be achieved through pro-democratic support for civil society organizations, by building national and transnational networks, and by supporting independent judicial associations, bar associations, and similar institutions. The real question is whether we are doing enough in this area, or whether we have become too accustomed to taking the existence of these institutions for granted.
Democratic Resilience Depends on People Willing to Defend Institutions
March of a Million Hearts. Hundreds of thousands march in anti-government protest to show support for democracy in Warsaw, Poland on October 1, 2023. Photo: Shutterstock.
Your account of Poland’s resistance places unusual emphasis on civic activism, lawyers, judges, the Ombudsman, and what you describe as the emergence of constitutional patriotism. Does Poland demonstrate that democratic resilience ultimately depends less on constitutional text than on a social infrastructure of people willing to defend it? If so, how can democracies cultivate that civic capacity before a crisis rather than discovering its importance only after institutions come under attack?
Professor Adam Bodnar: I truly believe that we would not have been able to win the elections in 2023 without civil society. I remember many moments when it was only civil society organizations that were still protesting, while political parties were simply playing political games and were not so deeply interested in what was happening on a daily basis in the judiciary, the prosecution service, and public media. But because of civil society, we were still able to protest.
A good example is the operation of judicial associations, but also different forms of civic education and other formats. Of course, the question is to what extent this was specific to Poland and whether it is a global phenomenon. But right now, I see that in the United States some of the Polish practices are being repeated, and they are very interested in what we were doing during those difficult times.
I believe that the result of the 2023 elections was the result of a combination of, on the one hand, political motivation and, on the other, different civil society streams and concerned people who came together and fought for the same values.
What should be done in a situation when you have a relatively stable position? In my opinion, you should constantly create space for the development of civil society. You should create different incentives for new NGOs to appear on the scene, for private donations, for crowdfunding, and for different forms of support. The government should be a guardian supporting civil society, because by supporting it, it is creating a form of insurance for unknown times to come.
My feeling is that right now the government is making this effort, and I believe that, in the event of another challenge, there will be enough actors willing to protest and ready to make sacrifices for the sake of defending democratic values.
EU Must Protect the Institutions That Sustain Democratic Values
You have written that populist governments do not necessarily silence criticism through spectacular censorship; they can instead use state advertising, friendly ownership, public broadcasters, litigation, and government-sponsored Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) to make criticism progressively more costly. Should media pluralism, academic freedom, and protection against legal harassment be understood as part of Europe’s constitutional security architecture rather than merely as sectoral rights?
Professor Adam Bodnar: If I look at statements by Ursula von der Leyen, State of the Union addresses, and different speeches by Věra Jourová, former Commissioner, my feeling is that Europe understands this. The adoption of the European Media Freedom Act, the creation of funds supporting independent NGOs, the adoption of anti-SLAPP legislation, and support for local media are all movements in this direction.
The question is to what extent these measures really have an impact domestically—to what extent policies developed at the EU level, such as the Democracy Shield or democracy resilience policies, are actually implemented at the local level. Here, I am a little concerned that EU policies do not always receive the same recognition locally. Please note that I am saying this from the Polish perspective. I think national governments should also be taking certain actions in this regard.
Certainly, academic freedom is extremely important, but my feeling is that, in Europe at least, academic freedom is suffering too much because of bureaucratism and a certain kind of commercialization. It is not so much based on promoting values as the most important component; rather, it is increasingly about treating science and scholarship as part of the EU economy. That is why there is so much emphasis on grants, proficiency, excellence, and not necessarily on fighting for values.
So, in my opinion, at the end of the day, we should remember that without actors such as civil society, the media, and academia, democratic values will not survive. The European Union, but also its member states, should be very much aware that taking care of these actors is a precondition for the survival of democratic values. Of course, this should be a predominant consideration in the EU’s different political strategies.
Poland Became a Laboratory for the EU’s Rule-of-Law Instruments
Photo: Dreamstime.
Your writings repeatedly point to a timing problem in European rule-of-law enforcement: Article 7 became politically stalled, litigation took years, and domestic institutional capture often produced immediate political benefits while European legal consequences arrived much later. Has the EU learned this lesson? Or does its rule-of-law architecture still operate too slowly to stop an elected government determined to transform institutions before Brussels, Luxembourg, or Strasbourg can react?
Professor Adam Bodnar: When I commented on the operations of the European Union, it was partly out of frustration, because we observed the decay and destruction of the rule of law on a daily basis, while the government learned how to play the game regarding Article 7. But later on, more or less at the end of 2017 and in 2018, the European Commission started to use the infringement procedure in a very efficient way. Thereafter, we had a series of judgments from the Court of Justice of the EU, and finally, we had the conditionality regulation and the suspension of EU recovery funds. In my opinion, the Polish case was a little bit like a laboratory for the practical use of all those instruments. So, I think that right now, the European Union is much more powerful.
But, on the other hand, the EU is perhaps not using enough of its capabilities to check whether this so-called democratic front-sliding is being done in a proper way. There should be better observance of how different states are complying with the rule of law. I have read papers by my friends Thomas Pavone and Christophe Hillion about this relationship between the EU and so-called democratic front-sliding. So, this kind of compliance check by the EU is an important element of the European Union’s rule-of-law architecture.
Protect Every Democratic Stronghold Before It Is Captured
And lastly, Professor Bodnar, if you were to draw one overarching lesson from Poland for Hungary, Germany, and other European democracies confronting populist radical-right pressure, what should “democratic resilience” mean in institutional terms? Is the priority stronger courts and constitutional safeguards, more effective EU enforcement, independent media, social and territorial inclusion, civic education, accountable political parties—or, ultimately, a democratic culture capable of accepting electoral conflict while refusing the idea that winning an election gives a majority the right to capture the state?
Professor Adam Bodnar: I think I would concentrate on what Timothy Snyder called lesson number two: protecting institutions. Because, in my opinion, if I look back, we would not have been able to survive if we had not trusted state institutions that created room for maneuver, protest, resilience, and different forms of change. One of them was the Ombudsman’s office. But it was also the Polish Senate, the upper chamber of Parliament, which, after 2019, was really important in terms of preventing backsliding.
On the other hand, we would not have been able to survive without civil society. Civil society, of course, may operate separately from state institutions, but when it has support from some state institutions and when they can cooperate with one another, this can have a significant impact, because it gives you a sense that pluralism still exists. Maybe it is not pluralism in Parliament, because you have the domination of one political party, and that political party has a great deal of influence over decision-making. But still, this pluralism exists in different state institutions that continue to perform their checks-and-balances function.
It also exists at the local level, and I think that in a number of countries, including Turkey, we can see how important the existence of pluralism at the local level is. But it is also in the hands of civil society, civil society leaders, bar associations, judicial associations, and all those institutions that have not been captured and that still preserve the spirit of citizenship and the spirit of true democratic values.
So, I would go in this direction: protecting as many institutions as possible that believe in and serve as strongholds of the democratic state and the rule of law. If you have this, then it gives you enough power to fight for the values you believe in and for the survival of the democratic regime.
Please cite as: Ferreira Dias, João. (2026). “Hegemony Without a Strategist? Agency, Identity Grammars and the Identitarian Left in Lars Erik L. Gjerde’s Hegemony and Woke Strategy.” ECPS Book Reviews. European Center for Populism Studies. September 16, 2026. https://doi.org/10.55271/br0027
In this book review, Dr. João Ferreira Dias examines Lars Erik L. Gjerde’s forthcoming “Hegemony and Woke Strategy: A Study of Cultural Warfare”, highlighting its contribution to debates on culture wars, hegemony, identity politics, and liberal democracy. While crediting Gjerde for moving beyond polemical treatments of “wokeism” and for illuminating how cultural norms acquire institutional force, Dr. Ferreira Dias questions whether the language of “strategy” can be sustained when agency, coordination, and intentionality remain analytically bracketed. Drawing on his own concept of “identity grammars,” he argues for a framework that preserves the relationship between structure and agency. The review concludes with a sharp distinction: cultural warfare may produce hegemonic effects without centralized direction—“hegemony does not require a strategist. Strategy does.”
Culture wars are often treated as political noise: symbolic disputes distracting attention from economics, institutions, inequality or public policy. Lars Erik L. Gjerde’s Hegemony and Woke Strategy: A Study of Cultural Warfare starts from the opposite premise. Culture is not peripheral to politics. It helps make political order possible.
That premise is difficult to dispute. Political systems do not survive through institutions and coercion alone. They depend on legitimacy, shared meanings and a sufficient degree of agreement about what society considers normal, acceptable and just. This is where Gramsci remains useful well beyond Marxism. Hegemony is also about making a particular understanding of the world appear natural.
Gjerde takes this insight seriously. Drawing on Gramsci, Marxist theory and, especially, Laclau and Mouffe’s post-structuralism, he examines what he calls wokeism as an identitarian force engaged in a struggle over language, morality, identity and institutional norms. His concern is not simply to define wokeism, but to ask what it does: how identity politics, cancel culture, language politics and woke capitalism operate within a wider struggle for cultural hegemony. This is, indeed, one of the book’s central contributions.
Culture as a Struggle for Hegemony
Gjerde is also careful not to reduce the culture war to a mechanical opposition between left and right. The identitarian left is shown to clash not only with conservatism but also with liberalism, socialism, universalist anti-racism and earlier forms of feminism. This matters. Contemporary culture wars frequently cut through political families rather than simply separating them. A Marxist, a liberal and a conservative may object to the same form of identity politics, although for entirely different reasons.
This is particularly relevant because Gjerde does not equate every progressive cultural victory with wokeism. His account distinguishes the historical expansion of anti-racist, feminist and gay-rights norms from what he sees as a later identitarian turn. Wokeism is therefore treated not as the established Western hegemony, but rather as a counter-hegemonic challenger to an older liberal-progressive order still anchored, however imperfectly, in Enlightenment universalism.
That distinction is important. The struggle for recognition and the extension of equal citizenship should not be retrospectively collapsed into contemporary identitarian ideology. One may defend anti-discrimination, minority rights or affirmative measures without accepting that identity should become the primary unit through which society distributes moral authority, political legitimacy or epistemic standing.
Here Gjerde comes close to Yascha Mounk’s notion of identity synthesis, even though he retains the term wokeism. He is also explicit that the phenomenon is internally contradictory, heterogeneous and unstable. This makes the book considerably more interesting than the usual polemical literature surrounding “woke culture.” It also opens what I consider one of its most productive theoretical questions. The difficulty lies in the word strategy.
Can There Be Strategy Without Agency?
Gjerde repeatedly describes identity politics, cancel culture, ideological subversion and linguistic change as tactics belonging to a wider strategy. Yet, for analytical purposes, he deliberately brackets the agency of the actors involved. Individuals are described as “pieces on the ideological chessboard” and treated primarily as vehicles of ideas rather than as actors in their own right. Whether they understand themselves as woke, or consciously intend to participate in the ideological process under examination, is analytically secondary.
The same question emerges in his analysis of cultural guerrilla warfare. Gjerde acknowledges that some actors consciously engage in ideological practices while others genuinely understand the norms they reproduce as common sense. For his analytical purposes, however, this distinction does not substantially alter the broader pattern. The politics of concealment may therefore be examined structurally regardless of whether particular actors participate willingly or unwillingly.
The methodological choice is understandable. Indeed, it is one of the reasons why the book succeeds in making broad ideological patterns visible across institutions, actors and national settings. But it also raises a question about how far the language of strategy can be stretched.
Strategy and agency are not synonymous. Yet strategy normally presupposes at least a minimal theory of agency: an actor pursuing an objective through a selection of means. If different actors in different institutions reproduce similar vocabularies for different reasons and without coordination, we may certainly have a pattern. We may even have a powerful hegemonic effect. But it is less clear that we have demonstrated an overarching strategy.
This is not merely a semantic distinction. A university administrator may adopt identitarian language because she is personally committed to it. A corporation may do so because managers perceive reputational or commercial incentives. A journalist may reproduce the same vocabulary because it has become professionally normal. An activist may consciously seek institutional transformation. The resulting discourse may converge. The motives need not. There may, therefore, be strategists without there being one strategy.
Gjerde’s structural perspective makes patterns visible, which is its considerable strength. Yet some of the processes he identifies might also be described through diffusion, institutional imitation, professional incentives, moral conformity or the gradual sedimentation of a common political language. None of these mechanisms makes the phenomenon less politically significant. In some respects, the opposite may be true. The ability of an ideological grammar to reproduce itself without constant conscious mobilization may itself be evidence of cultural power. This is where my own research on culture wars suggests a slightly different analytical route.
From Strategy to Identity Grammars
In my doctoral research on Portuguese culture wars, I use the concept of identity grammars to describe broader systems of categories, narratives, moral assumptions and political distinctions through which actors make sense of disputes over historical memory, racism, immigration and cultural belonging. The concept was developed precisely to preserve the relationship between structure and agency. Individual political sensibilities articulate with wider identity grammars, but actors do not simply disappear inside them. They may reproduce a grammar, radicalize it, combine it with elements of another, resist it or attempt to move beyond it. A grammar structures political speech without writing every sentence in advance.
This distinction helps avoid two opposite temptations. The first is excessive voluntarism: imagining cultural transformation as the execution of a coherent master plan. The second is excessive structuralism: imagining subjects as little more than carriers of discourse.
The latter problem is particularly interesting because it resembles one of the difficulties Gjerde himself identifies in some of the theories he analyses critically. Strong structural accounts of racism, coloniality or identity can grant social structures such causal autonomy that individual dissent risks becoming analytically irrelevant. My own research has therefore insisted on preserving room for agency, even within highly unequal structures, and on resisting approaches in which subjects appear entirely captured by the social systems in which they participate. The same concern appears in my discussion of decolonial theory, particularly where historical continuity risks becoming so strong that the present is read in excessively deterministic terms.
This is less a rebuttal of Gjerde’s framework than an invitation to extend it. A fuller account of agency might make it possible to distinguish more clearly between conscious strategy, institutional convergence and hegemonic effect. That distinction becomes particularly important when the analysis reaches liberal democracy.
When Cultural Conflict Becomes a Liberal-Democratic Question
Gjerde persuasively identifies tensions between identitarian politics and liberal principles such as individualism, universalism and freedom of expression. But disagreement with philosophical liberalism is not in itself identical to a challenge to liberal democracy.
The difference matters.
Liberal democracy is not simply the institutional embodiment of a single comprehensive liberal philosophy. It is a political and constitutional order capable of accommodating social democratic, Christian democratic, conservative and other traditions that do not share identical philosophical premises. From a political-legal perspective, the decisive question is therefore not merely whether identity politics departs from liberal individualism. It is whether particular practices begin to undermine pluralism, equal citizenship, freedom of expression, due process, political competition or other basic guarantees of the liberal-democratic order.
When Cultural Norms Acquire Institutional Force
Here Gjerde is especially persuasive when cultural contestation acquires institutional form. His discussion of cancel culture moves from moral disagreement towards speech codes, administrative procedures, sanctions, chilling effects and, in some settings, attempts to translate cultural norms into legal or bureaucratic mechanisms. At that point, the relationship between culture war and liberal democracy becomes more than metaphorical. Cultural norms acquire institutional force.
The same distinction also helps preserve what was emancipatory in the original politics of recognition. Anti-racism, women’s rights and minority protection are not foreign bodies within liberal democracy. They are among its historical achievements. The problem emerges when recognition hardens into an identity system in which individuals are primarily understood as members of fixed groups and where group position begins to determine moral or epistemic authority.
Hegemony Does Not Require a Strategist
Gjerde’s book is valuable precisely because it takes this debate beyond slogans. It applies analytical instruments associated with critical theory to a political current deeply influenced by critical theory itself. It also takes seriously a field of identitarian politics that academic research has sometimes examined primarily through the discourse of its opponents.
Its central argument also invites further work. If wokeism is, as Gjerde himself insists, decentralized, unstable and internally contradictory, then its hegemonic effects do not by themselves settle the question of strategy. Future research may profit from moving closer to actors: asking who acts, with what degree of awareness, through which institutions, under which incentives and towards what objectives.
The culture war is certainly a struggle for hegemony. But hegemony does not require a strategist. Strategy does.
Disclosure
The author received a review copy of Hegemony and Woke Strategy directly from Lars Erik L. Gjerde.
Lars Erik L. Gjerde,Hegemony and Woke Strategy: A Study of Cultural Warfare. Routledge, forthcoming 2027.
References
Ferreira Dias, J. (2025). Entre as Brumas da Memória: gramáticas identitárias, guerras culturais e direitos fundamentais em Portugal, no século XXI. Doctoral dissertation, Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa.
Gjerde, L. E. L. (forthcoming 2027). Hegemony and Woke Strategy: A Study of Cultural Warfare. Routledge.
Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks. International Publishers.
McWhorter, J. (2021). Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America. Portfolio.
Mounk, Y. (2023). The identity trap: A story of ideas and power in our time. New York: Penguin Press.
In this ECPS interview, Dr. Sophie Suda, Postdoctoral Researcher in Comparative Politics at the University of Basel, examines the AfD’s transformation from a protest party into a broader political force capable of mobilizing multiple grievances across Germany. She argues that the party’s rise cannot be explained by eastern German exceptionalism or immigration alone, but reflects the interaction of structural neglect, economic insecurity, political distrust, and effective grievance mobilization. Dr. Suda cautions that dismantling the Brandmauer or imitating AfD positions would further legitimize the radical right rather than win voters back. Instead, she emphasizes effective policy delivery, sustained investment in neglected regions, political representation, and clearer party differentiation as the more viable democratic response to the AfD’s continued advance.
Germany’s party system is entering a period of profound strain as the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) expands beyond its earlier identity as a protest formation and establishes itself as a durable force across an increasingly broad range of policy domains. In this interview with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Dr. Sophie Suda, Postdoctoral Researcher in Comparative Politics at the University of Basel, argues that the AfD’s recent trajectory cannot be reduced either to eastern German exceptionalism or to a single grievance such as immigration. Instead, she describes a party that has become “a broader political phenomenon rather than simply a vehicle for protest,” increasingly credited by voters not only on migration and security but also on the economy and social security.
For Dr. Suda, the AfD’s rise reflects the convergence of long-term structural grievances, economic insecurity, distrust of political elites, demographic decline, and the party’s capacity to mobilize disaffected and previously non-voting citizens. In eastern Germany, post-reunification legacies still matter: unemployment, infrastructure deficits, regional neglect, and the perception that political elites “did not care about” large parts of the population have created fertile ground for the party. Yet she cautions against treating this as a uniquely eastern phenomenon, stressing that far-right and nativist attitudes have existed elsewhere as well and that the crucial change is the emergence of a party capable of effectively mobilizing them.
At the center of the conversation is the increasingly contested question of how mainstream parties should respond. Dr. Suda firmly rejects the idea that the Brandmauer, or firewall, has failed simply because the AfD has continued to grow. Its purpose, she argues, is not “to keep the AfD small,” but to define the limits of political cooperation and prevent its entry into office. Bringing the party into government, in her view, would produce “greater legitimization and inclusion, not fewer voters for the AfD.” Nor does she expect governing responsibility to moderate the party ideologically: institutional constraints may limit what populist or extremist parties can do, but “participation in government is more likely to lead to legitimization.”
Her prescription for mainstream parties is therefore sharply defined: do not dismantle the firewall, do not imitate the AfD, but deliver. Copying its positions—particularly on immigration—“does not win voters back either; it simply legitimizes those positions, while voters still choose the original in the end.” The more promising strategy lies in effective governance, sustained investment in neglected regions, political representation, and clear programmatic differentiation. As Dr. Suda puts it, parties must remain “distinguishable while also demonstrating that [they] can deliver.”
After all votes were counted, S leader Magdalena Andersson’s bloc secured 176 seats to the Tidö coalition’s 173. Over the past four years, the SD-backed government has tightened immigration policy, promoted repatriation, made temporary residence permits the norm, and introduced tougher criminal penalties. The Social Democrats did not consistently oppose these measures and have themselves embraced a more restrictive approach to immigration. Yet, despite this broad political consensus, the opposition won.
