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.
In this inaugural interview of the ECPS Youth Program’s new interview series, ECPS-ECRN member Andrei Gheorghe discusses his comparative research on populism, illiberalism, and nationalism in Romania and Hungary. He conceptualizes populism through the construction of “the people,” examining how populist actors define belonging, exclusion, and collective identity. Gheorghe highlights the contrast between Hungary’s historically rooted nationalist discourse and Romania’s comparatively understudied populist politics, arguing that “national populism in Romania is very poorly studied and researched.” He also reflects on the challenges facing early-career scholars, including limited funding, differing academic traditions, and the importance of international scholarly networks. For Gheorghe, populism may define the twenty-first century, yet Romania remains insufficiently integrated into comparative international research.
Interview by Natalia Crane*
In this inaugural interview of the ECPS Youth Program’s new interview series, designed to introduce a younger generation of scholars working on populism and related fields, ECPS Early Career Researchers Network (ECRN) member Andrei Gheorghe reflects on the conceptual, comparative, and professional dimensions of researching populism in Central and Eastern Europe. The series aims to provide emerging researchers with a platform to present their work, explain their methodological choices, and bring greater visibility to new research agendas in populism, illiberalism, nationalism, and democratic politics.
Gheorghe is a PhD student pursuing a joint doctorate at the University of Bucharest and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. His research focuses on populism, illiberalism, and nationalism in Eastern Europe, particularly Romania and Hungary, while his doctoral thesis examines how “the people” are constructed in populist discourse in the two countries between 2010 and 2020. He has also published on the political instrumentalization of collective memory in Romania and currently holds a French Government Scholarship.
At the heart of the interview is Gheorghe’s concern that Romania remains significantly understudied in international scholarship on populism. While Hungary has generated extensive academic attention, he argues that “there are very few studies of Romanian populism and Romanian politics on the international stage, and also very few in Romania.” For Gheorghe, this imbalance helps explain his comparative research design: “that is why I chose to compare the two countries: national populism in Romania is very poorly studied and researched.”
His intervention also speaks to a broader diagnosis of contemporary politics. Drawing on Pierre Rosanvallon’s Le siècle du populisme, Gheorghe observes that the twenty-first century may become “the century of populists” amid the decline of traditional ideological formations and the rise of both left- and right-wing populism. “And until now,” he adds, “he has been right.”
The interview further explores Gheorghe’s understanding of populism as a process of constructing “the people,” his comparison of Hungarian and Romanian populist discourse, and the different historical resources mobilized in each case. He also discusses the practical challenges confronting early-career researchers, including limited funding, navigating different academic traditions, and building international scholarly networks—making his reflections especially pertinent to the ambitions of the ECPS Youth Program itself.
Here is our interview with ECRN member Andrei Gheorghe, lightly edited to enhance clarity, readability, and overall flow for publication.
National Populism Rose Even as Living Conditions Improved After EU Accession
People display Qanon messages on cardboards during a political rally in Bucharest, Romania on August 10, 2020. Photo: M. Moira
Thank you so much, Andrei, for joining me for my first interview for this ECPS Voice of Youth project. I have a couple of questions for you about your research. To my understanding, your research interests primarily lie in populism in Romania and Hungary between 2010 and 2020. To begin, could you introduce yourself, outline your academic journey, explain how your research interests developed, and why you believe this research is significant in today’s global environment?
Andrei Gheorghe: Thank you for the question. I am a PhD student in a program under double coordination. It is a PhD program hosted by the University of Bucharest and École des Hautes Études des Sciences Sociales in Paris. I have two coordinators, one Romanian and one French.
I also teach seminars in political science at the University of Bucharest. I have published several articles and one chapter concerning my particular interest in sports and politics, especially how memory is used by the football gallery from my natal town. So, it is a particular interest in politics and sports.
I also work on populism, as you already said. My PhD thesis is on how the people are constructed in populist discourse in Romania and Hungary between 2010 and 2020. I am also a researcher at the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives. You know about the Securitate Archive—what the Securitate was and what Securitate means? It was the political police during the communist regime in Romania.
This political police produced roughly three million files, including files on dissidents, people who were watched by the Securitate and who were against the communist regime, but also files concerning collaborators of the Securitate. It is a public governmental institution. I am a researcher at this institution.
My interest in the topic of national populism comes from my childhood because I grew up during the transition. My parents, friends, and all my relations also grew up during the transition. So, I want to understand why this resurrection of national populism occurred, why this ascension of national populism happened after accession to the European Union, basically after 2008. Because, it was a much more problematic period during the transition after the fall of communism.
Then both countries, Hungary and Romania, became members of the European Union, and living conditions and life in general became much better than during the transition. So, I want to understand what triggered this ascension.
Populism Begins with Constructing a Narrow Definition of “the People”
That’s very interesting. I loved hearing about that. My next question for you is: how do you define populism in your own research, and why have you adopted that particular conceptual approach? And has your definition of populism changed throughout your academic career?
Andrei Gheorghe: Actually, I don’t have a personal definition of populism. What I observe in my research is that populism involves a narrow definition of “the people.” Populists define and construct the people, and that is also the focus of my research.
Basically, all populists try to construct a people and give that construction a particular image, with specific traits and symbolic values. They also seek to exclude “the enemies” and draw the boundaries of the ideal people. In this sense, populism is a kind of amalgam—an arrangement of ideology, populist logic, and artistic representation. But all these elements converge around the idea of “the people” because populists seek to imagine and define who that people is. This is particularly evident in right-wing populism.
As for left-wing populism, we do not really have it in Romania or Hungary. Although my research examines speeches by a prime minister from the Social Democratic Party, the Romanian Social Democratic Party is not particularly social democratic. It is more nationalistic because it inherited old communist networks and communist nationalism, and it is more nationalistic and traditionalistic than socialist.
Hungarian Populism Looks to a Heroic Past, While Romanian Populism Targets Contemporary Elites
Romanian citizens demand an end to a corrupt system. Photo: Constantin Opriș.
My next question is: how do you measure populism in your own work, especially when comparing two different countries? Given that the definition and representation of populism can vary from country to country, how do you balance different research approaches?
Andrei Gheorghe: I start with the definition of populism and apply a qualitative research approach. From this starting point, I analyze speeches and discourses, including through automated analysis. I extract the most important and relevant semantic elements in these speeches and compare the historical and social resources they draw on, as well as the ways in which they seek to construct “the people.”
We can see that Viktor Orbán, in his speeches, constructs the Hungarian people by appealing to the Hungarian nation and its historical existence. He speaks about the millennial state, the millennial nation, the Hungarian nation, the Christian nation, and the Hungarian Christian nation. Hungarians resisted multiple empires, including the Habsburg Empire, the Russian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. They have always been in the Pannonian Basin. So, in this narrative, they will also resist Brussels, which is compared with the old imperial capital, Vienna.
This is an appeal to the historical roots of the Hungarian people. Orbán invokes the national revolution of 1848 and the 1956 spring revolution against the Soviets. When he speaks about his 2010 revolution, when he won the elections, he presents it as a new transformation, a new revolution for a new generation, while drawing on earlier Hungarian revolutions fought in the name of freedom.
His victory in 2010 was therefore presented as a new revolution, but again through an appeal to history. His speeches and the constitution are full of historical references and appeals to ethnic and cultural identity. This concerns all Hungarians beyond the country’s borders. He presented himself as the prime minister of all Hungarians, not only those living in Hungary. So, it is a transborder community.
In Romania, by contrast, appeals to nationalism, the nation, and history are less prominent in populist discourse. Instead, populists define “the people” as working people, poor people, enslaved people—Romanian people betrayed by Western elites and by Romanian elites who believe in Western values. In their speeches, they portray Romania as a second-class citizen within the European Union.
So, this discourse does not rely as heavily on history or on the idea of a great nation. This began to change after 2020, with the rise of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) and George Simion. After 2020, the nationalist-populist movement AUR—whose acronym means “gold” in Romanian—entered Parliament. In 2024, they doubled their score. They have 20% of Parliament, and now they are estimated at 40%. It is an astonishing rise.
They now emphasize this nationalistic discourse. They speak about the Romanian people and the great achievements of the Romanian people during communism, including industrial development and other achievements from that period, despite the fact that they are not communist.
So, my comparison is thematic: it is a thematic and qualitative analysis. That is my main approach. I have also conducted a brief quantitative analysis because I wanted to highlight the differences between Hungarian and Romanian discourse. Hungarian discourse is deeply historical and densely populated with references to history and to the ancient past of the Hungarian people.
They try to construct the Hungarian people by referring to their heroic past, when Hungary was an independent kingdom and included regions that are now part of Romania, Slovakia, Serbia, and Croatia—the idea of Greater Hungary. In Romania, by contrast, there is more of an appeal after 2020 to the recent past, particularly to the communist period, although my research stops in 2020. Before 2020, the discourse was directed against foreigners, international companies, globalism, liberalism, and multiculturalism, while portraying Romanian people as second-class.
ECPS-ECRN Helped Turn Academic Networking into Concrete Research Collaboration
It’s very interesting to look at the comparative approach in the speeches and how frequently you use qualitative analysis. I found that really compelling. Thank you for that. For my next question, I’d like to shift gears a little and ask about your cooperation with other scholars. Contemporary research increasingly depends on international collaboration. How has cooperation with other scholars, academic networks, and initiatives such as the ECPS Early Career Researchers Network (ECRN) influenced your research, professional development, and intellectual outlook?
Andrei Gheorghe: Actually, before becoming a member of the ECPS-ECRN Network, collaboration with other scholars was virtually non-existent. Despite participating in quite a few international conferences—not so many, around nine or ten, but for me that is a lot—I tried to develop my network, but it did not really happen.
After joining the ECPS-ECRN Network, however, I connected with an Italian scholar, and we decided to work together, collaborate, and write an article comparing Italy and Romania.
So yes, I think ECPS is a very good network. It has been a very positive factor in this kind of development.
Romanian Scholars Face Serious Barriers to Participating in International Academic Life
Photo: Shutterstock / GagoDesign
That’s really great to hear. Thank you for answering that question. My next question is: throughout your academic journey, what professional challenges have you faced, and what have been some of the most rewarding moments in your research?
Andrei Gheorghe: The most challenging thing for me was the transition between the French type of analysis and research and the English, Anglo-Saxon type of research, because the French approach is relatively less empirical. Despite being a PhD student in France, my participation in French academia has been quite limited, even though I want to participate more.
My work can be seen as too empirical and not sufficiently elaborate or theoretically sophisticated. But it is also very extensive because I compare two countries, while French scholars often take much narrower subjects for their analysis and go very deeply into a specific topic. So, this transition between French and Anglo-Saxon research has been one major challenge.
Another challenge is that, for Romanian scholars, it is very difficult to participate in academic events outside Romania because funding is almost nonexistent. You often have to pay all the expenses yourself, which is very challenging. There is also the question of how your work is appreciated in Romania.
As a PhD student, you also have to work to make a living. You cannot dedicate all your time to research, so you have to make sacrifices from this point of view.
On the other hand, one major achievement was publishing a chapter in a book edited by Routledge. That was a big achievement for me, as were publishing my articles and participating in conferences.
Romanian Populism Still Remains on the Margins of International Research
That’s great. Thank you so much. And I do agree with you when you say that there are challenges when studying in different countries and adapting to the different approaches that academic cultures take. I completely agree. I’ve experienced it myself. I’m going to give you one last question because, since this is my first interview for this project, I think I overestimated how many questions I would be able to fit in, but I’m getting a good sense of the time frame now. So, let me ask you one final question. Looking ahead, where do you see populism studies evolving over the next decade, especially regarding Hungary and Romania? What areas remain neglected and deserve much more attention?
Andrei Gheorghe: It’s a good question because, in his book Le siècle du populisme (The Century of Populism), Pierre Rosanvallon argues that the 21st century will be the century of populists because of the decline of traditional ideologies—the left, the right, especially the left—and the rise of populism, both left-wing and right-wing populism. But it will essentially be the century of populism. And until now, he has been right.
Concerning Hungary and Romania, Hungary is very well studied. There are many studies and a great deal of research on Hungarian populism. But there are very few studies of Romanian populism and Romanian politics on the international stage, and also very few in Romania. So, that is why I chose to compare the two countries: national populism in Romania is very poorly studied and researched.
I think that my research, and perhaps my participation in international conferences outside Romania, will make more researchers interested in Romanian politics and Romanian populism. To make a confession, when I participated in international conferences outside Romania dedicated to populism, illiberalism, and nationalism, I was the only Romanian, and they looked at Romania and my research as rather exotic. They know about Hungary, they know about Poland and Bulgaria. They know much more about Serbia because of the Yugoslav Wars. What about Romania?
That’s wonderful that you are bringing attention to a subject that is not so widely researched internationally, introducing it at different conferences, and giving it more traction. I think that’s really great for academia. So, I want to thank you very much for talking to me today and for helping me with my project. I think your research is very interesting, and I was really glad to be able to talk to you about it. I really appreciate you taking the time.
Andrei Gheorghe: Thank you, Natalia.
(*) Natalia Crane is currently serving as a Grant Writer at Femme Incroyable ASBL and as a Research Assistant at the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), where she contributes organizational and writing skills to support impactful initiatives. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Germanic Studies, with a focus on International Relations and Global Security, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She also completed a Master’s degree in International Politics at KU Leuven, further deepening her expertise in international relations. Her previous roles include research and teaching positions at esteemed institutions, reflecting a strong commitment to analyzing and addressing global political challenges. She is fluent in Polish and English and proficient in German.
In this commentary, Dr. Hafza Girdap examines Turkey’s intensifying anti-gender politics through the interconnected concepts of gendered populism, gendered authoritarianism, and differentiated citizenship. Using the September 2026 “My Family Is Safe” crackdown as a focal point, she argues that family, morality, sexuality, childhood, and national belonging are increasingly mobilized to distinguish ‘legitimate citizens’ from threatening “Others.” Central to her framework is the proposition that “gendered populism” constructs and mobilizes the boundaries of legitimate belonging; “gendered authoritarianism” institutionalizes and enforces those boundaries; and the “established citizen” embodies the normative subject whom these processes simultaneously produce and claim to protect. The article situates contemporary anti-LGBTQ+ repression within a longer transformation of citizenship, political homophobia, and family-centered authoritarian governance in Turkey.
In September 2026, Turkish authorities launched a nationwide crackdown under the strikingly familial title “My Family Is Safe” (Ailem Güvende). According to the Turkish Minister of Justice, investigations encompassed 162 individuals, nine associations, and 13 businesses across 15 provinces. Police raids, arrests, searches, seizures, and restrictions on websites and social media accounts disproportionately affected LGBTQ+ organizations, activists, journalists, and spaces associated with queer communities. The authorities have framed the crackdowns through allegations including obscenity, prostitution, exposure of children to inappropriate content, and questionable financial relationships, while presenting the broader campaign as part of the state’s protection of children, families, and social order.
The prosecution of journalist Tuğba Tekerek makes the expanding boundaries particularly visible of this campaign. Tekerek was detained in connection with an article she had written two years ago for Kaos GL magazine/website about LGBTQ+ experiences surrounding elections in Georgia; she was subsequently arrested pending trial on suspicion of obscenity. The significance of these developments therefore extends beyond the immediate policing of sexuality. They raise a larger sociological question about how family, morality, gender, sexuality, childhood, and national belonging become politically interconnected categories through which ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’ subjects are distinguished (Girdap, 2026).
It is important to note that the current campaign is not an isolated episode but a particularly visible manifestation of a longer transformation in the gendered politics of citizenship in Turkey. Well before the current anti-LGBTQ+ crackdown, women’s rights had increasingly been reframed through a family-centered policy discourse in which women were positioned predominantly through motherhood and wifehood; feminist organizations and LGBTQ+ identities were simultaneously subjected to delegitimizing discourses (Sarac et al, 2023). Following the failed coup attempt of July 2016, these processes intensified as women’s organizations were closed, women associated with political opposition were subjected to gender-specific forms of punishment, and women’s identities and familial relationships themselves became sites through which political repression could operate. Post-coup migration similarly demonstrates that state-led and state-sanctioned gendered violence increasingly targeted not only women but also people positioned outside dominant understandings of national belonging on the basis of gender and sexual identity, ethnicity, religion, and political affiliation.
The campaign surrounding the Istanbul Convention provides an especially important bridge between these earlier developments and the present moment. As I have previously argued, contemporary right-wing populism frequently makes gender and sexuality central to the production of political antagonism: the heteronormative family is elevated as the normative model of social organization, while reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ identities, and gender ideology are constructed as challenges to it. In Turkey, the government’s renaming of the Ministry of Women and Family as the Ministry of Family and Social Policy symbolically relocated women within the family, while political discourse increasingly presented motherhood, children, religion, and the traditional family as markers of legitimate gendered belonging. The subsequent representation of the Istanbul Convention as a threat to the family demonstrates how gender discourse can participate in constructing an antagonistic ‘Other’ while simultaneously legitimizing the consolidation of political authority.
I conceptualize this process as gendered populism operating through gendered authoritarianism (Girdap, 2026). Gender here is not merely another policy domain upon which authoritarian politics happens to act. Rather, it becomes one of the mechanisms through which political membership itself is imagined and regulated. Populist distinctions between the ‘legitimate people’ and ‘threatening Others’ acquire gendered, sexualized, familial, religious, and moral content. Authoritarian power can subsequently translate those distinctions into institutional practices through law, policing, prosecution, censorship, restrictions on civil society, and regulation of public visibility. The family consequently functions not simply as a private institution or conservative value but as a political technology of boundary-making: protecting the familysimultaneously requires defining which families, gender performances, sexualities, bodies, relationships, and forms of public participation are recognizable as legitimate.
Drawing on the conception of gendered citizenship, Turkish citizenship has historically been organized through hegemonic masculinities and heteronormative requirements of belonging, while nationalism, militarism, religion, ethnicity, and gender intersect in producing differentiated access to social and political membership (Unlu, 2023). Turkishness, thus, is not merely a formal legal identity but an institutionalized regime of belonging in which gendered, racialized, ethnic, and religious hierarchies regulate who can inhabit the national subject without having their belonging questioned. This distinction between formal citizenship and substantive belonging is particularly important: minority women and LGBTQ+ individuals may be citizens in law while remaining positioned outside a narrower heteronormative conception of the socially legitimate Turkish citizen (Girdap, 2026).
I therefore employ the concept of the established citizen to capture this relationship between formal membership and normative belonging. The established citizen is not simply the person who possesses Turkish citizenship. Rather, it is the subject whose gender, sexuality, familial position, religion, ethnicity, political comportment, and relationship to dominant national narratives most readily conform to the historically shifting expectations of legitimate Turkishness. Importantly, this ideal is neither historically fixed nor produced exclusively by contemporary political Islam. Competing hegemonic masculinities, including modernist-secularist, Islamist, ultranationalist, and other political formations, have differed in their prescriptions while repeatedly making women’s bodies, appearance, sexuality, reproduction, and public participation sites upon which competing projects of nationhood are enacted (Özbay & Soybakis, 2020). Gendered authoritarianismtherefore does not invent gendered citizenship; it intensifies, reorganizes, and politically mobilizes its already existing boundaries.
Seen through this framework, the September 2026 crackdown poses a question considerably larger than whether the Turkish state is becoming more hostile toward LGBTQ+ people. It asks who can inhabit citizenship without having to continually establish their legitimacy. When family, morality, childhood, sexuality, national values, foreign influence, and public order converge within the same political vocabulary, the boundary between protecting an institution and policing a population becomes analytically crucial.
The current moment can therefore be read as an intensified stage in a longer process through which gendered populismidentifies the normative people, gendered authoritarianism disciplines those positioned beyond its boundaries, and the established citizen ideal supplies the gendered and moral architecture of belonging. Hence, rather than treating today’s crackdown as the beginning of a new politics, I ask what its vocabulary of family, morality, danger, and protection reveals about the gendered architecture of citizenship that made this politics possible in the first place.
Homophobic Populism, Populist Homophobia, and Anti-Gender Politics
Political homophobia is not merely hostility toward LGBTQ+ identities; it can function as a technology of political boundary-making through which the ‘legitimate people,’ the ‘threatening Other,’ and the moral boundaries of national belonging are constructed (Unal, 2024). Drawing on the concept of ontological security, Unal (2024) examines people’s need for a relatively stable sense of self, identity, continuity, and social world. Populist crisis discourse can generate ontological insecurity by presenting family, nation, morality, and culture as endangered. From the perspective developed here, this insight adds another dimension to the established citizen: the established citizen is not only the citizen who conforms to normative expectations but can also be constructed as the citizen who must be protected.
The contemporary mobilization against LGBTQ+ rights should be understood not as an isolated national political development but as part of a broader transnational anti-gender movement whose organizational strategies and discursive repertoires have developed through earlier anti-abortion campaigns (Kahlina et al., 2025; Ojeda et al., 2024). In this transformation, political struggles previously organized around opposition to abortion have increasingly expanded toward opposition to transgender rights, LGBTQ+ visibility, feminism, and what activists and political actors describe as gender ideology. Since the 2010s, populist leaders in diverse political contexts have adopted increasingly aggressive anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-feminist positions, often using gender and sexuality as politically mobilizing issues. While these strategies frequently seek alliances with conservative religious constituencies, their appeal is not limited to religious voters; anti-gender politics can also mobilize secular constituencies through broader narratives concerning family, children, morality, social stability, and national values (Corrales & Kiryk, 2022).
Homophobic populism, the strategic adoption of homo- and transphobic positions by populist political actors seeking electoral and political advantages, can create what amounts to a marriage of convenience among anti-pluralist populists, socially conservative secular actors, and conservative religious groups (Corrales & Kiryk, 2022). Populist politicians may promise socially conservative gender and sexuality policies in exchange for electoral support and, importantly, the political acquiescence of religious authorities toward other illiberal or anti-pluralist practices. Homophobic populism therefore operates simultaneously as an electoral strategy and a co-optation strategy. Gender and sexuality become useful not only for attracting socially conservative constituencies but also for constructing alliances that can facilitate broader challenges to political pluralism and democratic constraints.
A related but analytically distinct phenomenon is populist homophobia. Whereas homophobic populism describes political actors’ strategic deployment of homo- and transphobia, populist homophobia refers more specifically to the discursive mechanism through which anti-LGBTQ+ politics is translated into populist language (Corrales & Kiryk, 2022). Its central rhetorical mechanism is harm or victim inversion: groups that have historically experienced marginalization are reconstructed as powerful actors allegedly threatening the majority (Corrales & Kiryk, 2022). LGBTQ+ communities consequently cease to appear as minorities seeking equal rights and instead become represented as an intrusive or privileged elite whose demands are portrayed as radical, foreign, coercive, or dangerous to children, families, religion, and society.
This inversion is particularly important because it enables anti-gender politics to be articulated through the language of protection rather than exclusion. Opposition to LGBTQ+ rights can be presented not explicitly as hostility toward sexual and gender minorities but as the defense of apparently universal public goods: children, families, parental autonomy, religious freedom, morality, social stability, or even sustainable development. Within this discursive structure, the political subject is reorganized through a binary opposition: “ordinary people / families / children”versus “gender ideology / LGBTQ+ activists / foreign influence / threatening elites.”
Gender and sexuality thus become central terrains upon which the populist distinction between ‘a legitimate people’ and ‘an illegitimate Other’ is constructed. Unal (2024) similarly identifies the distinction between the ‘morally superior us’andthe ‘morally corrupt them’ as central to populist constructions of ‘the people.’ ‘The Other’ is not merely different but is represented as threatening the homogeneous nation. Once positioned outside ‘the good people,’ such groups may become targets of stigmatization through discourse, policy, and legislation.
This framework also explains why cultural panic is politically consequential beyond LGBTQ+ rights themselves (Corrales & Kiryk, 2022). By representing gender and sexuality as existential threats to families and children, political actors can encourage voters to prioritize cultural and moral conflicts over material questions such as economic redistribution (Corrales & Kiryk, 2022). Anti-gender mobilization can therefore facilitate a broader political realignment in which disputes concerning sexuality become vehicles for constructing political identities, consolidating coalitions, and legitimizing anti-pluralist politics. The restriction of LGBTQ+ rights is consequently not necessarily the endpoint of homophobic populism; rather, attacks on gender and sexuality may function as an entry point through which broader restrictions on pluralism become politically acceptable.
These distinctions provide an important theoretical foundation for the gendered populism argument in this article that captures a broader process in which gender, sexuality, reproduction, and family are not peripheral themes within populist politics but constitutive mechanisms for defining ‘the people.’ The imagined legitimate citizen is produced relationally against subjects represented as violating normative gender, sexual, reproductive, familial, or moral expectations. Anti-gender discourse therefore does more than identify political enemies: it establishes normative boundaries around belonging.
Unal (2024) identifies three modalities through which political homophobia operated during Turkey’s 2023 election campaign: culturalist and nativist othering at the intersection of Islam and anti-genderism; the vilification of political opponents as “inner enemies”; and movement toward the legal and institutional incorporation of political homophobia. These modalities are particularly significant for understanding how anti-gender discourse can move from rhetorical boundary-making toward institutionalized forms of exclusion.
When this discursive politics becomes embedded in institutions, it intersects with what I conceptualize as gendered authoritarianism. The distinction is analytically important: gendered populism constructs and mobilizes the boundary; gendered authoritarianism institutionalizes and enforces it. The former identifies who supposedly threatens the family, children, morality, nation, or “the people”; the latter can translate those representations into law, policing, prosecution, censorship, surveillance, restrictions on organizations, and other mechanisms of state power. The relationship can therefore be conceptualized as:
If populist anti-gender politics establishes the heteronormative family as a symbolic representation of the legitimate social order, conformity to particular gendered and sexual norms can become intertwined with the conditions of legitimate national membership. Family is therefore not simply something the state claims to protect; it becomes a political template through which ‘the legitimate citizen’ is imagined.
Unal’s (2024) concept of the crisisification of policymaking further helps explain how this boundary-making can become institutionalized. Crisisification describes the transformation of policymaking around a continuing sense of urgency, exceptionality, and insecurity, through which crisis becomes normalized rather than treated as an exceptional condition. Within the framework proposed here, this process provides an important link between gendered populism and gendered authoritarianism: once gender and sexuality are constructed as existential threats to family, morality, and nation, extraordinary forms of state intervention can increasingly be presented as necessary acts of protection.
This framework allows the analysis of Turkey to move from contemporary anti-LGBTQ+ mobilization toward the deeper historical question at the center of this article: How have gender, sexuality, family, religion, ethnicity, and political loyalty historically structured the boundaries between the established citizen and those whose belonging remains conditional, contested, or punishable?
The political function of anti-gender populism is therefore not exhausted by the production of an LGBTQ+ ‘Other.’Through that ‘Other,’ the normative citizenis simultaneously produced. Political homophobia tells us not only who does not belong but also who the state imagines as properly belonging.
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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?
If populist anti-gender politics establishes the heteronormative family as a symbolic representation of the legitimate social order, conformity to particular gendered and sexual norms can become intertwined with the conditions of legitimate national membership. Family is therefore not simply something the state claims to protect; it becomes a political template through which ‘the legitimate citizen’ is imagined.
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.
