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How the Sweden Democrats use Alternative Truths within their Political Rhetoric
University West, School of Business, Economics and IT, Divison of Law, Economics, Statistics and Politics.
University West, School of Business, Economics and IT, Divison of Law, Economics, Statistics and Politics.
2021 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

Across the world populistic parties rises seize power, this can take the form of coalitions with the ruling political party, to be the opposition against the leading power or just to seize power on their own, as seen in Hungary. These parties will not often admit that they are populists as the word has a negative connotation in many parts of the word. In Sweden the Sweden Democrats have been accused of being populists with their focus on the people against their political opponents (often the government) that they claim is and serve an elite. The Sweden Democrats began their political journey by opposing immigration to Sweden and has since their election to parliament in 2010 expanded their repertoire to include education, science and politics of equality. In this thesis, we investigate if the Sweden Democrats in Sweden are using populistic rhetoric, with a specific focus on “alternative truths”, as to legitimize their own politics. An example of this is how populists in the US uses alternative epistemologies against the media (as they brand “fake news”), politicians and experts to gather support and to legitimize his own truths, or as they say, to “tells it as it is” (Harsin, 2018). The Sweden Democrats also focuses on political questions that are applied to the national spirit to divide people into those groups, “the elite” and “the people”. Based earlier scholarships on populism this thesis will assume that SD’s politics lies within the populistic spectrum. We are thus investigating for the first time with the Sweden Democrats as our focus: How are they using the same technique of constructing the rhetoric to create alternative truths as populist elsewhere does. To answer this question, this small-N single case study has collected and analysed 20 interpellations from the Swedish Parliament (Riksdag) in 2020 by the Sweden Democrats. More specifically, these interpellations are analysed through a set of indicators constructed through a combination existing analytical category concerning epistemological and induction. The result shows how the Sweden Democrats are creating alternative truths to undermine other politicians and to elevate their own believable stories using populistic rhetoric with the focus on alternative truths. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2021. , p. 58
Keywords [en]
Alternative Epistemologies, Alternative Truths, Populism, Constructivism, Sweden Democrats
National Category
Political Science
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hv:diva-16739Local ID: EIS501OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hv-16739DiVA, id: diva2:1581217
Subject / course
Political science
Educational program
International Programme in Politics and Economics
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2021-07-21 Created: 2021-07-20 Last updated: 2021-07-21Bibliographically approved

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Citation style
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