Success at last for a Radical Right-Wing Party in Sweden?: A case study of voter support for the Sweden Democrats in the city of Malmo

Abstract: This paper consists of a case study of the recent relative success of the populist radical right-wing party, the Sweden Democrats, in the municipality of Malmo in the southern region of Scania in Sweden. Seven explanatory factors behind radical right-wing party success in Western Europe were selected to be analyzed as they applied to this case. The chosen economic explanatory factors were; post-industrial economy; and economic crisis and unemployment. The chosen sociocultural explanatory factors were; fragmentation of the culture and multiculturalization; popular xenophobia and racism; widespread political discontentment and disenchantment; opposition to European Union membership; and shifting salience of issues. The study was carried out through some qualitative theoretical analysis and a great deal of quantitative data analysis of the data collected through the Southern SOM (Society, Opinion Mass Media) survey of inhabitants of the Scanian region to see whether or not these explanatory factors applied to the Malmo case. The findings for this case strongly supported the hypotheses behind these seven explanatory factors that were provided in the literature.