<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><bold>Subject and purpose of work:</bold> This article analyzes the factors depicted in the literature as essential for the emergence of far-right parties and assesses the importance of unemployment, immigration and political establishments in the failures of the far-right wing parties in Sweden and Finland in early 2000s.<bold>Materials and methods:</bold> Multi-methods approach is used in this study including case studies and a novel technique based on Boolean algebra.<bold>Results:</bold> The findings of this paper lead to the conclusion that the correlation between unemployment rates and the electoral strength of far-right parties is weak and does not support simplistic thesis such as high unemployment leads to extremism. Moreover, despite objectively favorable conditions in terms of high immigration rates, the presence of non-European immigrants in a country does not in itself explain the emergence of far-right parties.<bold>Conclusions:</bold> The study points to the importance of political factors such as the differences between the mainstream parties and tackling the immigration issue by the Liberal Party in Sweden and the wide ideological span of the coalition government and the role of Finland’s special relationship with the USSR that militated against the emergence of far-right parties in these countries.</abstract>

Subject and purpose of work: This article analyzes the factors depicted in the literature as essential for the emergence of far-right parties and assesses the importance of unemployment, immigration and political establishments in the failures of the far-right wing parties in Sweden and Finland in early 2000s.Materials and methods: Multi-methods approach is used in this study including case studies and a novel technique based on Boolean algebra.Results: The findings of this paper lead to the conclusion that the correlation between unemployment rates and the electoral strength of far-right parties is weak and does not support simplistic thesis such as high unemployment leads to extremism. Moreover, despite objectively favorable conditions in terms of high immigration rates, the presence of non-European immigrants in a country does not in itself explain the emergence of far-right parties.Conclusions: The study points to the importance of political factors such as the differences between the mainstream parties and tackling the immigration issue by the Liberal Party in Sweden and the wide ideological span of the coalition government and the role of Finland’s special relationship with the USSR that militated against the emergence of far-right parties in these countries.

A Historical Perspective on the Conditions for the Rise of Far-Right Parties in Scandinavia

Economic and Regional Studies / Studia Ekonomiczne i Regionalne

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Subject and purpose of work: This article analyzes the factors depicted in the literature as essential for the emergence of far-right parties and assesses the...

A Historical Perspective on the Conditions for the Rise of Far-Right Parties in Scandinavia

Published Online: Jun 30, 2020

Page range: 233 - 244

Received: Mar 01, 2020

Accepted: May 01, 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ers-2020-0016

Keywords
far-right parties, extremism, xenophobia, anti-immigration, nationalism

© 2020 Andris Zimelis, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

A Historical Perspective on the Conditions for the Rise of Far-Right Parties in Scandinavia

Published Online: Jun 30, 2020

Page range: 233 - 244

Received: Mar 01, 2020

Accepted: May 01, 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ers-2020-0016

Keywordsfar-right parties, extremism, xenophobia, anti-immigration, nationalism

© 2020 Andris Zimelis, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
far-right parties, extremism, xenophobia, anti-immigration, nationalism