Explaining Support for Radical Right-wing Parties. A swedish case

Abstract

In this study panel data on the three latest Swedish elections is used to empirically analyze the effect of unemployment rate and income on vote shares for the radical right-wing party, Sweden Democrats (SD). While high income levels are associated with low support for SD at national level elections, high unemployment rate is associated with high support for SD at municipality level elections. Differences in political responsibilities between the national government and the local ruling municipality, can potentially explain the different patterns observed at national and municipality level elections. The results also show high proportion of arriving refugees in the municipality is associated with high support for SD at national level elections.