Mid Sweden University

Throughout the years there has been rise to extensive debate in the media and in the research world about the Swedish Democrats being labeled as a populist radical right-winged party or even leaning towards a centrist position with authoritarian values. With a general election coming up soon this year the aim of this study is with the help of a two-dimensional approach, combining the traditional left/right dimension and the GAL-TAL dimension, to find out where the SD place themselves on the political spectrum. The left/right dimension focuses on socioeconomic interests – the relationship between the state and the market while GAL-TAN considers socio-cultural issues such as independence and the degree of individual freedom. By conducting a qualitative content analysis and an ideal-type analysis in this study, several statements from the party's manifestos from the year 2010, 2014 and 2018 have been analyzed to find out where the party can be placed on the political spectrum. The study shows that the SD can be placed on the two-dimensional scale, where the party combines elements of TAN, some libertarian elements (GAL), where SD positions itself as a centrist-right party in some issues of the economic dimension. In addition, results show that social conservatism has been a prominent ideology in the SD:s manifestos over the years.