Skånes Väl. De skånska regionalisternas möte med de svenska nationalisterna

Abstract

“Skånes väl”. The scanian regionalists meet the Swedish nationalists. During the past two decades right-wing populist parties have made substantial electoral gains in many West European countries. In Sweden the success of such parties has been limited compared to e.g. Denmark and Norway. In 1998 an electoral coalition of local populist parties, ";Skånes Väl";, in southern Sweden gained 4.1% of the votes in the regional elections and six mandates in the regional assembly. However, the coalition was split already a year before the subsequent election in 2002. One of the fractions started technical cooperation with the ring-wing extremist party ";Sverigedemokraterna"; during the period leading up to the 2002 election. The reasons for the split of the coaltion and the reasons why one of the fractions chose to cooperate with ";Sverigedemokraterna"; are analysed using the two dimensions right-wing populism versus right-wing extremism and nationalism versus regionalism. While both fractions were clearly populist, they strongly differ in nationalism/regionalism. This is one plausible reason why the more Swedish nationalist fraction chose to cooperate with the nationalist party ";Sverigedemokraterna";.