The relationship between trade unions and far-right parties in Scandinavia: A comparative analysis of the construction and positioning of collective identities in political speeches from 2020-2023

Författare

Lova Andersson

Summary, in English

The purpose of this thesis is to research the relationship between trade unions and far-right parties in Scandinavia. Considering the well established trade unions, the Nordic model, with the rise of support for the far-right, and how their founding ideologies are very different from each other, the region of Scandinavia constitutes a unique area for the relationship between trade unions and far-right parties to be researched. This is executed with a theory of discourse analysis, theories of collective identities, including a dimension of social identity complexity, construction of collective identities, and mechanisms of naive realism, with narrative analysis as a method. The material consists of speeches from 2020 to 2023 of the trade union confederations LOse, FH, and LOno, and the far-right parties the Sweden Democrats, The Danish People’s Party, and the Norwegian Progress Party. This study draws the conclusion that the actors’ narratives are different mostly in terms of discourse, and most prominently in terms of how the political parties construct collective identities of ingroups and outgroups through a different process than the trade union confederations. The trade union confederations consistently have a low social identity complexity, while the political parties have a high social identity complexity. The far-right parties are also more extreme in their mechanisms of naive realism in terms of ingroup favouritism as well as discrediting the outgroup in order to legitimise themselves. These differences were expressed through the usage of language, where the political parties used normative language, while trade union confederations used a more inclusive, descriptive language. The actors were similar in their usage of essentially contested concepts such as democracy, freedom, and equality, as well as in their critique towards the government. These findings contribute to knowledge of the overlap of the actors’ supporters and relationship between the trade unions and the far-right parties.

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