Drive or Die – The Role of Narratives in the Sweden Democrats’ Political Storytelling of Transport Politics
(2024) HEKM51 20241Department of Human Geography
Human Ecology
- Abstract
- In this thesis, I examine the political storytelling of the Sweden Democrats, a far-right populist party that has steadily gained political momentum in the past 15 years. Notably, they have positioned themselves as defenders of automobile society, a topic which has become increasingly prominent in Swedish political discourse. By using narrative analysis, this thesis aims to investigate how the Sweden Democrats' portrayal of cars intersects with their ethno-nationalist and techno-optimist politics and to analyse the main components of the narrative. The research uncovers a variety of articulated justifications for car use and identifies potential emerging trends within the party’s discourse. Drawing comparisons between the car and the... (More)
- In this thesis, I examine the political storytelling of the Sweden Democrats, a far-right populist party that has steadily gained political momentum in the past 15 years. Notably, they have positioned themselves as defenders of automobile society, a topic which has become increasingly prominent in Swedish political discourse. By using narrative analysis, this thesis aims to investigate how the Sweden Democrats' portrayal of cars intersects with their ethno-nationalist and techno-optimist politics and to analyse the main components of the narrative. The research uncovers a variety of articulated justifications for car use and identifies potential emerging trends within the party’s discourse. Drawing comparisons between the car and the Swedish welfare era (‘folkhem’), the Sweden Democrats explicitly link driving with the expression of Swedish values, framing less automobility as a threat to the Swedish national identity. The party also utilised the car as a populist symbol, leveraging it to gain political traction by portraying themselves as the voice of ‘the common people’ and casting other political parties as adversaries – of both the car and the people. Furthermore, the instrumentalisation of the car also enabled the party to justify an ethno-nationalist and racist political agenda and significantly constrained future outlooks for alternative transport modes. The Sweden Democrats presented two contrasting visions of the future – an electrified car utopia and a motionless car dystopia – effectively delegitimising alternative paths forward. The research underscores the need to move beyond analysing the ties between fossil fuels and the far-right and turn attention to the objects and practices enabled by it. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9151841
- author
- Medin, Olivia LU
- supervisor
-
- Andreas Malm LU
- organization
- course
- HEKM51 20241
- year
- 2024
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Sweden Democrats, Far-right populism, Automobility, Narrative, Political storytelling
- language
- English
- id
- 9151841
- date added to LUP
- 2024-07-24 10:55:53
- date last changed
- 2024-07-24 10:55:53
@misc{9151841,
abstract = {{In this thesis, I examine the political storytelling of the Sweden Democrats, a far-right populist party that has steadily gained political momentum in the past 15 years. Notably, they have positioned themselves as defenders of automobile society, a topic which has become increasingly prominent in Swedish political discourse. By using narrative analysis, this thesis aims to investigate how the Sweden Democrats' portrayal of cars intersects with their ethno-nationalist and techno-optimist politics and to analyse the main components of the narrative. The research uncovers a variety of articulated justifications for car use and identifies potential emerging trends within the party’s discourse. Drawing comparisons between the car and the Swedish welfare era (‘folkhem’), the Sweden Democrats explicitly link driving with the expression of Swedish values, framing less automobility as a threat to the Swedish national identity. The party also utilised the car as a populist symbol, leveraging it to gain political traction by portraying themselves as the voice of ‘the common people’ and casting other political parties as adversaries – of both the car and the people. Furthermore, the instrumentalisation of the car also enabled the party to justify an ethno-nationalist and racist political agenda and significantly constrained future outlooks for alternative transport modes. The Sweden Democrats presented two contrasting visions of the future – an electrified car utopia and a motionless car dystopia – effectively delegitimising alternative paths forward. The research underscores the need to move beyond analysing the ties between fossil fuels and the far-right and turn attention to the objects and practices enabled by it.}},
author = {{Medin, Olivia}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Drive or Die – The Role of Narratives in the Sweden Democrats’ Political Storytelling of Transport Politics}},
year = {{2024}},
}