Nordic populists as hegemony challengers

Abstract

This chapter explores populism in Nordic countries where there is a long tradition of heterogeneous, populist parties with incompatible political ideologies transforming over decades. Populist parties have emerged as a reaction to dominant thinking in each of the political contexts. Theoretically, generating a typology between populist parties, people divide populist parties into mainstream and fringe populist parties. Mainstream populists seek to take over political space as a whole from a central position in the core of politics, as one of the larger and often traditional parties. Fringe populist parties and movements would challenge all the other parties from a supposed outside. Consensus culture in politics is present in all Nordic countries but political systems differ. Nordic populist parties have experienced waves of popularity related to different grievances and protests: from elitism in the 1960s to taxes in the 1970s–1980s and to immigration from the 1980s and onward.