White Supremacy and the Future of Liberal Democracy–the Case of the Nordic Resistance Movement

Abstract

In 2015, the largest neo-Nazi organization in Scandinavia, The Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) registered as a political party and entered electoral politics in Sweden. Utilizing qualitative content analysis, the current work explores changes in NRM's rhetoric from before the party entered politics in 2010 and five years later in 2018. Focus centers on NRM's ideology, what or whom they frame as their threat, and their suggested solutions for constructed problems. Results show fascist rhetoric in both time periods. An argument is made that there is no actual moderation in NRM's politics by liberal democracy. Rather, far-right extremism is a threat to liberal democracy, as we know it. Implications of the growth of the far-right, and the future of liberal democracy are discussed.

Deglobalization and the political psychology of white supremacy

“…White supremacy is a vague discourse centered around a fantasy in which White people and culture are intrinsically superior to those of other ethnicities and races. It implies a narrative in which common (fantasmatic) pasts and values are shared, and where White people are entitled to design, operationalize, and ontologically secure (e.g., through traditions, policies, and laws) their survival, safety, and prosperity to the detriment of other genders, ethnicities, and races-often through violent means (Oesteraas, 2022;Vander Zanden, 1959;Wu & Li, 2020). While far-right movements and parties have been established around (and share) some of these core beliefs, they tend to espouse them less explicitly as they traverse into the more "mainstream" political arenas (Mudde, 2017;Wodak, 2020).…”

“…Here, (de)globalization acts as an ideal platform in which the spectrum of white ethnocentric fantasy narratives can be addressed through different dimensions and manifestations. For instance, narratives focused on safeguarding the present and the (fantasmatic) future of White Swedes, as propagated by the Nordic Resistance Movement, act as a direct backlash against the liberal values associated with increased immigration and multiculturalism—values which are seen as fundamental to globalization and as facilitated by local “elite” enablers (i.e., traditional political parties; Askanius, 2019; Oesteraas, 2022). In contrast, in the case of Brexit and its aftermath, we see a more complex “backlash chain,” in which diverse pro-Leave factions explicitly hold diverse (even purportedly “positive”) views on immigration to the UK (Bachmann & Sidaway, 2016; Mădroane, 2021).…”