Rydgren, Jens. ‘Explaining the Emergence of Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties: The Case of Denmark’. (2004) [PDF]

Rydgren, Jens. ‘Explaining the Emergence of Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties: The Case of Denmark’. West European Politics, vol. 27, no. 3, Routledge, May 2004, pp. 474–502.

This article aims to explain the emergence of the Danish People’s Party, a radical right-wing populist party, by using a model combining political opportunity structures and the diffusion of new master frames. The article shows that because of dealignment and realignment processes – as well as the politicisation of the immigration issue – niches were created on the electoral arena. The Danish People’s Party was able to mine these niches by adopting a master frame combining ethno-pluralist xenophobia and anti-political establishment populism, which had proved itself successful elsewhere in Western Europe (originally in France in the mid-1980s). In this process of adaptation, a far right circle of intellectuals, the Danish Association, played a key role as mediator. 

doi:10.1080/0140238042000228103.

PDF: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236803141_Radical_Right-wing_Populism_in_Denmark_and_Sweden_Explaining_Party_System_Change_and_Stability.