Why do people turn away from mainstream politics and support populist parties in Europe? What are the concerns of online supporters of populist political parties and street-based groups in Europe? And what can mainstream parties do to win them back?
On February 24, 2012, the UK think tank Demos will release the report Populism in Europe: Sweden. The report is based on a polling of Facebook supporters of the Sweden Democrats and includes data on who they are, what they think and what motivates them to shift from virtual to real-world activism.
The Swedish think tank Fores will jointly present the findings with Demos in a public event.
The report on Sweden is part of a series of country reports based on a data set of 13,000 Facebook fans of populist parties in 12 European countries, which was first presented in the Demos report The New Face of Digital Populism, released in November 2011. Populism in Europe: Hungary was released in January 2012 and further reports will be released this year on the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, Austria, Germany and Italy.
This report is part of an Open Society Foundations initiative conducting research and pilot projects tackling innovative approaches to keeping societies open in Europe.