Actitudes sociales en tres niveles: 1 Integración:

This thesis started out with the observation of an increasing number of Swedes emigrating abroad. As a part of the current globalization, migration does no longer only concern people from low-income countries, but also people migrating from affluent countries. The theory of transnationalism argues that when emigrants move from their home country to a host country, the multiplicity of political and social involvements affects migrants’ values, identities and the way they make decisions. Alongside with the increased migration and globalization, radical right parties have emerged all through Europe. Found in the 2014 SOM survey of Swedish expats, 7% of the expatriates voted for the radical right party of Sweden- the Sweden Democrats. Swedish expats are a group of people characterized by a higher socio-economic status, higher education levels and higher positions in the job market. Drawing from Kriesi’s (2006) theory of winners and losers of globalization, Swedish expats can arguably be viewed as the prominent ‘winners’ of globalization, as they are high skilled workers, with a higher educational degree that benefit from more fluent borders. This formed a conundrum of why the winners of globalization would vote for a radical right party, who mainly attracts the ‘losers’ of globalization. Thus, the overall aim of this thesis was to investigate this specific occurrence, and look into what can explain Swedish expats vote support for the Sweden Democrats. By combing two strands of literature, transnationalism and radical right research, this thesis aimed to contribute to research by first testing three hypotheses concerning

attitudinal factors; if attitudes to immigration, political trust and social trust had any effect on Swedish expats vote support for the Sweden Democrats. Secondly, this thesis also aimed to investigate whether differently developed national identities (transborder and transnational) had any effect on expatriates vote support for the Sweden Democrats. Lastly, this thesis also aimed to test if the presumed effect of anti-immigration attitudes leads to an even higher likelihood to vote for the Sweden Democrats among expatriates with strong national identity.

Regarding the attitudinal factors, this thesis found a strong significant association between expatriates’ attitudes to immigration and voting for the Sweden Democrats. A more negative

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attitude to immigration leads to increased likelihood to vote for the Sweden Democrats. There was a significantly large difference in the predicted probabilities, where expats with a

negative attitude to immigration had a predicted probability of 59% to vote for the Sweden Democrats, whilst expats with a positive attitude to immigration had a predicted probability of 0.07% to vote for the Sweden Democrats. Thus, hypotheses 1a is supported. The factor of political trust also showed a significant association to voting for the Sweden Democrats. The results demonstrate that expatriates with lower levels of political trust have an increased likelihood to vote for the Sweden Democrats. Again, there was a large difference in the predicted probabilities, where expats with low levels of political trust had a predicted probability of 55% to vote for the Sweden Democrats, whilst expats with a high level of political trust has a predicted probability of 0.3% to vote for the Sweden Democrats. Therefore, hypotheses 1b is supported as well. However, the results show no significant association between expatriates’ social trust and voting for the Sweden Democrats, thus hypotheses 1c is refuted.

Turning to the factors of transborder and transnational identification, the results showed no significant relationship between different kinds of national identity (transborder and

transnational) and voting for the Sweden Democrats. There is no evidence that expatriates territorial attachment, or national pride have an effect on voting for the Sweden Democrats. Hypotheses 2 is thus not supported. Finally, no interaction effect is found: different kinds of national identity do not moderate the impact of attitudes to immigration on voting for the Sweden Democrats. Consequently, no support for hypotheses 3 is found.

The significant results demonstrating that expatriates with a negative attitude to immigration and low political trust are more likely to vote for the Sweden Democrats is in line with previous research. But as previous research mainly is based on residential citizens, this thesis has added a new context to radical right research and has made an empirical contribution, by testing and confirming previously stated explanations on migrants that vote from abroad. Another empirical contribution is the test of the relationship between

transnational/transborder national identities and voting for a radical right party, which rarely has been done before. Theoretically, this thesis further elaborated the national identity argument and its effect of radical right voting, that is put forward by previous scholars. This thesis intertwined the factor of national identity and nationalism from radical right research, together with the possibly developed national identities from political transnational

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experiences. Further, the national identity mechanism was also tested in the new context of migrants that vote from abroad. However, contrary to previous research, the empirical

analysis conclusively shows that there is no association between expatriate’s national identity and voting for the Sweden Democrats.

It is clear from this analysis that the anti-immigrant and political trust explanations gets strong support, and that the national identity explanations get no support at all. A potential

explanation to why national identity has no effect on expats vote support for the Sweden Democrats could be that national identity- feelings of home and pride towards Sweden- mean something else for expatriate Swedes compared to residential Swedes. It is possible to

imagine that when people live aboard, it might become more important to celebrate Swedish holidays or root for Sweden in competitions, which also is visible empirically in the SOM survey on expatriate Swedes. The data also shows that many expatriates are proud of Sweden and see it as a role model. When living abroad, it might be more accepted to be proud of your home country and its cultural values, without it meaning that you would be critical to

immigration and support a radical right party. This would be interesting to investigate further in future research, as the abstract concept of national identity could have different meaning for expatriates and residents.

Furthermore, another possible shortcoming with this study that could explain the non- significant impact of the national identity variables and the socioeconomic variables is the relative skewness of the data. Only a small part of the respondents is found in the groups with lower education and lower age and with transborder identification. When it comes to Swedish expats experiences and identities, the data showed that Swedish expatriates in a larger extent are transnational in the way they partake in activities and develop experiences from both home and host country. Because of this skewness, hypotheses 2 and hypotheses 3 were challenging to test, as the main group that were to be tested were expatriates with a transborder identification.

This thesis has demonstrated that among these winners, individuals who are strongly opposed to immigration to a great extent votes for the Sweden Democrats. Future research could be directed towards this finding, and towards investigating what it is that shapes these anti- immigrant attitudes about the state of a country in which they no longer live in. Furthermore, future research of the context of settlement in which the expatriates find themselves could be

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interesting to look into. Previous research shows that it might have an effect on their political behavior and preference, and could add an interesting perspective in future analysis.

Moreover, additional research can be directed towards other groups of migrants, from countries other than Sweden that show support for radical right parties. An analysis where several country samples would be included could give a wider understanding and maybe present other explanations to expatriates radical right support. In the context of migrant research, this thesis focused on a group of migrants from a developed country, which is relatively rarely found compared to research about developing countries. Therefore, this thesis further calls for a research perspective recognizing this inchoate field.

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