Talk:Alternative for Sweden

Notability

Political party launched March 5th 2018. It remains to be seen if the initiative survives. On Swedish WP it is now a redirect, see w:sv:Diskussion:Alternativ för Sverige. Deletion is discussed on Norwegian WP, see w:no:Wikipedia:Sletting/Alternativ för Sverige. --ツ^ツDyveldi ^{☯ prat} _{✉ post} 18:27, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Your second link is broken. (fixed now —ajf (talk) 23:48, 29 March 2018 (UTC)) I'm not sure of the notability myself and maybe redirecting like Norwegian Wikipedia does would be reasonable — it is only because two SD Riksdag members defected to it that I thought it might merit an article. But even then it might be better covered somewhere in the SD or Gustav Kasselstrand articles, if at all. —ajf (talk) 23:45, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

They have been at 2% in one poll and the party is launched by people with a public profile; they also claim to have 1,000 members (though that doesn't seem to be verified). I do not see an issue with notability at all, there are far more marginal parties with their own articles.--Batmacumba (talk) 07:25, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Regarding the categories/labels

The category Eurosceptic parties in Sweden is not problematic, since the party itself advocates Swedish withdrawal from the European Union, which by definition makes it (hard) eurosceptic. The other categories copied from the article on the Sweden Democrats, however, namely Nationalist parties in Sweden, Swedish nationalism, Conservative parties in Sweden, Right-wing populism in Europe, Right-wing populist parties and Far-right politics in Sweden, are.

The party’s leader identifies as a nationalist, but I do not find any sources that I know are reliable explicitly calling the entire party nationalist. That does not mean that it is not, but we do not currently have the sources to say that it is. I did provide a link to an article at SputnikNews explicitly calling it nationalist in my edit summary, but I also mentioned that I do not know if it can be considered a reliable source (its short-lived Norwegian branch was labeled a propaganda site by experts here in Norway, for example). Leaving out possibly correct information is way better than including possibly incorrect information.

The argument given in the edit summary is BuzzFeed News's article describes them as far-right and nationalists, and in any case, is there any coherent way to argue that AfS is *not* these?. It is flawed, for two reasons:

1. One should not argue against the assumption that AfS is nationalist etc. It should be the other way around – using these labels without sources backing them up is WP:OR and goes against Wikipedia’s mission. For example, it might be “obvious” that Goldbach's conjecture must be true, but yet it remains unproven. Writing that it is true for all integers is original research, no matter how obvious one thinks it is. The same goes for the categories. It might be obvious that the party is nationalist (I would personally consider it nationalist myself), but stating that it is, when no sources actually back up that claim, is again original research. A more problematic category is Conservative parties in Sweden. I personally think that turning one of the most progressive tax systems into a flat tax system would constitute a radical change. Likewise, I consider reevaluating all asylum applications since 2000 and encouraging all non-Western immigrants to leave the country far from conservative (note that these are not policies shared by the Sweden Democrats). We clearly disagree in this case, which is why original research is a problem. Wikipedia articles are second-hand sources and should be based on reliable/verifiable information, not subjective opinions.
2. BuzzFeed’s article does deal with topics such as right-wing movements and nationalism in Sweden, but nowhere in the article do the authors actually label AfS with any ideology. The words conservative and populist are not used in the article at all. The terms nationalist and far-right are used in these two sentences that are relevant to this article:

1. A new party that formally launched […], potentially sparking a civil war on the far right that could derail support for its largest nationalist party.
2. [T]he party’s launch is a sign that factions the Sweden Democrats are now shunning are organizing to stay players in nationalist politics.

None of these are explicit descriptions: potentially sparking a civil war on the far right does not imply that the party is far-right, and describing the Sweden Democrats as “[Sweden’s] largest nationalist party” does not imply that all parties competing with it are nationalist.

The party is not even a month old, so there is no consensus on its political position yet. That is why I mentioned who called it right wing and/or far-right instead of stating that the party is right-wing to far-right or something like that. There is plenty of time for experts to label the party, we are in no way in a hurry to pinpoint its exact position on the left-right axis (which, in my opinion, provides few details about a party anyway). I believe that the party’s views are better described by actually providing a summary of its policies, which is why I wrote that section. Hått (talk) 00:19, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Regarding ideology they seem to use quite a lot of "anti-capitalist" rhetoric and have e.g. have come out against profiteering by "speculators" in the welfare sector (they emphasize that some of those are foreigners), and they have criticized SD for being too close to big business. So I think they may try a somewhat more "radical" pitch and that would make it problematic to label them as Conservatives. I expect analysts who want to put a traditional label on them to go for Fascist rather than Conservative, but like you I prefer a description rather than labels, apart from Nationalist (which is so obvious that we are going to get a source for that soon).--Batmacumba (talk) 09:51, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Difference between Sweden Democrats

They seem to be similar, or even the same, despite being different parties. This article should highlight the differences, if they exist. Alex of Canada (talk) 03:45, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

AfD advocates repatriation of people already residing in Sweden, which is a lot more radical than SD's policies on migration. They also want to introduce a flat tax and despite anti-capitalist/anti-corporate rhetoric they are more economically right wing. The problem with differentiating the two parties is that it would require an acknowledgement of the mainstreaming and moderation that has taken place within SD, and Wiki usually relies on academic and journalistic sources with a bias against nationalists that will underline the "far right" character of such parties rather than their officially moderate stance, so it's usually quite hard to describe "mainstreamed" right wing populists properly because many editors will insist on keeping either dated sources or sources with a left wing/left liberal bias (given that most academic sources have it). There is a lack of research in right wing populism that is more neutral and objective - it's a field that is dominated by their opponents viewing them as a problem and a danger. I would expect it to be particularly hard to find objective sources when it comes to Sweden given the prevailing views of Swedish academics and media. Basically AfD is SD classic from back when the party's fascist roots were a lot more pronounced than today, and you can only describe the difference accurately if you describe the current SD in a neutral way (accepting their official line and public posture) and not as "they are really far right, but hiding it" which is the way of thinking behind much of the literature and articles about them. Basically, there are significant differences, but it might be hard to source them properly and avoid "own research". Edit wars also seem very likely, which is why I personally haven't bothered with it. Though we could simply list policy differences without describing their ideological diffrerences.--Batmacumba (talk) 07:42, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it would be hard to find a neutral description of the differences. One possible way forward is to report on how the parties criticize each other. If I remember correctly there has been a fair amount of criticism from both parties. Sjö (talk) 07:53, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Isn't this party more white nationalist, compared to the SD civic nationalists?

They are openly etnonationalist and against the SD concept of "open Swedishness", but non-white adoptees (and their descendants) and biracial Swedes would be part of their definition of the Swedish people, so it's not a white nationalist party per se (few non-Nazi parties in Europe are). I would use etnonationalist.--Batmacumba (talk) 10:22, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Isn't ethno-nationalist in this case just a vague way of saying white nationalist? They certainly aren't black nationalists. Alex of Canada (talk) 23:03, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

No, white nationalist imply that their definition of the nation is racially based. Ethnicity is a broader concept and their definition of the Swedish nation clearly includes some non-whites such as adoptees and biracial people with part Swedish ancestry.--Batmacumba (talk) 15:34, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Maybe so in Sweden. If so, the article should be updated to address these things. Wikipedia shouldn't shy away from being more informative, due to a subject being controversial. Alex of Canada (talk) 22:28, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Peoples alliance?

In July Bosse Jonsson together with the party ” the populists” and ”the button pressers” launched a movement Known as ”folkalliansen” or peoples alliance. Afs and many of their leader have been invited to this but as far as i know they have not replyed. Should this be mentioned? Should we wait? UnofficialMalmo (talk) 06:20, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

what is this? Braganza (talk) 14:11, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Official colours

User:ValenciaThunderbolt, can you please provide a source that declares blue only as the official party colour? i strongly doubt there is an official document that declares any "official colour" but they use blue and yellow as their colours per logo for example Gooduserdude (talk) 18:20, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

I apologise for using the word "officially", as they don't. However, the parametre is mostly used for the colour that is used in the module, or if there is a discrepancy between the colour a party uses, and the colour used in the module (mostly the reason why it is different is because it is similar to another party). ValenciaThunderbolt (talk) 20:38, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

User:ValenciaThunderbolt sweden democrats has three colours, so why cant this party have 2 colours? Gooduserdude (talk) 07:32, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm not saying it can't, but a majority of political party pages only use the one that is for the module, or if there are customary and official ones (using just one colour), then they are added to the parametre. ValenciaThunderbolt (talk) 08:29, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

User:ValenciaThunderbolt actually most swedish political party pages use several colours Gooduserdude (talk) 08:42, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

You make a good point. Go ahead and add it then. ValenciaThunderbolt (talk) 08:45, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Oh. It's already been added back. ValenciaThunderbolt (talk) 08:46, 8 October 2023 (UTC)