Christian Legacy of Western Far-Right Nasty Politics? Theorising the Populist Culture war on Swedish Climate Politics

Populist radical right parties in western liberal democracies are taking firm action against policies to halt global warming and deal with the climate emergency. These counter-actions are part of a culture war on climate policy, which in turn is part of the radical rights’ iconoclastic culture war on the hegemonic ‘left–liberal conspiracy’ that has ‘destroyed western nations’. In this culture war, religion has moved from the periphery to the centre of far-right populist politics—as ideology, as discourse, as strategy and as style. They sacralise politics that can be described as nasty politics, with manipulation, polarisation and systematic use of hate speech and hate crime to silence political opponents. Theorising the far-right turn of Swedish climate politics since early 2020s, with public policy being dictated by the populist nativist party Sweden Democrats, this paper analyses the legacy of Christianity as theology and anthropology in far-right nasty politics and rhetoric. The paper identifies five core traits of far-right nasty politics and rhetoric, which from a review of biblical texts and scholarly literature in theology, history, sociology and anthropology of religion, history of science, philosophy, sociology and political science, all have bearing on Christianity: (i) power of thought, (ii) polarisation, (iii) persuasion, (iv) punishment, and (v) disruption. The paper provides new insights on Christianity’s role in shaping far-right populism, not only as a political discourse on antagonism towards other religions, but as a political ideology, a political discourse, a political style and a political strategy to change politics and governance, in climate politics and more generally. The paper outlines different avenues for future research on the role of religion in far-right civilisationism and nasty politics.