The Spectropolitics of the Swedish People’s Home: Tracing the ‘no longer’ and the ‘not yet’ in the Swedish 2022 Election Campaign

Abstract

Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s concept of hauntology, this article develops a hauntological framework to trace the no longer and the not yet in the uprising of punitive populism in the Swedish electoral campaign of 2022. Our analysis is based on speeches made by party leaders from the three largest parties in Sweden and their election manifestos. The aim of this article is to demonstrate how the spectropolitics of the ‘Swedish People’s Home’ (Sv. Folkhemmet) with its inherent contradictions is haunting our past as well as our future. Resting on a critical analytical tradition, we argue that election campaigns are important to analyse due to their potential power to shape the wider public understanding. Through the spectre of safety and the spectralisation of individuals engaged in ‘gang criminality,’ the Swedish People’s Home assumes a spectralising power in politics, both left and right, that produces a punitive populism calling for the persecution and ‘exorcism’ of certain racialised groups. The shadowy downsides of the dream of welfare in Sweden is haunting; its hidden violence emerges in the politics of punitive populism.