As of late, right wing populism has seen a steady increase in Western Europe, both in terms of electoral results and of the rhetoric being used in mainstream media and public debate (Rooduijn 2014; Zaslove 2008). Additionally, sentiments of this kind show no sign of stopping in the wake of the current refugee situation. This recent development has also meant that the very concept of populism has garnered increased theoretical and empirical interest among political scientist (e.g. Abts & Rummens 2007; Pollock, Brock & Ellison 2015; Stavrakakis 2014). However, to a much lesser extent has this phenomenon been discussed within the context of educational research, and relatively few attempts have been made by its scholars to render the relationship between populism and politics of education intelligible. In an attempt to amend this deficit, the following paper presents a case study analysing the online comment sections of two Swedish right wing newspapers and its readers’ dissatisfaction with the national history curriculum.

The main purpose of the paper is therefore to articulate those discursive logics which underpins and sustains populist practices concerned with history education. Consequently, the paper argues that issues of education may indeed be understood as a mobilising force within the particular political communities at hand.

As a point of theoretical departure, this paper utilises the post-foundationalist framework developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (1985/2014). Of particular importance is Laclau’s (2007) understanding of populism as a modus in which the people constitutes itself by articulating discontent with hegemonic ideologies or by posing demands contrary to those of the political establishment and elite. Every articulation is, however, dependent upon contextual aspects and therefore does the following study regard the actual workings of populism as an empirical inquiry. In order to conduct this inquiry, the analytical approach known as Logics of Critical Explanation (LCE) is employed. This approach builds upon the theoretical work of Laclau and Mouffe and therefore defines the fundamental concept of logic as comprising those conditions and rules of grammar which may sustain as well as change any given social or political practice (Glynos & Howarth 2007). Subsequently, three interrelated kinds of logics have been utilised in order to shed light upon the populist practices concerned with history education.

To begin with, the concept of social logics is used in order to map the overall coherence of the practices in terms of those articulatory regularities and sedimented assumptions that render certain aspects of history education intelligible while others are not. Simply put, by means of this concept does the analysis characterise what (according to the participants) ought to count as a viable and legitimate history curriculum within the Swedish educational context. In addition, the notion of political logics is employed as a way to emphasize how the identities of the participants and their political adversaries are articulated in and by the posing of certain demands as well as through the creation of antagonistic frontiers. Finally, the analysis makes use of the concept of fantasmatic logics in an attempt to explain why individual subjects identify with populist practices and thus become complicit in either changing or preserving them. Logics of this third kind primarily operates through a number of narratives that either promises a utopian fullness to come or threatens with a dystopian disaster if a certain problem is or isn’t overcome. In short, this final step of the analysis pertains to the ideological ‘grip’ that affects individuals into engaging with history education as a political issue (cf. Glynos & Howarth 2007).

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