The Nordic states – Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland 1 – have provided fertile terrain for populism, which is understood here as a ‘thin’ ideology ‘that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups – “the pure people” versus the “corrupt elite”, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale’ (Mudde 2004: 543). Populism embraces an anti-establishment position and an idea of two homogenous groups that stand in an antagonistic relationship to one another: ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’. As an ‘empty container’, the ‘people’ can refer to the citizens (demos), ‘our people’ (ethnos) and the ‘ordinary people’ (the ‘common man’) (Canovan 1999). This thin-centred ideology can and ultimately must combine with other ideologies to develop into electorally attractive alternatives. Historically, populism has manifested itself in and married with different, ‘fuller’ ideologies. Consequently, populism can be left- and right-wing – and even agrarian populism.