Immigration and Integration Policy in Europe

Denmark and Sweden, 1970 – 2010

Haider Abbas

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000223866
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Emigrazione e immigrazione

This book analyzes contemporary changes in immigration and integration policy in the wake of populism and rise of right-wing parties across the world. It examines how, in the face of substantial migratory flows, rising security concerns regarding immigration, and a refugee crisis of unprecedented levels, member states of the European Union have responded by calling for restrictive immigration policies, border patrolling, and intensified integration programs. Focusing on Denmark and Sweden, the volume employs a unified theoretical framework to look at how internal political debates, institutional patterns, constitutional frameworks, and political competition are key to a systematic explanation of immigration and integration policy changes in Europe.

This volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of migration and diaspora studies, public policy, politics and international relations, sociology, and social anthropology, as well as government officials, think tanks, and policymakers.

1
INTRODUCTION

Foreword

In 2015, over 1 million people arrived in the EU via Mediterranean maritime routes, with 3,771 people reported dead or missing. Once hundreds of thousands of men and women arrived in Greece, they made their way to inland Europe via countries such as Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, Hungary, and Austria, with Germany and Sweden often being the preferred final destinations. In 2015, Sweden reported to have 163,000 asylum applications and Germany received 442,000 applications. The disorderly and chaotic movement of people led to numerous deaths of men, women, and children. The body of the young Kurdish boy emerging on the shores of the Greek islands opened the eyes of many people to the tragic effects of conflict and economic inequality that underpin international migration.¹

For others, the refugee crisis demonstrated a need for much greater effort to secure the borders of EU states in the face of unrelenting migrant flows. In September 2015, EU member states agreed to a scheme of relocating asylum-seekers from Greece, Hungary, and Italy, but there were tensions within the EU. Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania opposed the proposal but were outvoted. The EU’s Schengen system of free travel came under close examination, which was intensified after the Paris attacks in November 2015, which left 130 people dead. Border reinforcements, however, had already taken place prior to the attack and continue to be reinforced. In the summer of 2015, Hungary constructed a fence around its borders with Serbia and Croatia to stop the inflow of migrants who were making way via Greece. Since 2016, the Balkan migration route through Macedonia, Serbia, and Hungary has officially been closed, entrapping thousands of migrants in Greece. Italy struck a controversial deal with Libya in 2017 to stem migrant arrivals by training the Libyan coast guard to turn back vessels and return migrants to Libya. Similarly, the Spanish had already bolstered their border with Morocco in the Spanish towns of Ceuta and Melilla. The UK increased border patrol around the port of Calais after refugees residing in refugee camps tried to use the tunnel to sneak into UK.²

While borders and integration requirements were being reinforced on the one hand, international migration as a phenomenon continues to affect European politics and societies. Labor and family migration to Europe persist. International students make their way to study at colleges and universities within Europe. Mobility within the EU by EU citizens with free movement rights has increased, particularly from new member states, such as Poland, Hungary, and Romania. At the same time, migration flows have also increased from economically struggling countries like Greece, Italy, and Spain. Geopolitically, since the 1990s, the impact of international migration has widened as new immigration countries, newer EU member states, and non-EU member states in Southern and Central Europe have become increasingly commercially interconnected with North-Western and Western European countries. International migration now constitutes an important component of relations between Western European countries and surrounding states and regions, including those in Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and countries in the Horn of Africa, such as Somalia and Eritrea.³

Overall, migration has become a crucial issue for Europe, one that is likely to dominate policy and political agendas for many years to come. Despite the recent increase in refugee flows to Europe, it is neither the first nor the last time that migrants will make their way to Europe. Poverty, instability, conflict, and socioeconomic inequality will continue to drive people to seek safety and realize their potential in Europe. Inevitable migrant arrivals make integration policy equally important to policy debates. Understanding the factors that influence immigration and integration policy choices can help policymakers not only understand policy differences across countries but also make more informed and better decisions in the future.

In order to make sense of the factors that influence immigration and integration policy choices, this book explores the differing policies in Denmark and Sweden. Denmark and Sweden are selected because the two countries are “worlds apart” on immigration and integration policies, yet they are very similar on a lot of other relevant measures, such as political and electoral structures, population, and economic conditions. Using the most-similar research design model and employing a qualitative process tracing technique in this comparative case study, this book tries to explore the reasons behind the differing immigration and integration policies in the two countries. Understanding the reasons and the conditions under which these two countries have diverged on immigration and integration policy can serve as a point of departure for understanding (1) future policy choices in these countries and (2) similar policy choices across Europe. In specific, the three research questions directing this research are: (1) How have Sweden and Denmark immigration and integration policies differed? (2) Which explanations and variables best explain these differences? (3) What do those explanations suggest about upcoming immigration and integration policies in Denmark and Sweden, and in other EU countries? This book develops a unified theoretical framework to answer these questions.

The existing academic literature displays three major explanations for the policy differences in Denmark and Sweden: (1) national model path-dependency, (2) the role of the political tone of the debate, and (3) structure of party competition. The argument in this book seeks to clarify the relationships among these three explanations and between the three explanations combined and the outcome of interest. Naturally, for a topic as complex as immigration and integration, there are a plethora of confounding international, national, and local factors that influence the outcome. This book engages with them to the extent it can in a fair and responsible manner. However, it must be noted that the goal is to integrate the existing explanations to reach a more holistic understanding of policy differences.

The findings in this book suggest that national model path-dependency determines the institutional track that each country takes with respect to immigration and integration policies. The political tone of the debate complements these institutional patterns by establishing the political context and framing the issue in a distinct way. While the first two variables set the basis for policy choices, the structure of party competition is crucial to how decisions are actually made.

Applying the unified theoretical framework to Denmark and Sweden allows us to better explain policy choices in the two countries up until 2010. First, the institutional pattern in Sweden since World War II has been strongly multicultural. Second, the tone of debate in Sweden complemented the multicultural trend. These factors were met with the third factor, a favorable structure of party competition, in which the mainstream right-wing parties isolated the far-right parties. In Denmark, on the other hand, WWII led to an assimilatory institutional trend, which was complemented by a restrictive tone of debate. These two variables met with the third variable, the structure of party competition, conditions in which encouraged a coalition between mainstream right-wing parties and far-right parties. These results systematically explain policy differences in Denmark and Sweden and establish the dynamics of the unified theoretical framework. While the domain of this book is to analyze policy outcomes in Denmark and Sweden from 1970 to 2010 and generate a unified theoretical framework, it also tests the application of the framework to recent policy changes, i.e. post-2010 in Denmark and Sweden. This exercise contributes to the robustness of the framework and demonstrates how it can be used as a tool to hypothesize policy trajectory in the two countries.

To effectively prove these findings, this book takes a three-pronged approach: a unified theoretical framework, application of the framework to Denmark and Sweden immigration and integration policies, and implications of the framework as a tool of analysis. The remainder of this chapter is devoted to providing an overview of immigration and integration in Denmark and Sweden, a literary review and a description of the methodology. Chapter 2 discusses the generation of the unified theoretical framework, and alternative explanations that can influence the framework and our outcome of interest. Chapter 3 explains the outcome of interest and measurement techniques. Chapter 4 applies the framework to Denmark and Sweden and tests the hypotheses based on data till 2010. Chapter 5 applies the framework to immigration and integration policies in Denmark and Sweden post-2010, and it also discusses the possibility of applying the framework to understand the outlook of immigration and integration policies in other EU countries. Chapter 6 concludes with a summary of the findings, and key policy and academic revelations of this research.

Overview of immigration, integration, and the politics of integration in Denmark and Sweden

Policy differences in Denmark and Sweden are traced all the way back to 1970. They stem from historical, political, and institutional factors. This subsection provides an overview of the major differences from 1970 to 2010 in immigration and integration policies in the two countries.

As context, immigration and integration policies in this book are broadly defined as policies that have developed at the national and municipal levels and have affected immigrants. The emphasis is on both admission and integration policies, as this chapter believes that there is a continuous link between the two. Due to the endogenous and circular relation between admission and integration policy measures, this book attempts to explain variation in both (further clarified in the section “Dependent variable measurement” of Chapter 3).

Stark differences between the policies in the two countries can be seen from 1970 onwards. Denmark adopted an assimilationist approach to the integration of immigrants, whereas Sweden was much more multicultural. In 1968, the Social Democrat government in Sweden, in a bill on immigration policy, laid down the principles of how immigrants were to be accommodated in the welfare state. Immigrants were to be included in the universal welfare state goal, which is to attain equal social rights for all. The bill stated that the Swedish authorities should make efforts to help the newly arrived immigrants learn the Swedish language and provide information about the Swedish social system in order to “cater for the wish of immigrants to maintain contact with their original country’s language and culture.”⁴ In 1975, the government introduced the immigrant and minority bill, which was mainly described as having a culturally pluralistic – or multicultural – agenda. Subsequently in 1976, immigrants were also granted the right to vote in local county elections.⁵

Denmark, on the other hand, was mostly characterized by a lack of policies regarding immigration and integration, which was particularly due to a lack of consensus on the nature of policies and fewer migrants. Some policies that were implemented included labor market parties entering into an agreement on the conditions under which foreign labor from third world countries would enter the country. This agreement included 40 hours of compulsory language instruction, which meant that all foreign workers were obliged to take a course in the Danish language and social conditions within the first few months of their arrival. In 1975, on the basis of the findings of a working group in the Ministry of Social Affairs, there was a possibility of i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of tables
• List of figures
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Unified theoretical framework
• 3 Measuring policy outcomes
• 4 Comparative analysis of immigration and integration policy in Denmark and Sweden
• 5 Unified theoretical framework as a tool of analysis
• 6 Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index