“We Are a Small Country That Has Done Enormously Lot”: The ‘Refugee Crisis’ and the Hybrid Discourse of Politicizing Immigration in Sweden

ABSTRACT

This article looks at mainstream political discourses about immigration in Sweden during the recent “refugee crisis”. It argues that different patterns of politicization of immigration have traditionally dominated in Sweden and focuses on Swedish mainstream politics wherein, as is shown, explicit focus on politicization via (previous as well as current) immigration-related policies still persists. However, as the analysis of Sweden's Social Democratic Party's Twitter discourse shows, a hybrid new discourse of politicization is now emerging. It allows political actors to legitimize immigration policy with often populist-like politicization and the use of new modes of online political communication.

KEYWORDS:

• Sweden
• refugee crisis
• politicization
• political discourse
• legitimation strategies
• immigration policy
• critical discourse studies

Notes

1. Despite its by now widespread presence in public and academic discourse, the notion of a refugee crisis is approached critically in this article. It is viewed as an ideologically charged notion developed in the media and political discourse and also as a recontextualization of earlier (negativized) descriptions of large-scale developments related to immigration and asylum seeking (e.g., in the context of wars in former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s).

2. This paper draws on definitions of asylum seekers/refugees as widely accepted in the discourse of transnational institutions, such as the UN (http://www.unhcr.org/asylum-seekers.html) and the EU (see http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/networks/european_migration_network/docs/emn-glossary-en-version.pdf), and of Amnesty International (2016). I am grateful to JIRS Editor-in-Chief Anna Triandafyllidou for her suggestions regarding the issue of definitions.

3. Although he acknowledges a wide array of types of contemporary uncivil society movements, Ruzza (2009, p. 88) sees uncivil society primarily as “groups which have a self-professed antidemocratic and exclusionary political identity” and, in a majority of cases, associated with the political, including radical, right. Whereas these types can be prototypically defined as a form of civil society (especially due to its closeness to the “social” base), the uncivil society movements are significantly different from the civil society inasmuch as the former (a) act against rather than for the benefit of the common good and democratic principles and (b) are, even if unofficially, often closely linked to political parties and groups rather being voluntary bottom-up organizations and effectively a “voice” of the civil society.

4. For a more in-depth explanation of these key analytical categories see Krzyżanowski (2019) or Krzyżanowski (2010, Chapter 2).

5. See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/24/sweden-asylum-seekers-refugees-policy-reversal (last accessed July 21, 2016).

6. See http://www.regeringen.se/artiklar/2015/11/regeringen-foreslar-atgarder-for-att-skapa-andrum-for-svenskt-flyktingmottagande (last accessed June 19, 2016).

Additional information

Funding

The work presented in this paper has been partially funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) grants 21-2013-1498 (“The Journalism-Politics-PR Interplay on Twitter: Hybridized, Cross-Professional Relations on the Web”) and 2016–05464 (“Interactive Racism in Swedish Online Media, Press and Politics: Discourses on Immigration and Refugees at Times of Crisis”).