Remaining neutral while conveying ‘the right picture’ of Sweden: governing agents navigating a neoliberally influenced social contract

ABSTRACT

This article studies how governing agents at a civic orientation course site, through collaborative boundary work, manage tensions that arise from simultaneously representing the governing state and the governed subjects taking part in the courses. The findings illustrate how individual agency—in policy and practice—is expected of immigrants enrolled in civic orientation courses, but not necessarily facilitated by the governing system providing the context for this agency. Through three types of collaborative boundary work, the governing agents produce and enact an understanding of professionalism as continuous shifting between different positions related to their two reference points—the governing state and the governed subjects. By engaging in collaborative boundary work, the governing agents manage perceived ambiguities and tensions between rhetoric and ‘reality’ and between policies they are set to represent and practices related to these policies that they do not personally believe in and/or challenge.

KEYWORDS:

• Civic orientation
• social contract
• individual agency
• neoliberalism
• collaborative boundary work
• integration

Introduction

Similar to the development in several other European countries, Sweden, over the past few decades, has undergone substantial changes characterized by an increased influence in society of neoliberal ideas (Larsson, Letell, and Thörn 2012). Deregulation and privatization of previously public labor markets has been carried out and New Public Management strategies have been implemented within the educational, healthcare, and social sectors (Burström 2015; Fredriksson 2009; Jarl, Fredriksson, and Persson 2012; Martinussen and Magnussen 2009; Jönsson 2015).

In the early 2000s, neoliberal ideas and New Public Management strategies emphasizing governance and control began making their mark also in practice and policy pertaining to migrant reception and in discourse surrounding integration of immigrants in Sweden (Carlson and Jacobsson 2019; Suvarierol and Kirk 2015). The concept of employability, whereby individuals become responsible for making themselves attractive to employers, became a frequently present concept in the labor market (Kusterer and Bernhard-Oettel 2020; McQuaid and Lindsay 2005; Vesterberg 2015). Employability also became a buzzword in the context of immigrant reception, where the making of newly arrived immigrants into employable individuals turned into a central goal for integration practices (Diedrich and Styhre 2013). Within governing structures, the main responsibility for achieving employability was commonly assigned to the individual, while governing agents and employers were constructed as enablers (Fejes 2010). In a proposition by the Swedish government in 2010, a social contract was drawn up, naming financial self-sufficiency as the goal of integration efforts, and investments in newcomers as the building blocks for achieving integration (Prop. 2009/10: 60). Consequently, a definition of integration largely synonymous with labor market entry was adopted within national integration programs.

The introduction of policies and programs emphasizing self-sufficiency and labor market entry correlated with a turn towards a focus on the individual’s obligations in relation to the welfare state, described by scholars within a budding stream of research on neoliberalism in integration policy and migrant reception (Borevi 2012; Frank 2014; Lidén, Nyhlén, and Nyhlén 2019). A neoliberal ideal self in which entrepreneurship, autonomy, responsibility, and self-confidence constituted key components (Türken et al. 2016) was visible in policies and prescribed in practice.

Following the turn of the millennium, numerous European countries adopted an integration approach that emphasized shared common values (Mattei and Broeks 2016). Characterized by mandatory integration practices, contracts, courses, and language tests, country knowledge, and social norms, the civic integration approach were put in place both as a means for integration and, in some countries, as a condition for citizenship (Ahlén and Boräng 2018; Wallace Goodman and and Wright 2015). Against this civic integration approach backdrop, Sweden, in 2018, saw the introduction of a nationwide establishment program for immigrants. Managed by the Swedish Public Employment Service, the program included various labor market measures as well as obligatory civic orientation courses and courses in the Swedish language. The gatekeeping and governing function of the civic integration approach has been emphasized by researchers, who claim that it comprises a one-way process by which states aim to achieve conformity, discipline, and migration control (Kostakopoulou 2010; Wallace Goodman and Wright 2015). While in Sweden, language and civic orientation course requirements have not been directly linked to citizenship status; recent reforms have brought newly arrived immigrants closer to the state by linking course attendance to financial support and by subjecting non-compliance to punishment.

The encounter between a welfare state model and neoliberal ideas emphasizing individual agency, has contributed to tensions and ambiguities for those engaged in or subjected to governing activities (Weiss and Green 2021). Previous studies have paid attention to the tension between the neoliberal call for freedom and individual agency, and the frame provided by governing activities in which this freedom is to be acted out (Rose 1998; Swyngedouw 2005; McNay 2009). They have pointed out that while requirements for individual responsibility rests on the neoliberal notion of the free citizen, public policies and practices limit individual autonomy by prescribing preferred ways of agency and initiative. Norms and practices of how things should be done hence regulate the behavior of governed individuals and infringe on their opportunities for agency (cf. Heinemann 2017).

Governing agents who deliver civic orientation courses operate at the center of this institutional landscape of tensions. In their position of intermediaries between the governors and the governed, they must navigate multiple roles and tensions (Weiss and Gren 2021). Civic orientation courses are given in the native tongue of participants, which means that course leaders typically share both a linguistic and cultural background with the participants. Moreover, they also commonly share the experience of having immigrated to a new country. Through the shared experiences, course leaders can connect with the participants, develop trust, and evoke identification. At the same, time their role entails representing the governing system. Simultaneously representing the governing agent and those subjected to governing, puts the course leaders in a field of tension, which entails managing often hard-to-combine expectations and demands. When performing their work, governing agents are expected to carry out policies that they might not support, which means that they must manage potential tension between their own personal convictions and perception of society, and their daily practice as presenters and representatives of a normative depiction of said society (Swinkels and van Meijl 2020).

The position of a civic orientation course leader resembles that of a middle manager (as described e.g. in Azambuja and Islam 2019). Both occupy several simultaneous and frequently conflicting roles and reside as intermediaries between two parties in a relationship with a clear power structure. The positions come with a multitude of expectations—to the governing state and to those subjected to the governing efforts. The many tasks cover implementing policy, assuring compliance, empowering, translating and interpreting. In performing these tasks, governing agents are expected to balance and switch between commitment and detachment and between the collective interest and that of the individual (Clarke, Brown and Hailey 2009). Their work hence inevitably entails mediating across various forms of boundaries.

This article sets out to study how governing agents at a civic orientation course site manage and relate to their role(s) while residing within a neoliberally influenced social contract. To this end, course leaders and course administrators at a civic orientation course site were interviewed and online information material from the authority responsible for the establishment program was studied. The study was guided by the following research questions:

• How do governing agents in a civic orientation course context manage and relate to their position as intermediaries between a governing structure and governed subjects?

• How does the perception of tensions and contradictions relate to the neoliberally influenced social contract within which their enactment of governing takes place?

The article contributes to studies on street-level governing agents and their situation, particularly adding to the way professionalism is defined and acted out within public bureaucracy (Swinkels and van Meijl 2020; Weiss and Gren 2021) seen through the lens of boundary work (Apesoa-Varano 2013). Furthermore, the article contributes to literature on how collaborative boundary work is enacted in everyday practices (Brorström and Diedrich 2020; Pouthier 2017) boundary workers having to manage tensions that arise from taking on dual and often conflicting rules (Azambuja and Islam 2019; McAllum 2018; Stern and Green 2005). Finally, the article also aims to contribute to scholarship on the implications for agency of classifications pertaining to organizing of integration (e.g. Diedrich, Eriksson-Zetterquist, and Styhre 2011) by showing how attributed belongingness in different categories is attached to varying degrees of agency and opportunity.

The article is structured as follows. In the next section, the analytical framework through which the data have been made sense of, is presented. In the subsequent method section, the study’s sample, scope, and methodological approach are presented. The findings section introduces and analyzes the data. Rounding off the article is a discussion section that is followed by a conclusion section, where the study’s implications in practice and for future research are considered.

Analytical framework

Social contract theory with individualization as a collective good

Civic orientation course leaders reside within a context that they are meant to represent and promote. At the same time, they are selected for their ability to represent and evoke trust and identification vis-à-vis the civic orientation course participants. Their dual roles play out within the frame of a social contract depicted and prescribed by the governing agents in charge of the national establishment program that civic orientation courses are part of.

Social contract theory—the assumption that the forming of societies is a result of a contract between individuals for their mutual benefit (Scholz 2011), takes the individual as the fundamental category that precedes and founds societies and communities. Traditionally constructed as a contract between individuals and the welfare state, which affords the individual protections in exchange for social cohesion, the welfare state in Europe over the last few decades has been altered (Rhodes and Mény 1998). Applying a social contract theory framework to analyze the context of civic integration courses, the current article uses an article by Yasemin Nuhoğlu Soysal (2012)—Citizenship, Immigration, and the European Social Project: Rights and Obligations of Individuality, which focuses on the role of individuality in restructuring the social contract between the individual and the state in a contemporary European context. The article depicts the transformation of the social contract as represented by a configuration that puts work at the center of the contract between the state—which invests in human capital—and the citizens—who exert self-regulation to provide active participation. This configuration of work, social investment, and active participation implies changes in the social contract along several lines. Firstly, the very concepts of work and worker have been renegotiated following labor market changes that have resulted in flexibility, transfer of risk from the state and corporations to the individual, and precariousness becoming defining characteristics of working life. Secondly, the welfare state itself has progressively been constructed as undergoing a shift from one of ‘passive benefits’ to one of ‘social investment’ in human capital. Thirdly, and consistent with the first two changes, the norms surrounding individuals and their role in the social contract have increasingly focused on ‘active citizenship’ and the production of individuals who are inclined to actively participate and contribute. An emphasized and preferred form of active participation is through labor market participation. Resulting from the re-alignment of the three mentioned elements, Soysal identifies a new social project ‘that privileges individuality and its transformative capacity as a collective good’ (2). Visible both in policy and in public and scientific discourses, this project takes several forms and expressions. Self-realization and fulfilling one’s potential are perceived as virtues and instruct various types of manifestations and self-regulating practices. An approach to the self as a target of constant improvement and investments constitutes a key element while productivity and activity are ascribed the character of ‘a higher form of life’ (12).

Whereas a neoliberally influenced social contract puts individual agency, opportunity, and choice at the center of its narrative, individuals are also increasingly found at the receiving end of legal and policy regulation. Scholars have criticized integration policies and researchers for putting too much emphasis on the responsibility of the individual immigrant to achieve ‘integration’, while underestimating the role played by the institutions and the majority group in the recipient country (e.g. Anthias 2013; Klarenbeek 2019; Schinkel 2018). Critics have called for more relational views built on engagement, adjustment, and integration on the part of everyone in society, not just immigrants (Klarenbeek 2019; Paunova and Blasco 2017; Kazemipur and Nakhaie 2014). For integration processes to qualify as ‘two-way’, both insiders and outsiders must actively engage in it, meaning that insiders must go beyond merely providing ‘a context for integration processes’ (Klarenbeek 2019, 10). Noting that integration policies are inevitably connected to the categorization of individuals, Mügge and van der Haar (2016) have highlighted categorizations in shaping someone’s agency. Emphasizing the stratification and hierarchy associated with categorizations, they focus on how the practice of categorizing contributes to the production of insiders and outsiders. A similar line of reasoning is put forward by Klarenbeek, who describes how distinction between different categories is connected to social standing, which in turn relates to access to various forms of capital. A comparison between Klarenbeek’s relational approach to integration and the neoliberal social contract theory described by Soysal, shows that the attention to the individual’s role in achieving societally desired outcomes is emphasized by both, albeit in different ways. While the neoliberally influenced social contract describes and prescribes individual responsibility and agency as keys to successful outcomes, the relational two-way integration approach proposed by Klarenbeek challenges what is perceived as an exaggerated and unrealistic emphasis on individual agency. Klarenbeek takes issue with the depiction of the social contract as a mutual partnership between two equals since the responsibility for the outcome of supposedly joint efforts is ultimately assigned to the individual while the power relations inherent in the relationship are disregarded.

Collaborative boundary work: enacting governing work within a neoliberally influenced social contract

The social contract within which civic orientation course leaders operate along with their dual role of representing both governing agents and governed subjects put them in a position of boundary workers. A study of Norwegian and Swedish street-level bureaucrats working within introductory programs for refugees, concluded that the fusion of a welfare state model caring for those in need, and the principle of mutual obligation that highlights individual agency, had brought about an institutional landscape filled with tensions and moral ambivalence (Weiss and Gren 2021). Within this context, the bureaucrats had to navigate multiple roles and tensions in relation to their clients and employers. Similar to these bureaucrats, the governing agents of the current article can be seen as engaging in collaborative boundary work. Such boundary work, refers to practices through which boundaries are negotiated, aligned or downplayed to allow for collaboration and reach collective goals (Langley et al. 2019). The boundary work concept was first coined by Gieryn in 1983 to refer to the dynamic and ongoing negotiations of difference. Rather than seeing boundaries as stemming from inherent differences between stable categories, many studies, including this one, adopt an understanding of boundaries as emergent, relational, dynamic and open to change (Gieryn 1983; Quick and Feldman 2014; Watson-Manheim, Chudoba, and Crowston 2012). Through acts of boundary work, differences and power relations are regulated, i.e. maintained, disrupted and dissolved (Arndt and Bigelo 2005; Barrett et al. 2012; Brorström and Diedrich 2020).

In their review of the scholarly treatment of the notion of boundary work, Langley et al. (2019) distinguish between three types of boundary work: competitive, collaborative, and configurational boundary work. This article is concerned with collaborative boundary work, i.e. the kind of work that involves aligning boundaries to enable collaboration. Within collaborative boundary work, Langley et al. 2019 differentiate between negotiating boundaries, embodying boundaries, and downplaying boundaries.

Negotiating boundaries is the largest subcategory of collaborative boundary work. Conceiving of collaboration as enabled by processes through which boundaries are negotiated, studies within this subcategory frequently focus on boundary negotiation in everyday work practices and interactions. These include studies on how formal roles and boundaries can emerge and develop, be blurred, or reinterpreted through practice or new technology, and how this, in turn, can reduce the occurrence of open conflict or tension (Apesoa-Varano 2013; Liberati 2017; Lindberg, Walter, and Raviola 2017). Apesoa-Varano (2013) examines boundary work in a US hospital setting, depicting professionalism as the result of a negotiated order enacted through boundary work. Liberati (2017) deals with professional boundaries between medical and nursing professions in a public hospital in Italy. Taking place in a public hospital in Sweden, the article by Lindberg, Walter, and Raviola (2017) depicts boundary work as a dynamic process that unfolds in the interplay between practice and boundaries.

Under the category of embodying boundaries are studies implicating that collaborative boundary work tends to rely on people managing the ambiguities related to belongingness in and navigation of different contexts (Azambuja and Islam 2019; Soundararajan, Khan, and Tarba 2017; Yagi and Kleinberg 2011). People who perform acts of embodying boundaries are placed as intermediaries between groups. Their boundary work includes both negotiations of boundaries between groups and managing identity tensions of their own. This management entails acquisition of legitimacy in numerous contexts, an ability to negotiate on behalf of others, and a commitment to achieving a shared field of practice. An article by Azambuja and Islam (2019), set in a Brazilian accounting firm, examined middled management through a boundary work lens. The managers in the study portrayed their daily operations as a tension between emancipation and alienation, where they were acting as proactive agents while at the same time lacking autonomy and a sense of belonging. Focusing on cultural boundaries and what is required to be an effective boundary worker, Soundararajan, Khan, and Tarba (2017) studied a global supply chain where sourcing agents played the role of boundary spanners between Western buyers and local suppliers.

Focusing on the Japanese members of a US-Japanese firm, an article by Yagi and Kleinberg (2011) showed boundary spanning as a contextually shaped process, where the context defines boundaries as problematic in ways that impact the boundary work and boundary spanning.

Downplaying boundaries concerns practices that facilitate collaboration through the understatement of distinctions and differences between parties in a relationship, for example by a member of a higher status group declaring affinity with lower status groups. It can further be expressed through boundaries being concealed or intentionally glossed over in attempts to create a shared sense of ‘we’ (Meier 2015). Aimed at achieving a sense of shared identity, downplaying of boundaries can manifest in institutionalized joking routines (Pouthier 2017), emphasis on demographic similarities or ignoring differences that might present a barrier to collaboration (Quick and Feldman 2014). How boundaries are negotiated and regulated through micro-interactions, is the focus of several studies, most commonly within the healthcare sector (Meier 2015; Pouthier 2017). Many of these focus on how collaboration can be achieved through boundary work. Examining how the quality of connections impacts on the extent to which knowledge-sharing takes place, Pouthier (2017) shows how micro-interactions, such as joking, are used as identification rituals to evoke participant engagement. In their theoretically focused article on boundary work, Quick and Feldman (2014) offer a more conceptual take on boundary work. Boundary work, they insist, can be distinguished by those who emphasize barriers that promote separation and those that focus on the enabling of connecting through e.g. translating and aligning differences.

With a few exceptions, located within global business settings, the mentioned studies of collaborative boundary work take place within the public sphere, particularly within the healthcare sector. The present study also focuses on the public sector but deals with the area of immigrant integration. While the public sector in general lends itself well to the study of norms related to governance, the highly politicized field of integration is particularly conducive to such studies.

With its focus on course leaders’ experiences of acting in the dual capacity of representatives of a governing agent and governed subjects, the article builds on previous works that focus on the micro-dynamics of boundary work and workers (e.g. Brorström and Diedrich 2020). The present article focuses on how the micro-dynamics of boundary work relate to norms and ideology on a macro level, more specifically how they relate to a currently prevailing neoliberal frame of understanding within public governance.

Data and methodology

Empirical setting

In a bid to streamline Sweden’s reception of immigrants, an establishment program handled by the Swedish Public Employment Service was introduced on 1 January 2018. The program is offered to newcomers to Sweden who have been granted a resident permit as a refugee or for a refugee-like reason, and newly arrived immigrant relatives, who are over 18 and under 65 years of age, have been registered as residents in a municipal district, and are citizens of a country outside the EEC-region and Switzerland (Act 2010:197). The program includes formulating and carrying out a plan for the participants’ entry into the labor market or studies and contains two obligatory components: courses in the Swedish language and civic orientation courses. As the authority in charge of the establishment program, the Swedish Public Employment Service provide information to participants about what is expected of them while enrolled in the establishment program and what they, in turn, are entitled to from the Swedish state.

Through the establishment law of 2010, ‘civic orientation’ became the agreed upon label for course activities directed at newly arrived immigrants and pertaining to practices, policies, and norms in the Swedish society. Replacing the previous label of ‘civic information’, civic orientation reflected a shift in the view of participants’ role in these courses, from recipients of information to active co-producers of the courses (Silow Kallenberg and and Sigvardsdotter 2019). Consisting of 20 three-hour sessions, the courses cover practical information about how the Swedish society works, rights and responsibilities of individuals and segments on norms, regulations, and practices pertaining to, e.g. gender equality, raising children, and LGBTQ rights.

The verbal communication in the classroom is conducted in the native language of the participants or another language that the participants have knowledge of. The languages in which courses are offered vary according to fluctuations in the inflow of immigrants. Most of the interviewed course leaders are immigrants to Sweden with first-hand experience of having been new to the host country. The written course material consists of a textbook, About Sweden, and PowerPoint slides that are used in class. The PowerPoint slides are nationally standardized, and common to all teaching sessions regardless of who teaches the class and in what language. Unlike the rest of the spoken and written course material the PowerPoint slides are in Swedish.

The study’s setting is of particular interest for several reasons. As a context to which all adult immigrants included in the establishment program are subjected, the civic orientation courses constitute a canon through which official policies and norms are articulated. Furthermore, the courses provide an arena for describing and prescribing a normative picture of the Swedish society. As such the courses are influential both in a symbolic sense, as creators and conveyors of a preferred perception of reality, and practically, as a manual to the Swedish society.

Sample, collection and analysis of data

Data were collected through interviews and observations at a civic orientation course site in Western Sweden, as well as from online information material produced by the Swedish Public Employment Service and interviews with officers working at said authority. The study had received ethical approval from the Swedish Ethical Review Authority as part of a larger research program on labor market integration of foreign-born individuals (No. 913-18).

Ten in-depth interviews with course leaders and administrative staff at a civic orientation course site were conducted in the autumn and winter of 2017–2018. Classroom observations from course sessions further contributed to the collection of data at the site as did informal conversations with members of staff carried out in conjunction with the interviews and observation sessions. Of the ten formal interviews, all but one took place on the premises of the civic orientation course site. Eight of the interviews were done with course leaders and two with administrative staff involved in the organization of courses and recruitment of course leaders.

The interviewees were selected using purposeful sampling to identify and select cases that were information-rich in relation to the study’s research questions (Palinkas et al. 2015). The category of civic orientation course providers was deemed of particular interest as the study concerns governing pertaining to national discourses, policies and practices on integration. In their professional role, civic orientation course providers are set to present and represent the national official policy and practice as regards integration. In addition, most of the course leaders have personal experience of being subjected to integration initiatives. The shared cultural background and its use in the courses means that the course providers can be said to serve as cultural brokers between the immigrants participating in the civic orientation courses and the society that the immigrants are expected to integrate with. Described by Stanton-Salazar (2011) as institutional agents who offer resources to assist students in navigating the context that they are located within, cultural brokers regularly fill a mediating function between a majority society and members of minority groups within the majority society. Given the focus of the research questions, course participants were not included in the interviewee sample.

Prior to the data collection, two researchers representing the research program in which the current study is included contacted the manager of the course site by email to make a first enquiry about the possibility of getting to interview members of staff and do observations at the course site. After being granted access to the organization, the researchers were invited to attend a staff meeting to introduce themselves and the research project to the course site staff. In a next step, a course administrator put together a list of names of potential interviewees. The list consisted mainly of course leaders with the addition of a few course administrators. The potential interviewees were then contacted by email and asked if they would take part in an interview and/or have one of their course sessions observed. The prospective interviewees were informed of the purpose of the study and the conditions of their participation, i.e. how the data would be used, that their participation was voluntary, and that their contribution to the study would be anonymized. The final sample comprised of respondents willing to take part. All but one interview took place at the course site and lasted for 1–1,5 h. The semi-structured interviews followed an interview guide that contained questions about the interviewees’ own roles and job descriptions as well as questions related to their views on integration on a societal level. The interview guide included questions on barriers, difficulties, and keys to successful integration. The formal interviews were recorded and transcribed. The transcriptions were then read, and themes identified. All interviews were anonymized and assigned pseudonyms.

The observations in class covered twelve hours; six hours of course sessions given in English, three hours given in Persian, and three hours given in Arabic. In the observed course sessions, the course leader introduced the course participants to the researcher, informed them of the purpose of the study and asked for their permission to allow the researcher to sit in on the session. In the observed Persian and Arabic course sessions the course leader would continuously summarize the discussions taking place in the classroom to the researcher during sessions and in breaks. The researcher having to rely on the course leader for accounts of the discussions taking place in the classroom could, depending on the circumstances, be viewed as a methodological weakness or even a major problem (Temple and Young 2004). The latter would certainly be the case if the article aimed and claimed to depict narratives of course participants. The aim of the present article however is to convey the narratives of course providers. This analytical focus makes accounts filtered through the previous experiences and perception of the course providers admissible in the text as they are treated as accounts rather than translations and considered to form part of the course providers’ narratives. Much like the transcribed interviewee statements, the accounts of what is said in the classroom are seen and treated as a part of the narrative of the course providers.

In addition to data directly related to the civic orientation courses, a film produced by the Swedish Public Employment Service about the rights and obligations of immigrants enrolled in the establishment program was analyzed. This film was chosen as it describes the formal integration process as summarized by the authority in charge of said process. It thus represents the governing context in which the civic orientation courses are situated and enacted. In that capacity, it sets the stage and provides a frame for the agency of both governing agents and those governed through the establishment program. The film is carried by a voice-over that was transcribed and then analyzed in relation to the theoretical framework. For background and context, four officials at the Swedish Public Employment Service were interviewed.

All data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The aim of thematic analysis is to identify patterns of meaning in a data set that are relevant in relation to a specific research question and thereby ‘make sense of collective or shared meanings and experiences’ (Braun and Clarke 2012, 57). Interview transcripts and field notes were read and re-read and organized into themes based on their relevance to the research questions and to the analytical concepts included in the theoretical framework. The research process adhered to an abductive approach, an integrated approach that allows for continuous adaptation according to empirical findings and/or theoretical understandings acquired during the research process (Dubois and Gadde 2002; Fereday and Muir-Cochrane 2006). The approach meant that themes were identified using first- and second-order constructs (Schutz 1967), i.e. the themes were derived through a process in which data and theory were continuously interpreted in light of each other. Organized in relation to the research questions, the analytical concept of social contract, and the two data sets included in the study, the following themes were identified: The authority’s depiction and prescription of the social contract and Civic orientation course providers relate to and navigate the social contract. Within the second data set, corresponding to the data from the civic orientation course site, four subthemes related to collaborative boundary work emerged: Building legitimacy through shared experiences, Remaining neutral while conveying ‘the right picture’, Requirements matched by actual opportunity and Challenging the opportunity for agency.

Findings

In the following section, the findings are presented under two separate headings based on a division of the data in online information material produced by the authority in charge of the establishment program for immigrants, and the data collected through interviews and observations at the civic orientation course site.

The authority’s depiction and prescription of the social contract

On the website of the Swedish Public Employment Service there is a section specifically devoted to the labor market establishment of those registered in the establishment program. The section hosts a range of subdivisions on how the authority works with integration, what support it provides for newcomers to Sweden, a Q&A segment, and a section on how the authority works with employer and employee organizations to facilitate newcomers’ labor market entry. Among the features on the website is an animated film about the establishment program, informing of the rights and obligations of those registered in the program as well as of the establishment benefits available to them. The film starts out with a speaker voice declaring the film’s purpose, before moving on to describe the relationship between authorities and the individual immigrant as one characterized by reciprocity and mutual give-and-take.

In this film we will tell you about what interventions—that is support and help—that might be of relevance to you and what you yourself can do to get started with studies or work as quickly as possible. We inform you about what expectations there are on you and what expectations you can have on the Swedish Public Employment Service as well as how you get in contact with us.

In the above statement, it is made clear that the aim of the integration process is for the participants in the establishment program to enter the labor or educational market as efficiently and rapidly as possible. In the next paragraph, efficiency is presented as a result of close collaboration between authority and immigrant. The individual’s own desires and initiative are stated to play a pivotal part in gaining access to the Swedish working life.

Together with you, we at the Swedish Public Employment Service shall figure out what you want and what you can do to as quickly as possible find your place in the Swedish labor market.

Having set the tone and introduced the collaborative relationship, the speaker voice continues by clarifying the division of responsibility between authorities and the individual immigrant.

Keep in mind that we can only recommend activities that we believe will be good for you, but that you are the one responsible for your actual development. We can advise you about a job to apply for, but you have to submit the application and do what is needed to reach your goal.

The next segment homes in on what the declared division of responsibility means in practice by detailing what is required of those enrolled in the establishment program to be eligible for establishment benefits.

The establishment benefits will be paid out if you follow the plan that has been drawn up in collaboration with the Swedish Public Employment Service. This means, among other things, that you have to attend booked visits and participate in planned activities. To get the benefits, you also have to hand in the activity report on time and apply for jobs that are suitable for you.

The speaker voice then moves on to the topic of repercussions in case of failing to comply with the regulations and requirements on attendees of the establishment program.

If you do not take part in the planned activities or do not hand in your activity report on time your benefits might be reduced. This means that you will receive less money that month. If you become ill, it is important that you report it to the Swedish Public Employment Service from the very first day of illness. Otherwise, you cannot receive money for the days when you are ill.

After declaring the consequences of non-compliance, the speaker voice reinforces the division of responsibility between state authority and individual.

The Swedish Public Employment Service helps and supports you in getting started with studies or finding work, but keep in mind that it is only you who can do what it takes to get there.

The film is concluded with a final remark that once again reiterates the division of labor and responsibility: ‘You quite simply do the work while we show you the way’.

In its description of the relationship between the immigrant and the authority, the speaker voice prescribes a right course of action and outlines an appropriate response to its target audience. The immigrant is depicted as the change agent and the one on which the ultimate responsibility for making the integration process successful rests. The described and prescribed individual is proactive. Deviations from the desired active part in the social contract, implicates a breach of the contract that is linked to penalties. The welfare state is the enabler, the guide that points out a path for the individual to take.

Civic orientation course providers relate to and navigate the social contract

In the following segment, the interviews and observations compiled at the civic orientation course site, are sorted thematically to reflect the various ways in which course providers relate to their role of intermediaries between public policy and immigrants in the establishment program.

Building legitimacy through shared experiences

Gaining legitimacy and the course participants’ trust were commonly mentioned as key elements in the work performed by civic orientation course leaders. Course leaders stated that legitimacy and trust in the relationship with participants were built around two cornerstones: the authority tied to the position and title of course leader, and the confidence stemming from the course leaders’ tacit knowledge and experience of the course participants’ former home countries. The interviewees generally spoke in favor of course leaders sharing an immigrant background with and holding first-hand knowledge of the cultural context and language of course participants. Linking it to participants’ motivation and identification, course leaders talked of themselves as bridge-builders and role models. As a strategy to build trust, the course leaders actively used their own experiences of encountering the Swedish society in their teaching.

I have very many personal examples / … / from my close ones and from colleagues, from relatives, I use as examples. But above all, the experience of being new to a country that often differs immensely from what they are used to. / … / The experience of being that person, also during a slightly different and perhaps more difficult time. (Ali, course leader)

Many course leaders recounted how they used examples from their own lives presented in a humorous way in the classroom. Through their actions, the course leaders engaged in embodying and downplaying of boundaries, by emphasizing the similarities with the participants and sharing jokes about the majority society.

Practical things that have happened to me, contacts with the health service, the dental service, the employment service, the housing market. The sort of practical experiences. And also the anecdotes or the sort of amusing stories, which I’ve collected over the years. To give examples of social codes or the difficulties of trying to work things out. / … / And what Swedes are … we talk about some of the ideas, stereotypes of that Swedes are thought of in other countries. And we play a little bit with that and we play a little bit … as a running theme, as a reference during the course. (Jonah, course leader)

When using themselves as examples, course leaders would frequently emphasize that it was through hard work and diligence that they had managed to integrate and become part of the Swedish society and labor market.

We entered society so quickly because we had the will to … it’s the will, the interest, it helps that you open your mouth in society. (Zana, course leader)

Accompanying this reasoning was the assertion that the labor market was accessible to those who wanted and were willing to work for gaining access to it. Several interviewees brought forward the expectation on individuals to take charge of and shape their future as something that they associated with the Swedish context. In an observed course session dedicated to the Swedish labor market, the course leader took time to explain to the participants the importance of being able to convey what you want to do and what your aspirations are in encounters with the Swedish Public Employment Service officers. During the break, the course leader explained to the researcher that the expectations on participants to articulate what they want to do, differ from what course participants are accustomed to in their former home country, where a state agent would design a plan for the participant to comply with. Consequently, this was made a particular point of in the classroom.

In interacting with the course participants, the course leaders acted in the capacity of boundary workers by communicating affinity with participants and emphasizing their one-time status as outsiders. Portraying their journey from being outsiders to becoming insiders, the course leaders evoked trust and inspired identification in the participants while managing to work as representatives of both the state and the participants.

The boundary worker space inhabited by course leaders allowed them to take advantage of their positionality and knowledge, but also constituted a challenging space of balancing expectations in their simultaneous roles as representatives of the governing agent and of the course participants. One interviewee stated that course leaders often had to explain to participants that they could not find them work or accommodation in spite of knowing Swedish and being integrated in society.

Remaining neutral while conveying ‘the right picture’

Course leaders often depicted their role as one that included navigating between engagement and detachment. They described how, through their demeanor, they would express awareness and empathy with course participants while maintaining a professional approach.

They have loads of things in their baggage. War, trauma, poverty, or they have lost their parents, their child, in the war. But I don’t let that affect me. (Hasan, course leader)

In a similar vein, several interviewees stated that course leaders should be neutral and refrain from introducing any personal beliefs in their teaching. Neutral would generally refer to presenting the course material in an impartial way. However, in practice, impartial seemed to be synonymous with a way that endorsed the course content. The preferred role of the course leader, according to the interviews, was to present Sweden in a standardized and centrally agreed upon way, and, more or less actively, lend support to the described (and prescribed) image of Sweden. The interviews demonstrated a practice in which course leaders frequently complied with this idea of neutrality by speaking in favor of and defending the Swedish system. One course leader captured the contradictory approach to neutrality in the following way:

I am a public official first and foremost. And when I present society, I mustn’t give … How do I put it?/ … /I must present society the way it is, even if I know what it is really like out there in society, but I must not include my own personal views. (Jacob, course leader)

While neutrality was presented as a fundamental principle for course leaders, the interviews attested to a course narrative that described Sweden as a good place both in absolute terms and in relation to the countries that the participants had left behind. To contrast the Swedish system in a positive light to the participants’ former home countries, some course leaders said was used as a way to address participants’ criticism of and disappointment in the Swedish society.

We must ensure that those who are new to the country realize why this is the country they have fled to. There is nothing wrong in taking pride in Sweden. Sweden is good, it’s as simple as that. Sweden is a lot better than it was a hundred years ago. And Sweden is much better than almost all countries on the planet. (Said, course leader)

The negotiating of boundaries taking place in the ever-present shifting between different positions and roles articulated the benchmark for professionalism that course leaders used in their daily practice. This is an example of the tension experienced between the demands placed on course leaders in their capacity as governing actors and their own view of the society they are expected to leave outside the classroom. Referring to professionalism served as a way of coping with going against or hiding one’s own beliefs when teaching.

Requirements matched by actual opportunity

The responsibility of individuals to set, strive for, and achieve their personal goals was brought up as key elements for successful integration throughout the interviews. This notion was one that some course leaders claimed to highlight in their teaching.

So, I always try to like ‘you must be go-getters in society’/ … / Because otherwise, no one will ask you, hey, do you want this? No, you have to go after what you want yourself. (Hasan, course leader)

A recurrent view among the interviewees was that the starting point of any integration process must be the desire to integrate on the part of the immigrant. Interviewees also commonly emphasized the capability of immigrants, referring to their refugee background to illustrate this point.

If you want to integrate, doesn’t matter if it’s in Sweden or some other country, you do have to have the will to integrate, I really want to integrate in this country. / … /. I actually have to fight and work myself to be able to create this or build myself to get further in this country. Otherwise, I won’t get anywhere. / … / And then they actually managed to flee, they can succeed in entering the labor market. (Jacob, course leader)

Throughout the interviews, individual responsibility was construed as a joint right and obligation that should be catered for through society’s incentive system, and properly rewarded by societal structures. While several course leaders were sympathetic to the idea of formal requirements and tests, the legitimacy of any requirements made on newcomers, was stated to rely on requirements being matched by actual equal opportunity. By defining under which conditions requirements for individual responsibility are legitimate, the course leaders negotiated the boundaries set by the governing structure and communicated through policies and practices.

Challenging the opportunity for agency

Tension arose from the power imbalance and asymmetrical access to resources that many course leaders expressed an awareness of, and their downplaying of this in line with a prevailing neoliberal framework. The social contract prescribed by the interviewees largely mirrored that described in the Swedish Public Employment Service film—a relationship between two parties collaborating toward the same goal, but where the ultimate responsibility for achieving integration is assigned to the individual. The interviewees, however, challenged the notion of this relationship actually being in place was challenged. While several interview statements asserted that the Swedish society and labor market were open to anyone who wanted to access them and was willing to put in the effort, other statements contradicted such a view by claiming that society was not open to everyone regardless of whether they worked hard or had ambition. Consequently, the emphasis on individual responsibility was often embedded in appeals for better utilization of the motivation and resources of newcomers.

I don’t know what percentage of immigrants there are in Sweden but it’s quite a few and they are a group with great purchasing power in some way as well, so I mean, I’m sure there is great potential, and I am not sure that Sweden sees that or gets it really. (Anne, course administrator)

The course leaders were not alone in negotiating boundaries by challenging the opportunity for agency prescribed by and within the governing structure. Participants too noted discrepancies between described and prescribed courses of action and the possibility of enacting them in practice. In an observed course session dedicated to labor market participation, the importance of networks to gain labor market entry was underlined. Upon being shown a PowerPoint slide stating that ‘Most jobs are secured through contacts’ some participants in the classroom became animated and started discussing amongst themselves and with the course leader. Many of the other participants laughed at their comments. When asked about the exchange, the course leader explained to the researcher present in the classroom, that the participants had made fun of the call for networking, saying that they could not use their neighbors to get closer to the labor market because where they lived there were only unemployed Somalis. The exchange brought to the surface the gap between the prescribed way of showing agency and the context in which this agency is to take place. The group of participants jokingly dismissing the prescribed way of doing things pointed out that using personal contacts to find work presupposed the possession of efficient networks. Such networks are generally linked to having a socioeconomically favorable position in society and having been part of society long enough to acquire them.

Both course leaders and course participants challenged the notion of agency for its disregard of power relations and asymmetries inherent in the relationship between immigrants and their host societies. A common criticism by course leaders concerned the balance between state support and creating genuine opportunity for immigrants to succeed and be able to support themselves. Some course leaders voiced the opinion that the Swedish system could have adverse effects on newcomers’ motivation and drive

I actually believe there is value in letting people who have been driven their entire lives, have managed in all kinds of very clever ways to get across half the globe to get here, I think they can possess a lot more drive than relying on benefits. And the passivity among them can create more room for alienation. (Said, course leader)

The ability to capitalize on the resources brought by immigrants was identified as an area of improvement for Swedish state authorities by several interviewees, some of whom described the insufficiency as a reflection of policy makers underestimating newcomers’ ability and resources.

If we just want it to be a system where you resign and accept social welfare, well, then it will be very costly. If we instead make use of all the resources, then it’s the complete opposite. (Monica, course administrator)

Discussion

In the capacity of governing agents, civic orientation course leaders operate within a framework influenced by neoliberal views and values. In both policy and practice, this framework—here represented by the responsible authority’s information film—promotes individual agency as a foundation for successful integration of immigrants. While individual agency is expected of participants enrolled in a mandatory establishment program for immigrants, it is not necessarily enabled by the governing system that provides the context for the ordained agency. Tension between neoliberal requirements for individual agency and the governing activities regulating opportunity for such agency, is frequently referred to by the course leaders interviewed in this study. Their quotes mirror previous findings (Rose 1998; Swyngedouw 2005; McNay 2009) and articulate a similar criticism of one-sided emphasis on individual agency in the relationship between governing agents and governed subjects that has been voiced in previous studies (Anthias 2013; Klarenbeek 2019; Penninx 2010; Schinkel 2018). Civic orientation course leaders also occupy dual roles, as representatives of the governing system—whose assignment they are set to carry out—and the course participants—with whom they share a cultural and linguistic background as well as the experience of having immigrated to a new country.

The course leaders hence manage tension stemming from two relationships: that between the role of public official and their personal self and that between governing agent and governed subject. To manage the resulting conflicting positions and roles while maintaining a sense of professionalism, the course leaders engage in boundary work.

Managing the tension between a normative neoliberal depiction of society and one’s own perception of society

The film by the Swedish Public Employment Service represents the ideological setting in which the course leaders operate. The film’s presentation of obligations and rights of immigrants enrolled in the establishment program, can be said to illustrate the social contract described by Soysal (2012), where the job constitutes a hub in a symmetric and mutual relationship between state agencies and individuals. Such a contract stipulates that individuals carry out responsibilities while the state enables the execution of individual responsibility (e.g. Fejes 2010). It could be argued that the very existence of an establishment program should be seen as an articulation of a mutual relationship between a recipient state and immigrants in which both parties are assigned specific roles. The establishment program and its mandatory civic orientation course, however, also provide a case of the categorization and stratification described by Mügge and van der Haar (2016) and Klarenbeek (2019). Being directed only at one of the social contract’s two parties, the establishment initiative draws a distinct line between insiders and outsiders, confirming the welfare state as the unquestioned norm while constructing the immigrants as subjects in need of interventions. The side that is implicitly defined as deficient relative to the norm is also the one ascribed the main responsibility for any outcome in the interaction within the social contract. The civic orientation course serves to teach participants the social norms and rules necessary for integration into the majority society. Meanwhile, the majority society is noticeably absent other than as a largely uncommented and unproblematized context for the actions of the outsiders.

Klarenbeek claims that integration processes, to qualify as ‘two-way’, must actively include both insiders and outsiders, rather than having insiders serve merely as ‘a context for integration processes’ (Klarenbeek 2019, 10). The film’s finishing quote, ‘You do the work while we show you the way’, indicates that the integration is no mutual process, but one that consists of immigrants adapting to a way described and prescribed by governing agents. This, as well as integration efforts being directed only at one of the relationship’s two parties, suggest that assimilation is what is actually meant by the term integration. It is the migrants who have to learn the Swedish way and change and adapt to it.

While the film assigns the ultimate responsibility for integration to the individual, the interviewees recognize a gap between the neoliberally influenced rhetoric and practice. The course leaders endorse the official notion of integration as a function of individual responsibility, but challenge to what extent the agency required to take this responsibility is enabled within the system. This tension comes out in critique of the system’s ability to foster and allow for individual initiative and to make the most of immigrants’ potential and resources. By and large, the interviewees negotiate boundaries by relating to the official rhetoric as a normative depiction of how things ought to be while viewing practice as a reflection of how things really are. Course leaders conclude that the social contract in its current state often contributes to other outcomes than the ones intended.

In their professional role, course leaders, by their own admission, must act neutral and refrain from bringing personal views into the classroom. Acting neutral in the given context is stated as synonymous with presenting and endorsing a ‘right picture’ of the governing system. In practice, this implies acting as ambassadors for the officially adopted neoliberal take on the social contract and its feasibility.

The asymmetric nature of the social contract unfolding within an integration framework and the subsequent boundaries that exist between outsiders and insiders, are downplayed both in the civic orientation classroom and in the official rhetoric represented by the authority’s information film. The social contract’s emphasis on individual agency overlooks the power relations involved in such a relationship and fails to account for the conditions for enacting agency. The assumption of individual agency presumes that the category of individual is the one applied in practice. Individuals in this particular social contract are however categorized and governed as immigrants. As such their opportunity for individual agency is likely to be limited by their social standing, access to various forms of capital, and by the governing activities that regulate how their agency can be acted out. Like other groups categorized as vulnerable, immigrants face both structural (socioeconomic vulnerability, lack of representation and efficient networks) and symbolic (attitudes, stereotypes, and discrimination encountered in society) factors that affect their opportunity for agency. This is not accounted for in the public authority’s depiction of the division of responsibility, nor is it acknowledged in the course session proclaiming social networks and personal contacts as key to labor market entry. The course leaders negotiate boundaries when they challenge the neoliberal unproblematic notion of agency applied to the relationship between a governing system and governed subjects. Examples of this is when course leaders challenge the opportunity for agency and outline the conditions under which they deem the governing structure’s requirement for individual responsibility legitimate. The governing system’s downplaying of asymmetric power relations comprises an ethical tension for the course leaders, apparent in their criticism of the system’s ability to capitalize on the resources of immigrants.

On a societal level, the standardized course content can be said to constitute a case of the governing system downplaying boundaries. Uncritical application of the neoliberal ideas communicated through the course material requires downplaying or overlooking of power relations. The content enables the depiction of the social contract as one between two equals.

The simultaneous lopsided share of responsibility and inherent hierarchy between the parties involved in the studied social contract make for unrealistic expectations on individual immigrants (cf. findings of Diedrich, Eriksson-Zetterquist, and Styhre 2011). Ultimately, the course leaders are conveying unrealistic expectations of participants while at the same time giving them unrealistic expectations of the conditions that await them when they try to enter the labor market.

Managing the tension between dual positions of governing agent and governed subject

The course leaders embody boundaries, i.e. engage in collaborative boundary work related to their belongingness in and navigation of different contexts (Azambuja and Islam 2019; Soundararajan, Khan, and Tarba 2017; Yagi and Kleinberg 2011), when they juggle their role of public official with that of their own self. Discrepancies between the portrayal of society that their public official role requires them to convey and their own perception of that reality cause tension. This tension is managed by giving precedence to their role as public official and defining that role as characterized by remaining neutral while keeping any personal opinions out of the workplace. Professionalism, in this definition, implies drawing a line between one’s subjective view of things and the allegedly objective view of things represented by the governing agent. In the process, the governing structure’s depiction thus takes on an objective status and is contrasted to the subjective views concluded to be inadmissible in the classroom. The course leaders hence manage the gap between their perception of reality and the one they are representing in their role of governing agents by naming the ordained depiction neutral and by describing the communication of it as a prerequisite for professionalism.

The boundary work of the course providers entails balancing between engagement and detachment and switching between affinity with the governed subjects and the governing system. They achieve this by embodying and downplaying boundaries between themselves and the participants: when using themselves and their own experiences as examples and when making jokes about supposedly shared experiences. In alternating between the role of outsider and insider, the course leaders navigate their field of practice and manage to gain the governed subjects’ legitimacy and trust while acting as role models. The course leaders use joking as an identification ritual and stress their commonalities with the participants to form a liaison with them and promote engagement and learning. This is in line with the results of Pouthier (2017), where knowledge transfer is stimulated by increasing the quality of the links between insiders and outsiders. On a societal level, the boundary work that course leaders engage in also assists in the assimilation that appears to be the goal of integration efforts carried out within the establishment program.

Boundary work allows course leaders to deal with gaps between prescribed and perceived reality, enabling them to make sense of their practice and operate efficiently. Furthermore, negotiation, embodying and downplaying of boundaries support knowledge transfer by encouraging identification and trust between course leaders and participants. With their shared cultural and linguistic background and experience of once being new to Sweden, the course leaders act as boundary spanners in relation to the course participants. By giving the participants a sense of trust and safety and encouraging active engagement, their knowledge acquisition is facilitated.

Conclusion

This article has shown how governing agents at a civic orientation course site perform boundary work, to manage the tension brought about by their location between governing institutions and governed subjects. Through three types of collaborative boundary work, the governing agents produce and enact an understanding of professionalism as continuous shifting between different positions related to their two reference points—the governing state and the governed subjects. This navigation entails switching between engagement and detachment and between fellowship and ambassadorship. By engaging in collaborative boundary work, the governing agents manage perceived ambiguities and tensions between rhetoric and ‘reality’ and between policies they are set to represent and practices connected to these policies that they do not personally believe in and/or challenge. The notion of remaining neutral while giving the right picture of Sweden, identified by several interviewees as a main task of course leaders, offers an illustrative account of the boundary work the course leaders engage in to deliver professionalism. It also summarizes the agreed-upon definition of professionalism that the course leaders work in accordance with.

Previous studies examining how professionalism is negotiated and maintained through boundary work in public organizations (Apesoa-Varano 2013; Liberati 2017; Lindberg, Walter, and Raviola 2017) have tended to focus on the boundary work undertaken between professions to maintain or increase their legitimacy and status. The findings of this study instead focus on the boundary work that takes place in the relationship between a professional and personal self. Azambuja and Islam (2019) study how middle managers manage their in-between positions. While their article deals with formal positions, the present article demonstrates how public officials juggle the identity tension that comes from the simultaneous belongingness in several informal groups. It showcases how boundary work can be used to the advantage of different stakeholders to allow for effective operations, making sense of and overcoming ethical tensions. The present article demonstrates a tension between emancipation and alienation in the daily operations of course leaders that resembles the one described by Azambuja and Islam. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate how boundary work, in line with Quick and Feldman (2014), enables connections across insider/outsider distinctions by evoking trust and identification through the downplaying of boundaries. A contribution of the present article is that it attends to the power-relational aspects and ethical tensions that arise from a boundary work position, which have been less focused in previous works on micro-interactions in boundary work (Pouthier 2017).

The findings also contain examples of how boundary work can have negative effects. This is the case when the downplaying of boundaries leads to unrealistic expectations and consequent disappointment and resignation when expectations are not met. When boundaries are downplayed and power relations overlooked, failures tend to be attributed to individual shortcomings rather than interpreted as shortcomings in the welfare state’s ability to create opportunities for individual agency.

A limitation to the current study is the number of interviews and observations obtained through a case study that is centered on one specific site. Including more civic orientation course sites, would enable comparisons of findings between different sites, which could strengthen the results. The voices of those subjected to governing aimed at achieving integration are not included in the current study. Including both governing agents and governed subjects as well as policy makers, would provide further insight into the dynamics between governing initiatives, those who implement them and those who are subjected to them.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (FORTE): [grant number 2016-07205].