Tracing Shifting Host Country Problematization(s) of Transnational Repression: The Evolution of Swedish Efforts to Counter “Refugee Espionage”

ABSTRACT

Not least since the brutal killing of Saudi journalist and regime-critic Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul in late 2018 has the question of transnational repression emerged on the agendas of human rights activists, policy makers, and scholars of migration and authoritarianism. Such practices are commonly conceptualized as a dyadic interaction between repressor and repressed. However, on closer inspection, the dyad is, in fact, a triad. Relatively few studies account for or explore the context in which such acts of transnational repression occur: the countries of residence in which targets and victims reside. Taking inspiration from the problematization framework, this article deepens our understanding of the complex and multifaceted ways in which Sweden, a country often lauded for its comprehensive approach and response to transnational repression, has constructed “refugee espionage” as a challenge not only for law enforcement and intelligence agencies but also, Swedish bilateral relations and sovereignty. Through an in-depth analysis of 21 annual reports published by the Swedish Security Service (SÄPO), the article shows how the conceptualization and problematization of the issue has – often in response to particular incidents – become both broader and wider over time.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration
• global authoritarianism
• security
• refugee espionage
• Sweden
• transnational repression

Introduction

Not least since the brutal killing of Saudi journalist and regime-critic Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul in late 2018, or the attempted assassination of former Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury with a deadly nerve agent, has the issue of transnational repression emerged on the agendas of human rights activists, journalists, law enforcement and intelligence organizations, and policy makers. However, these widely publicized cases represent just one end of a much wider continuum of extraterritorial repression. This continuum ranges from kinetic operations, renditions, threats, or surveillance to different forms of harassment. Both international NGOs like Freedom House¹ and scholars of authoritarianism² have realized the increasingly transnational – if not global – reach of authoritarian regimes and begun to analyze their underlying operating logics and rationales. Migration scholars have, at the same time, started to analyze how these practices affect the intended targets of transnational repression: the nonresident populations of said authoritarian regimes.³ Most studies in this space tend to either focus on the initiators and perpetrators, or the intended targets and victims of such acts. Thus, they are predominantly conceiving of transnational repression as a dyadic interaction between repressor and repressed. However, on closer inspection this conceptualization falls somewhat short since the dyad is, in fact, a triad. Only few studies fully account for the context in which such acts of transnational repression occur: the countries of residence in which targets and victims reside (for a recent exception, see Baser & Féron, 2021⁴) At their very core, acts of transnational repression – be it in the form of assassinations, harassment, or surveillance – not only represent violations of the host countries’ criminal law(s), but also an infringement on the host countries’ very sovereignty; itself a cornerstone of international law.

Against this backdrop, the present article explores how residence countries conceptualize and, in extension, try to counter transnational repression. However, rather than investigating the ways in which the issue may have become securitized, i.e. discursively and operationally framed as an (existential) security threat,⁵ the paper takes inspiration from the broader problematization framework⁶ as its primary analytical lens. In terms of its empirical focus, the paper traces the ways in which Sweden, and in particular the Swedish Security Service (Säkerhetspolisen – SÄPO), has problematized and operationalized the issue. Sweden not only has a long history of welcoming those fleeing from violence and persecution but is also widely regarded a forerunner in taking seriously cases of transnational repression.⁷ To trace how the problematization of “refugee espionage” (flyktingspionage) – the term adopted by Swedish authorities – has developed and potentially changed over time, the article analyzes a total of 21 annual reports published by SÄPO, thereby covering the period from 2001 until 2023.⁸ The reports were downloaded from the official SÄPO website and, after having been converted into fully searchable .pdf files, imported into NVivo⁹ (release 1.3 for Windows). In addition to facilitating the more structural and descriptive analysis of the reports, NVivo was also used to inductively code sections of the reports pertinent to issues of transnational repression and refugee espionage.

The paper proceeds as follows: A first section contextualizes the phenomenon of transnational repression as a logical extension of global(−ized) authoritarianism that is no longer constrained by or limited to the confines of clearly bounded territories of nation states. A second section briefly outlines some of the key elements of the problematization framework, which is, in a third and fourth section, used to trace how the Swedish conceptualization and problematization of transnational repression has evolved since the turn of the millennium. A fifth and final section summarizes the key findings and points toward a number of promising avenues for further research in this space.

From global(ized) authoritarianism to transnational repression

It would be no exaggeration to argue that, on a foundational level, authoritarian systems are not legitimated in the same way as their more democratic counterparts. This results in what Wintrobe¹⁰ would describe in terms of the “dictator’s dilemma.” The dilemma can be found in the fact that authoritarian and other non-democratic leaders cannot be certain about the degrees to which they are truly supported by their subjects or citizens. Therefore, these leaders must rely on other tools to ensure popular support – or at least compliance – to remain in power. Wintrobe argued that measures generating loyalty, essentially giving subjects a stake in regime stability and survival, alongside of repression, covering a set of practices or methods designed to deter dissent, were the primary tools at a dictator’s disposal. Gerschweski¹¹ outlined a more nuanced framework in which he differentiated between co-optation, legitimation and repression. Authoritarians may, thus, either seek to co-opt parts of their populations, for example through subsidies on basic food stock items,¹² give legitimacy to their rule by emphasizing a particular type of national identity or ideologically underpinned narrative to unify the nation against an (external) enemy, or simply seek to repress political dissent to stabilize their rule.

However, scholars of authoritarianism rarely seemed to consider one important phenomenon: a deepening and widening globalization that not only increased the flow of goods and ideas but also of people across borders.¹³ At the same time, innovations such as the proliferation of new ICT technologies – including the widespread adoption of social media platforms – have allowed emigrants to maintain dense transnational connections to, and social, economic, and political engagements with their country of origin.¹⁴ Therefore, Hirschman’s¹⁵ well-known typology of “exit, voice and loyalty” no longer holds since even individuals who made use of their “exit” option by emigrating now can continue to use their voice to, for instance, advocate or mobilize for socio-political change in their origin countries.¹⁶ Just like their democratic counterparts, authoritarian regimes are now confronted with a situation in which ever larger parts of their populations reside – at least physically – outside of their national territories¹⁷ but may still have a vested interest in the ways in which the situation in their respective origin countries develops.

A vast literature in the field of diaspora studies has explored both empirically and theoretically how these nonresident populations remain engaged in and an actor to be reconned with in socio-political developments “back home.” Early research in this space, has often focused on economic remittances as a vehicle through which diaspora populations not only support family members and relatives at home, but also contribute to economic development in their countries of origin.¹⁸ More recent research on remittances has also come to focus on other and not strictly economic types of flows from residence to origin countries – including remittances that are social, cultural or political in nature.¹⁹ Diaspora populations, especially those that could be described as victim diasporas, often remain engaged with and actors in conflicts in their respective countries of origin. Here, some notable examples include members of the Tamil diaspora that sought to affect the conflict in Sri Lanka,²⁰ Iranians mobilizing in support of the recent protest movement that sprung up “back home,”²¹ but also Kurdish diasporans’ efforts to support the Kurdish independence struggle in, for example Turkey.²² Especially this latter example, has proven quite contentious in the context of Sweden’s application to become a full member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the wake of the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine. Since the Turkish government deems Kurdish nationalists, both at home and abroad as an essential security threat, the Erdogan government made the “Kurdish question” a key issue before consenting to allowing Sweden into the alliance.²³

More generally, there is a growing interest on the side of origin countries to engage with and stay relevant for their now nonresident populations²⁴ and even their descendants who might be growing up in the diaspora.²⁵ Ever more origin countries have started to formulate diaspora engagement policies²⁶ and even set up dedicated diaspora institutions that are tasked with engaging nonresident populations. In many instances, this engagement is best described in terms of attempts to “include” the diaspora,²⁷ which may express itself in, for example, extending the franchise to nonresident citizens,²⁸ improving consular services, or cultural activities like, organized homeland visits, language courses or internship programs for diaspora members.²⁹

However, not least due to different migration trajectories and histories, the governments of origin countries may not want to engage with – at least parts of – their diaspora populations. Emigrants who were either exiled or otherwise forced to seek refuge abroad may, on the one hand, be directly opposed to the governments in power and, on the other, be seen as a direct if not existential threat to the governments’ continued existence and survival. Like in the aforementioned case of Kurds being regarded as a security threat by the Turkish government,³⁰ or Uyghurs who have found refuge in Sweden,³¹ their countries of origin might be much more inclined to selectively “exclude”³² if not silence these segments of their diaspora populations. In an increasing number of cases, this selective exclusion takes on the form of transnational repression,³³ which may include a variety of tools that range from outright assassinations carried out abroad, threats toward family members or relatives who still reside in the country of origin – a practice that is often described in terms of “repression by proxy” –, surveillance, to various forms of direct or indirect harassment. In two recent reports on transnational repression, the international human rights NGO Freedom House lists countless instances of transnational repression that were carried out by a number non-democratic countries like China, Rwanda, Egypt, Russia or Turkey.³⁴

(Re)constructing problems

How do issues such as global warming, money laundering, or – for that matter – transnational repression become urgent problems that need to be addressed? While some sociologists would argue that this is, first and foremost, a matter of competitive framing contests,³⁵ political scientists and International Relations scholars might argue that this is a primarily a question concerning their politicization; “a process through which issues are transformed into matters of collective decision making.”³⁶

On a foundational level, the problematization approach³⁷ resembles the Copenhagen School’s work on securitization,³⁸ but is not necessarily concerned with the process through which a phenomenon or issue is elevated from the realm of political decision making into the domain of existential security threats. Instead, the focus is placed on the discursive process through which an issue is constructed as a problem in the first place. Inspired by and building on Michel Foucault’s work on the History of Sexuality,³⁹ or his History of Madness,⁴⁰ scholars like Deacon,⁴¹ Bacchi,⁴² or Bacchi and Goodwin⁴³ would stress that such problems do not exist in a vacuum; they are always socially constructed, and the ways in which a problem is conceived of might then, in a subsequent step, predetermine the types of solutions that are adopted to solve and/or govern this problem. To exemplify this logic, Bacchi asked:

How did poverty come to be seen as a “problem” for governments and other experts to address? Why is it poverty, and not some related issue—inequality, wealth, etc.—that has come to be seen as the “problem”?⁴⁴

Following a similar line of inquiry, Hülsse⁴⁵ argued that some global issues, like money laundering, were not conceived of as truly global challenges from the outset, but were, instead, discursively constructed – or problematized – as such, which then transformed them into issues for international governance and regulation.

Analytically, the “What’s the problem represented to be?” (WPR) approach seeks to understand how a particular phenomenon (like poverty, money laundering or transnational repression) came to be constructed as a problem in a particular way, and how such problematizations changed over time.⁴⁶ In her seminal work on the WPR approach, Bacchi proposed a set of six questions⁴⁷ to trace the genealogy of particular problem representations and to uncover how they came into being and how they came to be accepted as the correct or dominant representation.⁴⁸ Since the link from problematization to proposed solution becomes particularly evident in various policy proposals or actual policies, these types of documents have become a natural focal point for WPR-inspired inquiries. However, in the context of this study, the focus will instead be placed on 21 annual reports published by the Swedish Security Service (SÄPO).

Threat representations in the Swedish Security Service’s annual reports

While the roots of the Swedish Security Service (SÄPO) can be traced back to the early days of World War I, it exists in its current form since the late 1980s. As a police and intelligence agency under the roof of the Ministry of Interior, it is currently tasked with five main areas of responsibility: counter-terrorism (kontraterrorism), counter-espionage (kontraspionage), dignitary protection (personskydd), protective security (säkerhetsskydd), and counter-subversion (författningsskydd).⁴⁹ Ever since the terrorist attacks on 9/11, the counter-terrorism and dignitary protection portfolios have grown both in terms of their relative importance and allocated resources. As of 2020, the agency employed about 1,400 staff members with a budget of approximately 1,7 billion Swedish Kronor.⁵⁰ While SÄPO is, understandably so, somewhat secretive with regards to disclosing information on its sources and methods for intelligence collection, the agency regularly publishes, like all other Swedish government agencies, an unclassified annual report.⁵¹ At the time of writing, a total of 21 annual reports were publicly available on the SÄPO website, which cover the period from 2001 until 2023. As noted earlier, the report for 2004 seems to be unavailable and the most recent report, published in early 2023, covers both the years 2022 and 2023.⁵²

Looking purely at the surface level, we can see that the reports have grown in length over time – especially so since the beginning of the 2010s. While early reports published between 2001 and 2011 averaged at around 51.4 pages (mode: 52 pages),⁵³ reports published between 2012 and 2022 were closer to an average of 74 pages in length (mode: 76 pages) (see Figure 1). In terms of content and structure, there are certain similarities among the different reports as each of them provides a short overview of the agency’s activities across the different issue areas and areas of responsibility.

Figure 1. Total length of annual reports in pages and frequency of “refugee espionage” per year.

Against this backdrop, it should come as little surprise, that topics such as (counter-)terrorism and (counter-espionage) have played and continue to play an important role in these reports. Table 1 provides a brief overview of the frequency in which these terms (alongside of “refugee espionage”) were mentioned in the annual reports for the period ranging from 2001-2011, which marks the height of the global war on terrorism, and from 2012-2022, which not only covers the 2017 terrorist attack in Stockholm,⁵⁴ but also the illegal Russian annexation of Crimea that resulted in a renewed emphasis on state actors as threats to Swedish and international security.⁵⁵ Providing a detailed content analysis of all reports would clearly exceed the scope of this article. Still, to provide at the very least a somewhat cursory glimpse of the themes discussed in them, Figure 2 (see below) provides a graphical illustration of the 100 most frequently used words across the 21 reports – excluding stop words.¨

Figure 2. Word cloud depicting 100 most common words (excluding stop words) in annual reports 2001-2022.

Table 1. Frequencies of selected terms for the periods 2001-2011 and 2012-2022.

Term	2001-2011	2012-2022
Terrorism	259	299
Counter-terrorism	55	116
Espionage	62	118
Counter-espionage	75	138
Refugee espionage	60	52

Considering SÄPO’s role as a police and intelligence agency tasked with a comparatively broad portfolio, the results are not entirely unexpected. The name of the agency alongside of terms like “information,” “persons,” “foreign,” “countries,” “threats” or “terrorism” all appear prominently on this list. When discussing the agency’s counter-espionage activities, the reports often point toward the diverse threats confronting Sweden. Refugee espionage, which will be discussed in more detail in the following section, is but one of many challenges, which include espionage directed at either political or military targets, or industrial espionage targeting Swedish corporations and universities.

A broadening and widening problem representation: It is not just about “refugees”

Having provided a general overview of the annual reports, the present section turns toward an in-depth analysis of the ways in which “refugee espionage,” the term adopted by SÄPO to describe a broad range of practices that we would consider examples of transnational repression, has been problematized in these publications. In addition to tracing the evolution of the term across two decades, this section will also discuss how a number of widely publicized cases have changed some of the implicit or underlying assumptions about who is at risk of becoming a target for these practices.

In its public facing documents, the Swedish Security Service tends to discuss “refugee espionage” in the context of the agency’s counter-espionage activities. Especially in the early years after the 9/11 terror attacks and the ensuing global war on terrorism, typical descriptions of refugee espionage would read like this excerpt from the report for 2001:

[…] SÄPO has intervened against foreign intelligence services’ mapping attempts of oppositional refugees and organizations in Sweden. This activity has been taken very seriously, as it can have far-reaching implications for individuals and ultimately constitutes a violation of Sweden’s political integrity.⁵⁶

In the following year, 2002, the report noted in the section on SÄPO’s counter-espionage activities that:

[…] political intelligence activities are carried out targeting third countries and oppositional refugees and organizations. Foreign intelligence services’ refugee espionage and other mapping attempts of oppositional individuals ultimately constitute a serious violation of Sweden’s political integrity and can have far-reaching consequences for individuals, groups, and organizations in the country.⁵⁷

Except for the most recent document covering the years 2022 and 2023, every available report mentions the term at least once. Throughout the entire period, the “refugee espionage” was mentioned on average 5.85 times (mode 4) with a slight downward trend (5.18 average mentions) during the latter half of the study period. In purely quantitative terms, we can see that five reports, that is those for the years 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2019, notably rise above the mean number of mentions. They use the term between nine times (in 2010) up to 29 times (in the annual report for 2019) (see also Figure 1).

The ways in which the Swedish Security Service has conceptualized refugee espionage could, in many ways, be seen as a reflection of, and to some extent a reaction to, current (or world) events. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and the resulting perception of an increased terrorism threat level (both in Sweden and internationally), refugee espionage was – at least to some extent – explicitly discussed in the context of Swedish counter-terrorism efforts. In addition to discussing the issue in the agency’s commonly used frame of counter-espionage activities, the 2001 report noted that:

The task of counter-terrorism is to combat international terrorism and to prevent and expose refugee espionage and other persecution of foreigners in Sweden by governments or organizations in other countries associated with politically motivated violence.⁵⁸

While this report did not portray refugees (or foreign nationals for that matter) as a direct threat to Swedish national security, it nevertheless discussed third countries’ attempts to collect intelligence on refugees and oppositional actors in direct relation to the broader Swedish counter-terror efforts and activities. Similar formulations can be found in the reports for the following years, in which refugee espionage was predominantly discussed in a somewhat abbreviated form. To give but one example, the report from 2005 states that:

Foreign powers are also not allowed to gather information about, for example, political refugees in Sweden. The Swedish Security Service works to prevent, expose, and investigate refugee espionage.⁵⁹

However, already in the report for the year 2003, SÄPO acknowledged that these activities not only represented a severe infringement on Swedish sovereignty and a direct threat to the targeted individuals themselves, but often also included a direct transnational component: such as using targets’ relatives and friends still residing in the country of origin as potential leverage. Discussing the modus operandi of intelligence officers executing these practices, the report noted that:

The task of these agents is to control prominent opposition figures who are considered a threat to the regime in question. Individuals in Sweden who face threats from their home country’s regime often have relatives and friends still residing in their home country. These relatives and friends are also subjected to threats and pressure in order to coerce the person living in Sweden to cooperate. Iraq is one of the countries that employ this approach, but other states in the region also use similar methods. In 2003, such activities were identified, and after intervention by SÄPO, several suspected intelligence officers/agents were expelled from Sweden.⁶⁰

While this report already acknowledged the existence of what Moss⁶¹ and Tsourapas⁶² would have called repression by proxy, most annual reports until about 2006 tended to discuss “refugee espionage” predominantly in relation to and as a problem concerning refugees – including individuals and to some extent also organizations. For instance, the 2006 report, which mentioned refugee espionage a total of four times, stated that:

[SÄPO] also works to prevent and uncover illegal intelligence activities directed at exile groups and opposition figures, known as refugee espionage. This involves states engaging in intelligence operations against each other within Sweden. It also includes states gathering information on individual individuals, such as political refugees, who are in Sweden. Refugee espionage occurs in Sweden, and it is essential to protect refugees from the threats they have fled from.⁶³

This quote illustrates how refugees were regarded as the primary referent object in need of protection from third countries. However, the same report already contained a slight broadening of the affected groups, and noted how both refugees and immigrant groups more generally have become potential targets:

The intelligence activities primarily target political issues as well as advanced technology and research. This includes what is known as refugee espionage, which refers to intelligence operations directed at refugee and immigrant groups.⁶⁴

Subsequent reports, like the one from 2007 have come to frame the problem in broader terms by acknowledging that the targeted population was even larger than the previous reports had posited. Even Swedish citizens, or individuals born in Sweden were now considered to be at risk of becoming targets for foreign collection and intimidation efforts. For 2008, SÄPO reported that:

These operations are not solely directed towards refugees but also towards individuals living in Sweden who are considered threatening to foreign governments: dissidents or opposition members. Even Swedish-born individuals who support critics of foreign regimes may be subjected to surveillance by foreign authorities.⁶⁵

To give yet another example, the 2010 report exemplifies this broadened understanding even more pointedly and noted that:

Intelligence operations targeting exiled opposition members and critics of foreign regimes have the consequence of forcing individuals to live in fear for their own safety and the safety of their loved ones, both in their former home countries and in Sweden. This also leads to the undermining of the democratic process and causes people who have sought refuge in Sweden to be afraid of exercising their constitutionally guaranteed freedoms and rights. Even Swedish citizens who support these opposition members can be affected by foreign intelligence services’ surveillance. There is also a risk that what is known as “refugee espionage” may evolve into other forms of spying. Individuals who have already been coerced into spying on their fellow countrymen in Sweden are vulnerable to continued blackmail if they were to gain access to other information of interest to their former home country.⁶⁶

In addition to acknowledging that the targeted population is markedly broader than the earlier reports suggested, this report also elaborated on some of the broader domestic consequences that had – at least so far – been just briefly described as potential violations of Sweden’s political integrity. These practices, designed to silence or alternatively compromise lawful residents and citizens, threaten – the report argued – essential democratic rights and freedoms. This realization followed in the wake of a widely publicized case of Chinese efforts to infiltrate the small but vocal Uyghur community in the country.⁶⁷

In the wake of the so-called “Arab Spring,” a series of popular uprisings that swept across parts of the Middle East and North Africa region, a number of reports (like the one from 2011) also started to pay somewhat closer attention to the fact that individuals and refugees seeking protection in Sweden might be among the very perpetrators carrying out activities that could be described as refugee espionage. For instance, the 2011 report explicitly mentions Libya and Syria as two countries that seemed to have a growing interest in collecting information on oppositional actors within their respective diaspora populations.⁶⁸ The report for 2013 contained a case study on a recent court case in which a middle-aged man in Örebro, a city in central Sweden, was sentenced for “grov olovlig underrättelseverksamhet” (grave unlawful intelligence operations) after having spied on members of the Rwandan diaspora in the country.⁶⁹ In recounting this particular case, the report stressed that:

It is the responsibility of the Security Service to prevent and counteract unlawful intelligence activities. Mapping and collecting personal information about people who have left their home country, known as refugee espionage, is a crime in Sweden. In Sweden, we do not allow the violation of democratic rights. People who have moved here must be able to exercise their rights without risking living under the threat of violence. They should not be forced to live in fear, either for their own safety in Sweden or for the safety of their relatives in their former home country. For them, our obvious freedom of speech and press can result in reprisals from their former home country. Those who are targeted are prevented and restricted from exercising their democratic rights.⁷⁰

As of the 2018 report, SÄPO also started to describe instances of “refugee espionage” in terms of “unlawful intelligence activities against individuals” (olovlig underrättelseverksamhet mot personer). While the 2018 report used this term at least twice, the report for the following year, 2019, mentioned it for a total of five times whilst discussing “refugee espionage” 29 times. This latter report also described the rationale as for why third countries like China might want to control or repress oppositional actors located abroad.⁷¹

This change in language and framing represents the culmination of a long process that started as early as 2010, when an official inquiry into Swedish counter-espionage legislation began. In response to this inquiry, the annual report for 2013 noted how the Swedish legislation at the time – dating back to the Cold War era – failed to properly capture the new realities of globalization and globalized authoritarianism.⁷² To more effectively counter and deter instances of what so far had been conceptualized as refugee espionage, it was suggested to reform the Swedish criminal code to include these aforementioned unlawful intelligence activities against individuals. In this context, the report noted how:

the proposed expansion of the crime also includes activities conducted using improper means (such as open displays and making implicit threats). Additionally, the sentencing guidelines are being intensified by raising the minimum punishment from fines to imprisonment.⁷³

In 2013, the Swedish center-right government forwarded a reform proposal to the Council on Legislation (Lagrådet), which is a body that is tasked with critically scrutinizing reform proposals the government seeks to present to the Swedish parliament for consideration.⁷⁴ After deliberation in parliament, the proposed reform went into effect on 15 June 2014, which criminalized acts through which:

A person who, in this country, with intent to benefit a foreign power or equivalent, secretly or using fraudulent or improper means conducts activities whose purpose is to obtain information about the personal circumstances of another person, or is an accomplice to such activities other than temporarily, is guilty of unlawful intelligence activities against an individual and is sentenced to imprisonment for at most one year. If the offence is gross, the sentence is imprisonment for at least six months and at most four years

(Act 2022:1519, italics in original)

Through this reform, the Swedish criminal code no longer just criminalizes espionage activities targeting the Swedish state, its institutions, or private companies (for instance in the form of industrial espionage) and third countries, but explicitly penalizes collection and intimidation efforts geared toward individuals. Despite these notable changes and the successive discursive broadening and widening of the “problem” that was discussed above, the agency has opted to continue using the arguably narrow and potentially somewhat misleading term “refugee espionage” to refer to such instances of what can only be described as transnational repression.

Conclusion

Against the backdrop of the increasingly global(−ized) nature of authoritarianism and an apparent proliferation of practices that might be best described in terms of transnational repression, this article sought to trace and critically interrogate the ways in which the Swedish Security Service (SÄPO) conceptualizes and problematizes the phenomenon, which in the Swedish context is usually described in terms of “refugee espionage.” For this purpose, the paper analyzed the most recent 21 annual reports published by SÄPO to better understand how the problematization of transnational repression has changed over time.

As discussed elsewhere, Sweden is often regarded a forerunner when it comes to states taking the issue of transnational repression seriously. In recent years, there have been several high-profile cases in which Swedish security services were able to identify and stop origin countries’ efforts to repress parts of their nonresident populations. Notable cases included Chinese efforts to infiltrate oppositional Uyghur communities in Sweden (see annual reports for 2009, 2010, or 2019), or attempts of the Syrian regime gather intelligence on Syrian refugees living in Sweden (see e.g. report for 2013).

Furthermore, there can be little doubt that SÄPO’s conceptualization of “refugee espionage” (flyktingspionage) has broadened markedly over time. While early reports acknowledged the problem that third countries might try to “map oppositional refugees and networks,” later reports increasingly acknowledged that the targeted population was, in fact much broader than just refugees. As the recent spat with the Turkish government surrounding Sweden’s application for full membership in NATO has shown, there can be little doubt that a sizable number of individuals whom origin countries would deem as worthy and interesting targets for transnational repression are in fact Swedish citizens (either naturalized citizens or the descendants of immigrants who were – in many cases – born in Sweden but continue to maintain an active engagement with their ancestral homelands). Continuing to frame this issue and the targeting of this part of the Swedish population as a matter of “refugee espionage” raises a number of important questions: What signal does this framing send to people (including citizens) who are targeted by authoritarian regimes if we frame a problem first and foremost as something that is directed to refugee populations? Does this framing contribute to an “othering” of Swedish citizens with roots/connections to third countries? Could an exclusive use of the term “unlawful intelligence activities against individuals” signal more effectively to policy makers and government officials that this type of repression is a direct and serious infringement on Sweden’s sovereignty?

Unlike SÄPO, the German domestic intelligence service (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) does not usually discuss these practices under a single and unified heading or rubric. Instead, transnational repression and related espionage activities tend to be discussed under the heading “Espionage, cyberattacks, and other security-threatening or intelligence-related activities of a foreign power,” which captures but at the same time downplays (i.e. one threat among many) the importance and severity of these practices.

In terms of further research, it might be a good idea to broaden the scope of the investigation and to investigate whether or not different agencies who may be involved in handling such incidents and practices view and respond to such efforts in a coordinated fashion. In the Swedish case, one could reasonably assume that even local police authorities and the ministry of foreign affairs are involved in countering such efforts. In the German case, one might assume that state police agencies, the federal criminal police (Bundeskriminalamt), the German domestic intelligence service (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) as well as the ministry of foreign affairs are involved in handling such cases.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and publication of this article: This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council [Grant Number: VR 2019-02124].

Notes

1. Yana Gorokhovskaia and Isabel Linzer, Defending Democracy in Exile: Policy Responses to Transnational Repression, Freedom House (Washington D.C, 2022), https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2022-05/Complete_TransnationalRepressionReport2022_NEW_0.pdf; Nate Schenkkan and Isabel Linzer, Out of Sight, Not Out of Reach: The Global Scale and Scope of Transnational Repression, Freedom House (2021), https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2021-02/Complete_FH_TransnationalRepressionReport2021_rev020221.pdf.

2. Alexander Dukalskis, Making the World Safe for Dictatorship (Oxford University Press, 2021); Marlies Glasius, “Extraterritorial Authoritarian Practices: A Framework,” Globalizations 15, no. 2 (2017); Gerasimos Tsourapas, “Global Autocracies: Strategies of Transnational Repression, Legitimation, and Co-Optation in World Politics” International Studies Review 23, no. 3 (2021).

3. Nicole Hirt and A. Saleh Mohammad, “By way of patriotism, coercion, or instrumentalization: How the Eritrean Regime makes use of the diaspora to stabilize its rule,” Globalizations 15, no. 2 (2018); Dana Moss, “Transnational Repression, Diaspora Mobilization, and the Case of the Arab Spring,” Social Problems 63, 4, no. 4 480-498 (2016); Dana Moss, Marcus Michaelsen, and Gillian Kennedy, “Going after the family: Transnational repression and the proxy punishment of Middle Eastern diasporas,” Global Networks (2022); Ahmet Erdi Öztürk and Hakkı Taş, “The Repertoire of Extraterritorial Repression: Diasporas and Home States,” Migration Letters 17, no. 1 (2020).

4. Bahar Baser and Élise Féron, “Host state reactions to home state diaspora engagement policies: Rethinking state sovereignty and limits of diaspora governance,” Global Networks 22, no. 2 (Apr 2022).

5. Barry Buzan and Lene Hansen, The Evolution of International Security Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2009); Barry Buzan, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998).

6. Carol Bacchi, “Why study problematizations? Making politics visible,” Open journal of political science 2, no. 01 (2012); Carol Bacchi, Women, policy and politics: The construction of policy problems (Sage, 1999); Rainer Hülsse, “Creating demand for global governance: The making of a global money-laundering problem,” Global society 21, no. 2 (2007); Elitza Katzarova, The Social Construction of Global Corruption: From Utopia to Neoliberalism (Cham: Palgrave MacMillan, 2019).

7. Gorokhovskaia and Linzer, Defending Democracy in Exile: Policy Responses to Transnational Repression.

8. At the time of writing, the annual report for 2004 was unavailable. The years 2022 and 2023 were covered in the context of a single report.

9. NVivo is a widely used CAQDAS (Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software) application available both for Windows and Mac.

10. Ronald Wintrobe, The political economy of dictatorship (Cambridge University Press, 2000).

11. Johannes Gerschweski, “The three pillars of stability: legitimation, repression, and co-optation in autocratic regimes,” Democratization 20, no. 1 (2013).

12. Arne F. Wackenhut, “The Egyptian Uprising of 2011: Understanding the Role of the Cairo-Based Political Opposition” (University of Gothenburg, 2017).

13. Manfred Steger, Globalization: A very short introduction, 4th edition ed. (Oxford University Press, 2017).

14. Arne F. Wackenhut and Camilla Orjuela, “An (Un-)stable pillar: Second- generation diaspora in an age of transnational authoritarianism,” European Political Science (2023).

15. Albert Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970).

16. Laura Henry and Elizabeth Plantan, “Activism in exile: how Russian environmentalists maintain voice after exit,” Post-Soviet Affairs 38, no. 4 (2022); Dana Moss, “Voice after exit: Explaining diaspora mobilization for the Arab Spring,” Social Forces 98, no. 4 (2020); Kathleen Newland, Voice After Exit: Diaspora Advocacy (Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2010).

17. Charlotte Edmond, “Global Migration By the Numbers: Who Migrates, Where They Go, and Why,” 2020, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/iom-global-migration-report-international-migrants-2020/.

18. Paola Giuliano and Marta Ruiz-Arranz, “Remittances, financial development, and growth,” Journal of development economics 90, no. 1 (2009); Kathleen Newland and Erin Patrick, “Beyond Remittances: The Role of Diaspora in Poverty Reduction in their Countries of Origin, a Scoping Study by the Migration Policy Institute for the Department of International Development,” Migration Policy Institute (2004).

19. Félix Krawatzek and Lea Müller-Funk, “Two centuries of flows between ‘here’and “there:” Political remittances and their transformative potential,” (Taylor & Francis, 2020); Peggy Levitt, “Social remittances: Migration driven local-level forms of cultural diffusion,” International migration review 32, no. 4 (1998).

20. Camilla Orjuela, “Distant Warriors, Distant Peace Workers? Multiple Diaspora Roles in Sri Lanka’s Violent Conflict,” Global Networks 8, no. 4 (2008).

21. Ronen A Cohen and Bosmat Yefet, “The Iranian diaspora and the homeland: redefining the role of a centre,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 47, no. 3 (2021).

22. Bahar Baser, Diasporas and Homeland Conflicts: A Comparative Perspective (London &New York: Routledge, 2015); Bahar Baser, “The Awakening of a Latent Diaspora: The Political Mobilization of First and Second Generation Turkish Migrants in Sweden,” Ethnopolitics 13, no. 4 (2014); Bahar Baser, “Diasporas and Imported Conflicts: Turkish and Kurdish Second-Generation Diasporas in Sweden,” Journal of Conflict Transformation and Security 3, no. 2 (2013).

23. Lisbeth Aggestam, Isabell Schierenbeck, and Arne F. Wackenhut, “Diasporas and Foreign Policy: The Case of NATO and Swedish-Turkish relations,” International Affairs 99, no. 6 (2023).

24. Alexandra Délano and Alan Gamlen, “Comparing and theorizing state – diaspora relations,” Political Geography 41 (2014); Alan Gamlen, “Diaspora institutions and diaspora governance,” International Migration Review 48 (2014); A. Gamlen, M. E. Cummings, and P. M. Vaaler, “Explaining the rise of diaspora institutions,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 45, no. 4 (Mar 2019).

25. Wackenhut and Orjuela, “An (Un-)stable pillar: Second- generation diaspora in an age of transnational authoritarianism.”

26. Francesco Ragazzi, “Governing Diasporas,” International Political Sociology 3 (2009); Francesco Ragazzi, “A comparative analysis of diaspora policies,” Political Geography 41 (2014).

27. Glasius, “Extraterritorial Authoritarian Practices.”

28. Mari-Liis Jakobson and Sebastían Umpierrez de Reguero, “Explaining Support for Populists among External Voters: Between Home and Host Country,” European Political Science 22 (2023); E. K. Østergaard-Nielsen, Irina Ciornei, and Jean-Michel Lafleur, “Why do parties support emigrant voting rights?,” European Political Science Review 11, no. 3 (2019).

29. Rilke Mahieu, “‘We’re not coming from Mars; we know how things work in Morocco!’How diasporic Moroccan youth resists political socialization in state-led homeland tours,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 45, no. 4 (2019); Arne F. Wackenhut, “On the Receiving End of Diaspora Engagement Policies: Evidence from the Turkish Diaspora in Sweden,” Middle East Critique (2022), https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2022.2132194.

30. Aggestam, Schierenbeck, and Wackenhut, “Diasporas and Foreign Policy: The Case of NATO and Swedish-Turkish relations.”

31. Michel Harb and Arne F. Wackenhut, “Transnational Repression in an Age of Global Authoritarianism: Experiences of Uyghur Activists in Sweden” (Organizing Migration and Integration in Contemporary Societies Conference, Gothenburg, Sweden, 22 November 2023 2023).

32. Glasius, “Extraterritorial Authoritarian Practices.”

33. Moss, “Transnational Repression;” Moss, Michaelsen, and Kennedy, “Going after the family: Transnational repression and the proxy punishment of Middle Eastern diasporas;” Schenkkan and Linzer, Out of Sight, Not out of Reach.

34. Gorokhovskaia and Linzer, Defending Democracy in Exile: Policy Responses to Transnational Repression.

35. Robert D. Benford and David A. Snow, “Framing processes and social movements: An overview and assessment,” Annual Review of Sociology 26, no. 1 (2000); David A. Snow, “Framing processes, ideology, and discursive fields,” in The Blackwell companion to social movements (2004).

36. Johan Karlsson-Schaffer and Arne F. Wackenhut, “Theorizing the politicization of international authority as social mobilization” (ECPR Joints Sessions Workshop “Legitimacy in Global Governance,” Mons, 2019).

37. Bacchi, “Why study problematizations? Making politics visible.”

38. Buzan and Hansen, The Evolution of International Security Studies; Buzan, Waever, and de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis.

39. Michel Foucault, The history of sexuality. Volume one: An introduction (Vintage Books, 1980).

40. Michel Foucault, Madness and civilization (Taylor and Francis, 2003 [1967]).

41. Roger Deacon, “Theory as practice: Foucault’s concept of problematization,” Telos 118 (2000).

42. Bacchi, Women, policy and politics: The construction of policy problems; C. Bacchi and J. Eveline, “Approaches to gender mainstreaming: What’s the problem represented to be?,” in Mainstreaming politics: Gendering practices and feminist theory, ed. C. Bacchi and J. Eveline (2010).

43. Carol Bacchi and Susan Goodwin, Poststructural policy analysis: A guide to practice (Springer, 2016).

44. Bacchi, “Why study problematizations? Making politics visible,” 5.

45. Hülsse, “Creating demand for global governance: The making of a global money-laundering problem.”

46. Bacchi, “Why study problematizations? Making politics visible;” Deacon, “Theory as practice: Foucault’s concept of problematization,” 127.

47. See e.g. Bacchi and Eveline, “Approaches to gender mainstreaming: What’s the problem represented to be?,” 117.

48. Bacchi, Women, policy and politics: The construction of policy problems.

49. Säkerhetspolisen, “Säkerhetspolisens uppdrag,” 2023, https://www.sakerhetspolisen.se/om-sakerhetspolisen/sakerhetspolisens-uppdrag.html

50. “Organisation,” 2023, https://www.sakerhetspolisen.se/om-sakerhetspolisen/organisation.html [

51. Until recently, these reports were published exclusively in Swedish. Direct quotes used throughout the analysis were translated by the author in a two-stage process. In a first step ChatGPT 3.5, a large language model, was used to produce a raw translation of selected excerpts. In a second step, the author (who is fluent in both Swedish and English) cleaned up the machine-generated translations in terms of word choice, style and grammar.

52. While careful to not disclose confidential or secret information, it is still worth highlighting that SÄPO makes available its annual reports across such a long period – spanning more than two decades. The German domestic intelligence service (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz), in contrast, only provides access to the five most recent annual reports (Verfassungsschutzberichte) on its website.

53. The annual report from 2010 represents the only real outlier here. It was substantially shorter with an overall length of only 28 pages (see Figure 1).

54. SVT, “Polisen: Undvik centrala delarna av Stockholm (Police: Avoid central Stockholm),” 2017, https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/polisen-undvik-centrala-delarna-av-stockholm.

55. Swedish Government, Regeringsförklaringen den 13 September 2016 (Government declaration on September 13, 2016), (2016); Swedish Government, Regeringsförklaringen den 14 September 2021 (Government Declaration on September 14, 2021), (2021).

56. Säkerhetspolisen, “Verksamhetsåret 2001,” 2002, 38-39. https://www.sakerhetspolisen.se/download/18.310a187117da376c6603302/1637582475334/Verksamhetsaret2001.pdf.

57. Säkerhetspolisen, “Verksamhetsåret 2002,” 2003, 28. https://www.sakerhetspolisen.se/download/18.310a187117da376c6603300/1637582475524/Verksamhetsaret2002.pdf.

58. Säkerhetspolisen, “Verksamhetsåret 2001,” 45.

59. Säkerhetspolisen, “Säkerhetspolisen 2005,” 2006, 25. https://www.sakerhetspolisen.se/download/18.310a187117da376c660330a/1637582475729/Sakerhetspolisen2005.pdf.

60. Säkerhetspolisen, “Verksamhetsåret 2003,” 2004, 32-33. https://www.sakerhetspolisen.se/download/18.310a187117da376c6603301/1637582475579/Verksamhetsaret2003.pdf.

61. Moss, “Transnational Repression.”

62. Tsourapas, “Global Autocracies.”

63. Säkerhetspolisen, “Säkerhetspolisen 2006,” 2007, 14-15. https://www.sakerhetspolisen.se/download/18.310a187117da376c660330b/1637582475909/Sakerhetspolisen2006.pdf.

64. Säkerhetspolisen, “Säkerhetspolisen 2006,” 23.

65. Säkerhetspolisen, “Säkerhetspolisen 2008,” 2009, 40. https://www.sakerhetspolisen.se/download/18.310a187117da376c6603309/1637582476463/Arsbok2008.pdf.

66. Säkerhetspolisen, “Säkerhetspolisen 2010,” 2011, 22. https://www.sakerhetspolisen.se/download/18.310a187117da376c6603307/1637582476790/Arsbok2010.pdf.

67. Harb and Wackenhut, “Transnational Repression in an Age of Global Authoritarianism: Experiences of Uyghur Activists in Sweden.”

68. Säkerhetspolisen, “Säkerhetspolisen 2011,” 2012, https://www.sakerhetspolisen.se/download/18.310a187117da376c6603311/1637582476988/Arsbok2011.pdf.

69. Säkerhetspolisen, “Säkerhetspolisen 2013,” 2014, 55-56. https://www.sakerhetspolisen.se/download/18.310a187117da376c6603310/1637582477331/Arsbok2013.pdf.

70. Säkerhetspolisen, “Säkerhetspolisen 2013,” 55-56.

71. Säkerhetspolisen, “Säkerhetspolisen 2019,” 2020, https://www.sakerhetspolisen.se/download/18.310a187117da376c6603190/1637581422822/Arsbok2019.pdf.

72. Säkerhetspolisen, “Säkerhetspolisen 2013.”

73. Säkerhetspolisen, “Säkerhetspolisen 2013,” 26.

74. “Council on Legislation,” 2023, https://www.lagradet.se/in-english/.