
Anne Jerneck
Professor, Docent

Civil Society and Social Integration of Asylum Seekers: The ‘Strength of Weak Ties’ and the Dynamics of ‘Strategic Action Fields’
Author
Summary, in English
The dramatic increase of asylum seekers entering the EU in 2015 profoundly changed migration politics in many EU countries. Not least in Sweden which accepted more migrants per capita than any other EU country but then swung abruptly to become among the strictest recipient countries. We use Sweden as a critical and extreme case to argue that the rapid shift in asylum politics and public opinion towards migration is not profoundly shared in society. Based on a local media analysis of three types of purposively selected rural municipalities followed by the analysis of a survey of civil society organizations sent to all 290 municipalities in Sweden, we find strong civil society support and willingness to both receive migrants and facilitate their integration into society. Despite increasing votes for political parties with anti-migration policies, we also find remarkably positive attitudes towards migrants in civil society organizations and among citizens in the EU27 barometer for Sweden. The upshot is optimism that civil society can balance the anti-immigration governance imposed by both left and right political regimes and that populism will succeed only if it has the capacity to thoroughly transform civil society attitudes—which we doubt.
Department/s
- LUCSUS (Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies)
- Department of Sociology
- Sociology
Publishing year
2023-07-11
Language
English
Publication/Series
Social Sciences
Volume
12
Issue
7
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
MDPI AG
Topic
- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary
- Sociology
Keywords
- civil society
- integration
- migration
- populism
- rural
- Sweden
Status
Published
Project
- Migration Governance and Asylum Crises
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 2076-0760