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Lennart Olsson, LUCSUS

Lennart Olsson

Professor, Docent

Lennart Olsson, LUCSUS

Civil Society and Social Integration of Asylum Seekers: The ‘Strength of Weak Ties’ and the Dynamics of ‘Strategic Action Fields’

Author

  • Lennart Olsson
  • Anne Jerneck
  • Claudia Fry
  • Anika Binte Habib

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