Abstract

SCHIERUP, Carl-Ulrik  and  SCARPA, Simone. Model in disarray: welfare, austerity dogmatism and the u-turn in Swedish migration politics. Migr. desarro [online]. 2018, vol.16, n.31, pp.71-104. ISSN 1870-7599.

The winds of xenophobia hovering over Europe have swept the moral political foundations of an inclusive Swedish migration policy into the dustbin of history and twisted an enlightened left-right consensus on an open and humanitarian asylum policy into its mirror opposite. Lured by advances of the extreme right the main political parties have, since 2015, come to indiscriminately embrace the view that immigration, etno-cultural diversity and an open-door refugee policy is detrimental to welfare and, in consequence, curbing migration has become the all dominant political strategem in vying for votes. The authors challenge this widely accepted narrative by arguing that the sustainability of the Swedish welfare state has not been undermined by migration but by consecutive Swedish governments' unbending adherence to austerity politics since the beginning of the 1990s. Austerity politics have, step by step, weakened the Swedish Model's socially integrative functions and prevented the implementation of an ambitious agenda, harvesting a potentially dynamic interplay of expansionary economic and social policies and a humanitarian asylum policy.

Keywords : Swedish Model; welfare state; migration policies; social solidarity.

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