Immigration in Sweden: Security or Politics

Abstract

International migration issue is acknowledged by the world society to be one of the most important social aspects. The securitization of migration is a comparatively new process, which can lead to the significant changes in the sphere of social politics of the state, in the norms, laws, sanctions and methods, which are employed by the states in order to regulate migration movement. Studying of the process of the securitization of migration can possibly contribute to the working out of the adequate measures to cope with the challenges, which arise because of securitization process. In the realities of globalized world immigrants face qualitatively other difficulties, rather than strict boundaries and inflexibility. Now they sometimes face the problem, which can be characterized as the creating of the image of "migrant-enemy" in the host societies and the inclination of some governments to place migration issues in the security context, and to make immigrants be seen as a threat to the integrity and the welfare of the state. Presented thesis is devoted to the issue of immigration in the context of security, and practices that function in this sphere in Sweden. In the thesis the claim is made that immigration in Sweden is taken in terms of securitization process. Therefore, with the help of speech act theory and rhetoric the analysis of the immigration issue presented mostly in manifests, official programmes of the parties presented in the Swedish Parliament (ruling coalition and opposition), including the speeches of the leaders of the parties, who are very influential people, with a high level of authority, charisma and support of the Swedish population is made. Some attention is also payed to the sphere of social politics of Sweden, where the recent actions of the ruling coalition in the sphere of immigration regulations are scrutinized and placed either to the sphere of the political or security sphere with the possibility of emergency measures application. The result of this analysis shows that certain securitizing moves, which have place in the country may easily lead to the successful execution of a securitization of migration process, for example, by the activists of the right-wing ruling party, or the representatives of the radical ultra-right party, who are already elected to some of the local legislature bodies, as securitizing actor.