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

Lennart Olsson (), Anne Jerneck, Claudia Fry and Anika Binte Habib
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Lennart Olsson: Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS), Lund University, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden
Anne Jerneck: Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS), Lund University, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden
Claudia Fry: Environment and Migration: Interactions and Choices Section (EMIC), United Nations University, D-53113 Bonn, Germany
Anika Binte Habib: Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS), Lund University, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden

Social Sciences, 2023, vol. 12, issue 7, 1-20

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: civil society; integration; migration; populism; rural; Sweden (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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