The Impact of SD on Immigration Discourses Among the Swedish Political Elite 2006-2016
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The limits of hospitality: The impact of SD on immigration discourses among the Swedish political elite 2006-2016 Disa Hasselberg Supervisor: Anthoula Malkapoulou Department of Government Uppsala University Master Thesis Autumn 2016 Word count: 19764 Abstract This thesis is about immigration discourses among the political elite in Sweden. The focus of interest has been to establish if the racist and assimilationist discourses of the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna, SD) has been influential on the political party elite, and more specifically on whom, and how. Parliamentary debates and opinion pieces written by party elites has been the basis of material for the enquiry, covering the time period 2006 – July 2016. As SD had their political breakthrough in 2010, it is assumed that, provided that they have been influential on the immigration discourses of the mainstream political elite, new elements in the elite discourse mirroring the discourses of SD should emerge after 2010. The results show that some of the assimilationist ideas and negative discourses on immigration pre-existed the breakthrough of SD. The elite of the political mainstream articulated a strong resistance towards SD’s discourses during their first election cycle. However, more negative discourses bordering those of SD emerged in tandem to the so called refugee crisis in late 2015. The crisis can thus be understood as a catalyst breaking some of the taboos regarding negative immigration discourses. At the same time, although assimilationist discourses emerged among other elites than SD, they where always presented in much milder forms than SD’s discourses, who remain radically different from the other parties. These assimilationist ideas and discourses where mainly adopted by the right wing parties the Moderates (Moderaterna, M) and the Christian Democrats (Kristdemokraterna, KD), as well as the Liberal party (Liberalerna, L). I conclude that the adjustments in discourse to that of SD is less than expected, perhaphs as a result of the cordon sanitaire. 1 Table of content Abstract ................................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 4 1.1 Background and Problem statement ............................................................................. 4 1.2 Research question ........................................................................................................... 5 1.3 Hypothesis ..................................................................................................................... 6 1.4 Previous research and theory ............................................................................................ 7 1.5 Methodology and Research Design ................................................................................... 8 1.6 Structure of the paper ...................................................................................................... 8 Chapter 2. Theory and previous research .................................................................................. 10 2.1 Discourse theory ........................................................................................................... 10 2.2 Elite discourses on immigration, racist and counter-racist topoi .......................................... 11 2.3 Racism and Anti-racism ................................................................................................ 13 2.3.1 The Anti-racist hegemony .................................................................................................... 14 2.4 Towards a new immigration discourse? ........................................................................... 15 2.5 Immigration discourses in Sweden .................................................................................. 18 2.5.1 A typology of discourses of integration ............................................................................... 19 2.5.2 Immigration and national identity in Swedish media discourse .......................................... 21 2.6 A brief background to SD .............................................................................................. 23 Chapter 3. Method ................................................................................................................. 26 3.1. Timeframe and Material ............................................................................................... 26 Parliamentary debates ................................................................................................................... 27 Opinion pieces written by party representatives ........................................................................... 27 3.3. Analytical tools ........................................................................................................... 28 Topoi ............................................................................................................................................. 28 Wording ........................................................................................................................................ 28 Metaphors ..................................................................................................................................... 28 3.4. Limits and risks ........................................................................................................... 29 Chapter 4. Results ................................................................................................................. 30 4.1. The Swedish immigration debate 2006-2009 ................................................................... 30 4.1.1 Positive immigration topoi ................................................................................................... 31 4.1.2 Negative immigration topoi ................................................................................................. 32 4.1.3 Counter-negative topoi ......................................................................................................... 34 4.2. The Swedish immigration debate 2010-2013 ................................................................... 36 2 4.2.1 The discourses of SD ........................................................................................................... 37 4.2.2 The pro-immigration discoures of the other parties ............................................................. 38 4.2.3 Negative immigration topoi among the other parties ........................................................... 39 4.2.4 Counter-negative topoi of the other parties .......................................................................... 41 4.3 The immigration debate 2014 – July 2016 ....................................................................... 42 4.3.1 The discourses of SD ........................................................................................................... 43 4.3.2 The discourses of the other parties: less-positive immigration topoi? ................................. 44 4.3.3 The negative immigration topoi of the other parties ............................................................ 45 4.3.4 Counter-discourses to negative topoi ................................................................................... 48 Chapter 5. Analysis................................................................................................................ 50 5.1.1 Immigration discourses produced by SD ....................................................................... 50 5.1.2 Immigration discourses of the political elite prior to SD’s breakthrough ........................... 51 5.1.3 Immigration discourses among the mainstream party elites after SD’s entry into parliament, 2010-16 ............................................................................................................................ 52 Discourses neighboring SD’ ideas ................................................................................................ 52 Discourses shared with SD ........................................................................................................... 53 5.2 Previous research revisited ............................................................................................. 55 Chapter 6. Conclusions .......................................................................................................... 59 6.1 Suggestions for further research ..................................................................................... 60 3 Chapter 1. Introduction 1.1 Background and Problem statement Over the last couple of years there has been an emerging sense that Sweden’s political landscape is rapidly transforming. Sweden was for a long time considered to be an exception to the successes of racist and anti-immigration, radical right-wing populist parties (RRWP) across Europe. 1 But since Sverigedemokraterna (the Sweden Democrats, SD) 2 had its parliamentary breakthrough in the election of 2010, they have steadily increased their popularity among the Swedish electorate, in spite of being shunned by the media. Since their emergence, they have been contained through the use of a cordon sanitaire, a practice by which the mainstream parties exclude radical right wing populists from political collaboration and reject their prescribed xenophobia. 3 Nevertheless,