Permanent residence permits and demands for integration: a genealogical analysis of Swedish immigration policy

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores the contemporary civic integration policy trend of fusing migration control and integration requirements, by analysing Swedish immigration policies from a governmentality perspective. Through a genealogical analysis, the article focuses on policies on permanent residence permits and explores key concepts which underly contemporary policies on permanent residence permit, and the technologies of citizenship and anti-citizenship produced through them. The material consists of Swedish official documents published between 1951 and 2021. The analysis shows that ‘incentives’ and ‘conduct’ are key concepts which underly contemporary policies, where the permanent residence permit is constructed as part of an assemblage of technologies of (anti-)citizenship, governing non-citizens towards becoming law-abiding and working subjects. Furthermore, both these concepts have been given different meaning over time, especially the concept of incentives. This concept was central in the 1950s, then backgrounded during the late twentieth century and reactivated in 2015. The policies on permanent residence permit once again activated an assemblage of technologies aimed at governing the motivation of non-citizens who require residence permits. This reactivation relates to a wider trend of civic integration within western countries, where policies are recurringly designed to ‘improve’ non-citizens who are portrayed as morally lacking.