“Sweden Has Been Naïve”: Nationalism, Protectionism and Securitisation in Response to the Refugee Crisis of 2015

Mathias Ericson

doi:10.17645/si.v6i4.1512

Abstract

Fake news, disinformation campaigns, xenophobia, political resentment, and a general backlash on equality issues mark the current political climate. In this context, the idealism of the Swedish welfare state has gained a specific symbolic value. This article investigates how the idealisation of Sweden as a modern and gender-equal country was articulated as a focal point in the establishment of threat and crisis narratives in the political debate of the refugee crisis of 2015. The article shows how progressive and egalitarian ideals were viewed as outdated and naïve, but at the same time put forward as core values worthy of protection. The title refers to the statement made by the Swedish Prime Minister in 2015 stating that “Sweden has been naïve” and serves as an example of how the myth of Sweden as an exceptionally modern, secular, and equal society was evoked in processes of securitisation, nationalistic protectionism, and normalisation of xenophobia. The article concludes that the articulation of Swedish exceptionalism in the establishment of threat and crisis narratives may reproduce and enhance social inequality and polarisation.

Highlights

The idealisation of Sweden as the most secure, modern, and gender-equal country in the world, expressed in the metaphor of “the people’s home”, is a powerful discourse (Martinsson, Griffin, & Giritli Nygren, 2016)
Critical studies have raised concerns about how the construction of a form of Swedish exceptionalism needs to be examined as a form of power struggle, calling attention to how it contributes to the silencing and normalisation of racist and gendered power asymmetries and excluding practices
I have touched upon the conflicting ways in which the idealisation of Sweden as a modern and gender-equal country was articulated as a focal point in the establishment of threat and crisis narratives in relation to the dramatic events of the refugee crisis in 2015

Summary

Introduction

The idealisation of Sweden as the most secure, modern, and gender-equal country in the world, expressed in the metaphor of “the people’s home”, is a powerful discourse (Martinsson, Griffin, & Giritli Nygren, 2016) It works as a form of path-dependency (Cox, 2004) that limits national policies as well as influencing foreign policy, for instance, expressed in the current government’s acclaimed feminist foreign policy. The sense of collapse was dramatically charged with xenophobic discourses on migrant men sexually harassing women and supposedly being unable to adjust to the assumed gender-equal Swedish society (Rogberg, 2016; Stiernstedt, 2016) These forms of alarmism were reinforced and gained legitimacy in November 2015 after the Swedish government presented the dramatic decision to stop migrants at the border. I suggest that the seemingly paradoxical situation where a government presenting themselves as feminist launched conservative and masculinist forms of protectionism, may, be viewed as claiming political legitimacy

Masculinity and Protectionism

Staging Migration as a Security Problem

The People’s Home Becoming Unfamiliar

Conclusions