Tensions beneath the surface – The Swedish mainstream parties and the immigration issue

Abstract

The main focus of this article is on how the Swedish mainstream parties on the centre-left and the centre-right have dealt with the immigration issue. After brief overviews of trends in immigration and public opinion, the history of immigration in Swedish politics since the 1980s is discussed. It is argued that the 2002 election campaign was of pivotal importance for a number of reasons; most importantly because it politicised labour immigration. The main empirical part consists of a qualitative content analysis of 25 election manifestos from 2002, 2006 and 2010. The analysis shows a clear difference between the mainstream parties and the Sweden Democrats. More importantly, there are differences also among the mainstream parties, in terms of the relative amount of space devoted to immigration as well as substantive content. This is most evident on the centre-left. There is more coherence on the centre-right, but also here underlying tensions can be detected. Thus, the issue of immigration has the potential to destabilise the two main political blocs, as well as the entire party system.