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In this article, we investigate local level reactions to the top-down state steering for the housing of refugees in Sweden. We especially reflect on events after the increased refugee reception in Sweden in 2015 and the introduction of a Settlement Act in 2016 which made it mandatory for municipalities to receive a specific number of refugees and organise accommodation. This has resulted in a wide array of housing situations for refugees concerning standard, costs and temporary solutions. A multi-level governance framework from on central government steering perspective is applied. We argue that the modified legislation can be understood as a change in governance throughout the years - from persuasion to economic incentives and, finally, to coercive methods. Sweden is a country that has distinguished itself as one refraining from particularity and continuing to work towards equality between newcomers and citizens. In relation to recent legal and political developments, we identify a change - a paradoxical change, as governance for the more-equal reception of refugees in Sweden seems to lead to increased inequalities for refugees on the local level.

This report answers questions about how accommodation for asylum seekers and refugees is constituted as a field of policy and regulation at the national level; how these policies and regulations are interpreted and adopted in their implementation at the local level, and how this is experienced by persons who are in the asylum process, or have recently received their residence permit in Sweden. The changing migration and reception regimes are import backgrounds as to how accommodation for asylum seekers and refugees is developing. Among these important changes are: o In November 2015 the government implemented ID control at the borders to Denmark and Germany in order to reduce the immigration of asylum seekers. o In March 2016 Sweden introduced a national refugee settlement dispersal scheme, the Settlement Act (Bosättningslagen), that makes it mandatory for municipalities to accept a specific number of refugees and to arrange for their accommodation for a period of at least two years. o In July 2016 the government implemented a temporary law that minimised the use of permanent residence permits in favour or temporary permits. It also minimised family reunification. On a policy level four accommodation pathways for asylum seekers and refugees can be identified: accommodation pathway for refugees via Facility Accommodationl; accommodation pathway for refugees via Own Accommodation; accommodation pathway for unaccompanied minors, and accommodation pathways for resettled refugees. The Settlement Act is not accompanied by any guidelines, and its implementation varies between municipalities, as regards, for instance, the kind of accommodation and its standards, renting costs, and the length of renting contracts. This is perceived as unfair. In the municipal management, the implementation of the Settlement Act cause tensions between the refugees assigned according to the Settlement Law, other newly arrived, and homeless, three vulnerable groups in society. Poor housing standards, abuse and violence in Facility ...

In a historical perspective, Sweden has transformed from being a country of emigration to one of immigration. Top emigration rates were reached in the 1880s. Immigration has exceeded emigration since 1931, but it didn't really take off until after the Second World War (Nilsson 2004). The proportion of foreign born residents in Sweden in 1930 was less than one per cent; in 2016 it reached almost 18 per cent. Over this period of time, the approaches to asylum and integration have shifted. In the early post-war period, in particularly from the early 1950s to the late 1960s, the national borders were 'open' and most immigration was categorised as labour immigration. It was dominated by immigration from European countries. After this, from the early 1970s and until the late 2000s, labour immigration was very limited. The 1980s is usually described as the decade when immigration to Sweden shifted to non-European and refugee immigration. This is also the decade when the Swedish government reformed the system for the integration of refugees. In Sweden, on both policy and operational levels, there is a distinct separation between the reception of asylum seekers and the integration of refugees and their families. While the reception of asylum seekers has always been the responsibility of the state, between 1985 and 2010 the reception of refugees was transferred from state to local authorities. The Swedish welfare model, as it developed after the Second World War, has meant that civil society organisations have played a marginal role in the reception and integration of asylum seekers and refugees. As the model have transformed, in particularly since the 1990s, the role of civil society organisations has changed. Below, we describe the shifting approaches to asylum and integration divided into three periods.

The struggles of people who sought to enter and move across Europe became increasingly intense in 2015 with unthinkable numbers of deaths on the sea and other dangerous parts of the various alternative routes. Initially Europe witnessed a popular mobilisation of solidarity and demands for a humane response articulated by government officials as well as in the media. However, the government responses changed rapidly and were replaced by a narrative of crisis and a steering towards harsher regulations and closed borders aiming to limit the numbers of asylum seekers. In Sweden, following the construction of such a narrative of crisis the Social democratic/Green party government and the right wing opposition launched an initial migration political agreement in November 2015 that was followed by several interventions during 2016 that sought to restrict the possibilities to get permanent resident permits and to facilitate the expulsion of irregular migrants. These interventions imply a critical shift in the direction of Swedish migration and asylum regulations. In this paper we argue that this shift visibly and bluntly moves towards enforcing the links between migration politics and labour politics. In other words: to abandon a human rights perspective.In this paper our analysis focuses on the Swedish migration politics' switching from permanent to temporary residence permits; the racialisation of service and domestic work low pay sectors; and the intensification of irregular migrant vulnerability through work site controls and other measures to increase deportation practices. We conceptualise the effects of these interventions as a racialised continuum of deportability and explore how this continuum is constructed, experienced and contested in the context of the government responses to present migrations. The analysis builds on two kinds of material: government documents and press releases regarding the migration political interventions, and ethnographic material from two different studies exploring structures and ...

This article will explore the extent to which a focus on the 'local' can tell us something meaningful about recent developments in the governance of displaced migrants and refugees. Taking a multi-sited approach spanning cases in the south and north of Europe, we consider how the challenge of housing and accommodation in particular, a core sector of migrant reception and integration, can shed light on the ways local and city level approaches may negotiate, and sometimes diverge from, national level policy and rhetoric. While it can be said that despite variation, local authorities are by definition ultimately 'always subordinate' (Emilsson, Comparative Migration Studies, 3: 1-17, 2015: 4), they can also show evidence of 'decoupling' across geographies of policy delivery (Pope and Meyer, European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, 3: 280–305, 2016: 290). This article traces how possible local variations in different European cases are patterned by ground-level politics, local strategic networks, and pre-existing economic resources in a manner that is empirically detailed through the study of housing.

Migration and integration, especially the reception of refugees and displaced peoples, are widely shared social and political challenges across Europe. The purpose of GLIMER is to understand how the governance and local integration of migrants and Europe's refugees is developing, and in ways that can be utilised through best practice sharing and reporting. Inspired by the success of 'welcoming cities' in southern Italy, we will work with civil society groups, local authorities, citizens and refugee groups in order to support sustainable the meaningful integration of diverse communities. We will focus on cities in both Southern and Northern Europe and a key aspect of the project will be dedicated to investigating how the local governance of new arrivals can secure successful integration across a range of indicators. This research will be carried out in close collaboration with practitioners with the aim of co-producing knowledge that can be beneficial for a range of stakeholders including civil society groups and NGOs as well as municipalities.