Unlike most Europeans, Swedes are becoming more opposed to immigration, yet remain highly supportive of a common EU migration policy

Dr. James Dennison
Sep 8, 2018 · 7 min read

By James Dennison (EUI) and Marcus Österman (Uppsala University)

Ahead of Sunday’s Swedish election, significant international interest has been given to the Sweden Democrats — a former extreme right party arguably remade in the model of a ‘typical’ contemporary European populist right party — which is currently polling between 15% and 20% and has seemingly undermined the previously accepted wisdom that Sweden is ‘immune’ to far right success. In this short blog, we overview the key — in some ways countervailing — trends in attitudes to immigration in Sweden as compared to European averages and speculate about how these might relate to the rise of the Sweden Democrats.

First, whereas in most European countries, populist right parties have performed better in spite of increased positivity to immigration amongst the general population, Sweden is one of the few European countries in which attitudes to immigration have become more negative in recent years. As we can see in Figure 1, whereas Europeans as a whole have become more positive to both non-EU immigration and EU immigration since 2014, Swedes have become more negative to the former and remained stable regarding the latter. That said, Sweden was the most positive country to non-EU immigration in 2014 and still had the third highest net positivity in March 2018.

However, Swedish net positivity to non-EU immigrants fell by 20% between 2014 and 2018, the fourth biggest drop in the EU behind Romania, Hungary and Poland and contrary to the trend amongst most other western European member states (the only others being, interestingly, Denmark and Finland where falls were less pronounced). Net positivity to EU immigration increased by less than 1% in Sweden, the second lowest increase amongst all 28 EU electorates.

Figure 1. Net positivity to non-EU immigration and EU immigration in Sweden and the EU28 in 2014 and 2018. Source: Eurobarometer, ‘Please tell me whether each of the following statements evokes a positive or negative feeling for you: Immigration from outside the EU/Immigration from other EU member states’

We know that rapid change in political attitudes amongst electorates is reasonably rare. This is because political attitudes are to an extent rooted in psychological predispositions, early-life socialisation and one’s values — broad, motivational goals that individuals rely on to navigate life and the world — resulting in political attitudes that to a large extent remain stable. There are, however, situations in which this is not the case. First, the substantive meaning of the object of the attitude can change — for example, what immigration is perceived to be (its scale, components and effects) may change. Second, the prominence of the issue may dramatically change. If something is of low significance to voters, we can expect individuals to devote less time to considering the issue, have lower political knowledge of it, use the issue less when making electoral choices and permissively consent to policy makers dealing with the issue. We can expect the opposite to be true of high salience issues. Because of all this, when an issue quickly switches from low to higher salience, there can be widespread political ramifications, including the potential for attitudinal transformation.

What is interesting in the Swedish case is the opposite direction of travel in terms of political attitudes from the rest of Europe. Explaining these changes is a challenging topic. The most obvious thing to point out is that Sweden experienced a surge in the number of asylum-seekers during the autumn of 2015, especially during a few weeks when the numbers quadrupled (see Figure 2). Other potential explanations peculiar to Sweden include a breakdown in previous taboos or social desirability biases in survey response.

Figure 2: Asylum-seekers per week 2013–2018, Sweden. Source: Swedish Migration Agency.

After the initial spike in asylum admissions, a six-party agreement in October 2015 between the Social Democrats, the Green Party and the centre-right opposition (all parties but the Sweden Democrats and the Left Party) meant a quick turnaround in Swedish migration policy from generous to strict. In consequence the number of asylum seekers fell again fell sharply. However, when asked a year later in 2017, of 10 European electorates asked, Swedes had the joint highest percentage (38%, like Italians) ‘strongly disagreeing’ that their national government had responded well to the refugee crisis (see Figure 3). Swedes were the second most likely respond that they strongly disagreed the EU had handled the crisis well.

Figure 3. “Do you agree that your national government/the European Union has responded well to the refugee crisis?” (source: Ipsos Global Tracker, 2017)

Dissatisfaction with national government performance, during the period 2014–2016, seemingly benefited the Sweden Democrats, who became the party with the most favoured migration policy (see Figure 4). The Social Democrats lost what tentative issue ownership they had of the issue. However, by far the most common response remained ‘no opinion’ on party policy preferences for migration.

Figure 4. Percentage share agreeing that a party has ‘good policies’ on migration in 2014 and 2016. Source: Martinsson, 2017.

What changed far more drastically during these years was the salience of immigration. The percentage listing immigration as one of the most important societal problems rose from 27 percent in 2014 to 53 percent in 2015 according to one long-running survey (Martinsson, Andersson & Bergström). This made immigration the most frequently stated issue by a good margin (followed by education on 29% and health on 24 %). Even though salience of immigration dropped somewhat in 2016 and 2017, it has remained the most frequently stated issue. By contrast, prior to 2015, immigration had never been regarded as the most important issue in this data set dating back to 1987.

Since 2015, the focus has mainly turned towards cultural integration and job opportunities for immigrants, perhaps explaining why immigration has remained a salient issue long after the peak in arrivals subsided. Prime Minister Stefan Löfven has numerous times underlined the need for ‘a well-ordered immigration policy’. This is in contrast to how the autumn of 2015 often has been described in terms of ‘chaos’ and ‘crisis’ or even as a possible ‘system collapse’ (e.g., see Affärsvärlden 9 Nov, 2015).

Figure 5. ‘What do you think are the two most important issues (MII) affecting your country/the EU/you personally right now?’ % responding immigration (source: Eurobarometer) and polling performance of Sweden Democrats, 2005–2018

When we use Eurobarometer data, we can compare how important Swedes see immigration to their country, the EU and themselves and to how important the average European sees immigration to these three things (Figure 5). Until 2015, the average European was more concerned about immigration — in terms of its effect on their country and the EU — than the average Swede. However, since then Swedes have overtaken Europeans, with a greater proportion believing that immigration is one of the top two issues affecting their country (25% in March 2018) and the EU (42% in March). We can see that polling for the Sweden Democrats correlates well with all three of the Swedish most important issue (MII) measures. A far greater proportion of the Swedish electorate see immigration as particularly salient to Sweden and, particularly, the EU than is the proportion who plan on voting for the Sweden Democrats, suggesting that only certain individuals who see immigration as salient then switch their allegiance — based on negative attitudes to immigration, perhaps preference for authoritarianism and, more distally, socio-demographic attributes.

Looking ahead to the 2019 European elections

With increasing negativity towards non-EU immigration and an even more dramatic increase in the perceived importance of immigration to Sweden and the EU, how have Swedish policy preferences changed? As shown in Figure 6, Swedes (like all Europeans) remain highly supportive of a common European migration policy, which has remained static at around three-in-four since 2014. Concern over immigration to the EU is not rejection of the EU or a common migration policy, something that European policy makers may want to bear in mind in the aftermath of next year’s European elections campaign, in which immigration is likely to be one of the major issues of contention.

Figure 6. % responding ‘For’ and ‘Against’ a ‘common European policy on migration’. Source: Eurobarometer, EU28 and Sweden

Part of the reason for this may be found in what individuals associate with the EU. When asked to choose from a long list of both positive and negative things that one might associate with the EU, Swedes were far more likely to choose ‘Freedom to study, work and travel anywhere in the EU’ than ‘Not enough control at external borders’, as was the average European, although less resoundingly. As the salience of immigration has increased, so have the percentage responding with both of these answers (see Figure 7).

Figure 7. ‘What does the EU mean to you personally?’ % responding ‘Freedom to study, work and travel anywhere in the EU’ and ‘Not enough control at external borders’. Source: Eurobarometer

Overall, ahead of the Swedish election, commentators have naturally focused on one of its more dramatic aspects — the rise of the Sweden Democrats, confounding previous ideas about Swedish politics and, seemingly, its attitudes. Sweden has indeed been one of the few Western European countries to see its attitudes to immigration harden as the topic has increasingly been in the political spotlight. The Sweden Democrats have benefited from dissatisfaction with the government on the topic as — the still minority of — voters with anti-immigration views have coalesced around a party that was once seen of electorally repugnant. The gravity of this shift should not be underplayed, nor should its broader lesson for elites that even pro-immigration individuals, of which the Swedes remain exemplars, expect ‘orderly’ and ‘regular’ approaches to migration policy. However, it should neither be misconstrued as a rejection by Swedes of the EU or the prospects or preferences for a pan-European migration policy following the 2019 elections.

Written by

Social Scientist at European University Institute, Florence | Research Fellow, Migration Policy Centre | Observatory of Public Attitudes to Migration

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