MIGRATIONSNARRATIVET I SVERIGE – SKILLNADEN PÅ FLYKTINGAR OCH FLYKTINGAR En kvalitativ gestaltningsanalys av flyktingnarrativet hos Sveriges regering mellan flyktingkriserna 2015 och 2022

Abstract

The European refugee crises in 2015 and 2022 has been labelled as two of the worst refugee crises in Europe since the second world war. The response from the Swedish government has been vastly different between the two crises. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the Swedish governments narrative and policy changes between 2015 and 2022, and how the Swedish government presents refugees differently during different time periods. This study also aims to understand the relationship between refugee narratives, policy change, and refugee solidarity. This is answered through a frame analysis based on the three most prominent spheres refugee narratives tend to fall under: Victim frame, benefit frame and threat frame. The study also utilizes solidarity as a research tradition to compare how the Swedish government argues when deciding what refugees deserve and do not deserve. The results shows that the Swedish government’s narrative and solidarity vastly changed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and became overly positive compared to the refugee crisis during 2015. The results also indicate that Russia was the main threat during the latter crisis while the refugees themselves were the main threat during the 2015 crisis. Lastly, the results shows that the solidarity shown is mostly dependent on the perceived threat of refugees rather than the situation the refugees are fleeing from, or what benefits refugees bring the recipient country.