Legal Resilience against Rights Erosion in Current Swedish Migration Policy
from Part III - Resilience at the National Level: Case Studies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 May 2022
This chapter investigates the role of ‘crisis’ narratives in the incremental undermining of migrants’ rights. It argues that the right-wing populist politics of Sweden Democrats, not least in their narrative of migration as a ‘crisis’, have had a considerable impact on migration discourse and policy in Sweden. As radical-right ideas have become normalized, limitations on migrant rights appear to be regarded as much less problematic by mainstream political parties. At the same time, the Swedish constitutional system promotes a set of core values that, taken together, provide for legal resilience. Although there are weaknesses built into the system, such as the relatively limited system of judicial review and the limited scope of fundamental rights included in the Constitution, core values such as independence of the administration and transparency of the legislative process are powerful tools to prevent anti-democratic and anti-pluralist parties from pushing through their ideas. It is thus suggested that the inherent inertia of the administrative system and the legislative process is a key element of legal resilience against rights erosion, for migrants as well as for other vulnerable groups.
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