Local challenges and national concerns: municipal level responses to national refugee settlement policies in Denmark and Sweden
Year: 2017
Type of text: Vetenskaplig artikel
Published by: International Review of Administrative Sciences
Language: English
Author: Gunnar Myrberg
Pages: 18
Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0020852315586309
Short description of text
The article is a comparison between the Swedish city of Malmö and the Danish city of Aarhus in regards to municipal level responses to and perceptions of national settlement and introduction policies of the two countries. The time-period studied is from mid-2009 to mid 2012. The author unfortunately treats what his 17 informants tell him as truths about the situation and not as their understanding or perception of the situation.
Most important results
“In Malmö you are struck by a feeling of crisis in the reception of refugees, while in Aarhus the feeling is that everything is under control, not least because public officials remember how it was before, during the 1990s, when the situation in Aarhus very much resembled the present situation in Malmo” (335)
“Generous migration policies in combination with an explicit respect for the individual autonomy of newcomers have, apparently, created a difficult situation in terms of housing and introduction in Malmö, which, in turn, probably affects the integration process of newcomers in a negative way.” (323)
“Despite intense critique over two decades, the Swedish government, irrespective of political color, has refused to abolish the so-called EBO legislation which gives asylum seekers the right to decide on their own in which Swedish municipality they want to settle down. “ (335)
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Method
- three-year period from mid-2009 to mid 2012
- interviews of eight civil servants in Malmo¨ and nine in Aarhus
- regular email contacts with some of the officials over the same period
- municipal documents and public statistics
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