Sweden Pro-Immigrant Consensus Case Study

Sweden’s pro-immigrant consensus has led Sweden to become one of the main countries in Europe accepting refugees into their country. However, during the last decade the large number of incoming asylum seekers from Syria and other countries has caused controversy. The unemployment rates in Sweden, as well as the far-right, anti-immigrant party election polls rates, have increased significantly during the past few years. Sweden has become divided between those who want the welcoming consensus to remain, and those who think it is time to close the boarders. Some stakeholders believe the growth of the anti-immigration consensus is due to the fact that the pro-immigrant parties have avoided dealing with the economic and social flaws in the Swedish …show more content…
In 1988, the anti-immigrant party Sweden Democrats was formed. The party started growing slowly, winning 2.6% of Sweden’s votes during the 2006 election. However, It wasn’t until the Sweden Democrats won 5.6% of the Swedish votes during the 2010 election—enough to make it into parliament that year—that the political parties and Swedish people started taking notice of the number of anti-immigrants supporters in the country. The Sweden Democrats have been critiqued for its racist comments, directed mostly towards Muslims. The Leader of the Party, Jimmy Åkessson, claimed that the Muslims entering the country were, “the biggest threat to Sweden since World War II” (Eakin). Although this started some controversy as to what was changing in Swedish society, according to an article in The International Herald Tribune some experts concluded that this was only due to a good election campaigning from the Sweden Democrats and not to an underlying promotion of racist views (Castle). The other political parties’ approach to the rise in anti-immigrant supporters was to deride the Sweden Democrats and their followers’ consensus, as well as refusing to work with or involve the far-right party in debate about the Swedish immigration policy. Sweden Democrats’ supporting votes increased as much as 13% at this year’s election; consequently they have now become the third largest party in …show more content…
However, most other European countries do not want to take action in this case, due to economical or religious factors. Some claim they cannot afford it, while other Christian countries are debating whether they will let in refugees of other religion (Polish News Bulletin). In order to make sure that the European immigration crisis is solved in a sustainable fashion, journalist Ross Douthat states that every country should contribute to the Syrian refugee crisis; however, the extent to which they should contribute may differ: “There may be a moral obligation to accept refugees in wealthy countries, but there cannot be a moral obligation to accept refugees at a pace one’s own society cannot reasonably