Flyktingpolitik och spårberoende : En jämförelse av svensk och finsk flyktingpolitik

The essay aims to compare Swedish and Finnish decisions regarding refugee policies by tracing them back to the critical junctures when the policies were established, in order to explain why there are big differences prevalent today. The questions asked involve the motivations of the refugee policies and how they have changed over time. The theoretical framework employed is based on historical institutionalism and path dependency. By using a most similar system design and process tracing, material in the form of government declarations and government bills are studied and summed up in two analytical models. The results show that there might be a weak path dependency in the case of Finland. However it is more apparent in the case of Sweden, with frequent statements of a generous refugee policy that is characterised by humanity. The conclusions drawn are that the differences between the refugee policies might be due to the fact that the refugee policies are motivated in different ways in the two countries. Furthermore, Sweden has had an established policy for a long time whereas Finland has only just started developing this program