Sweden's Immigration Governance. A Critical Analysis of how the Policies and the DiscourseCorrespond : A Qualitative Study of Sweden's Immigration Governance and the Discourse Surrounding it from 2015 to 2022

Immigration into Sweden has since 2015 been a well-discussed area in the public debates. Some argue for more closure while some towards greater openness, due to this increased visibility in public discourse it is a widely shared assumption that migration policies, in general, have become more restrictive while in many studies the case shows to be the contrary when comparing the discourse to the actual laws. This is defined as the discursive gap and what this thesis aims to answer is if such a gap is present in the Swedish immigration governance from 2015 to 2022 as well as how the immigration governance has changed, toward more or less restrictive. This is researched through the ‘liberal paradox’ theory and through the methodology found in the ‘What’s the Problem Represented to Be Approach?`.The data analysis consists of both legal documents as well as transcripts from the parliamentary debates during the time period. The result shows that Sweden is not a clear case of the discursive gap and that it is not a strict development of less restrictive policies but rather that immigration governance in Sweden is marked by selectiveness