A Contested Commitment? External Pressure and Policy Feedback in Swedish Immigration Politics

Europe in 2015 shows an increasingly polarized political landscape as right-wing parties are gaining and the flow of refugees is increasing to a magnitude not seen since WW2. We take these processes as a point of departure to examine theories of policy feedback mechanisms on the case of Sweden. Sweden has together with Germany been the country that during 2015 has welcomed the largest share of refugees. At the same time, opinion patterns are complicated. Sweden has a history of a public opinion that displays a comparatively strong support of refugee commitments, but the support is not consistent over time and differs among sub groups. Also, there has for some time existed an underlying critique of the generous immigration policy, politically represented by the Sweden Democrats. In the paper, we investigate if and how numbers of refugees and public opinion towards immigration relate. We also want to explore what the external political pressure means for opinions of refugee/immigration policy and political decisions in the area. Policy feedback theories focus on the dynamic relationship between policy and public opinion. Research is particularly interested in how the mechanisms by which citizens become aware of, and responds to, policy outcome proceed. In the research area, several hypotheses concerning the dynamics are presented. The thermostatic theory (see Wlezien 1995) predicts a negative feedback where an increase in policy is followed by a decrease in public preferences for more policy. Other scholars point to the possibility of positive feedback mechanisms. In the paper, we will use policy feedback theories to test and interpret the dynamics between policy and opinion. Can policy feedback theory explain the changes in opinion or are they due to external events? If a connection between policy and opinion is found, how can it be characterized and which causal mechanisms can be identified? Does the policy-opinion dynamic differ among subgroups such as left-right orientation? Our data gives us opportunity to investigate the policy-opinion link over time, drawing conclusions concerning the feedback mechanisms during different periods. An assumption is that external events interplay with national policy, thus generating different responsiveness patterns in different time periods. We have access both fine-grained data on individual level from the current year of extra ordinary events (collected in May, September and November), as well as data over time (1999-2014), including other individual measures such as left-right position. Tentative results from the recent development show an increased liberalization during the summer of 2015 towards refugee acceptance among the population simultaneously as the inflow in refugees increased dramatically. Hence, during this time period the effect does not seem to be thermostatic. Events during fall seem to display another dynamic where public opinion towards liberal refugee policy declined somewhat and in November, the Swedish government issued several restrictive reforms to diminish refugee inflow. The change in opinion and policy may be due both to increased immigration and public authorities pointing at the almost exhausted capacity of Swedish authorities to live up to commitments.