Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Crises – Universalism and Civil Rights under pressure in Scandinavian Countries

This paper describes and analyse how the notion of social citizenship and the concept of universalism is increasingly under pressure as the refugee crises destabilizes the modern welfare states and challenges the solidarity among groups of citizens. More profoundly, at a theoretical and normative level it threatens and puts the concepts of social citizenship and universalism under pressure. This paper analyses how the Scandinavian countries with their universalist welfare state models, and here notably Denmark and Norway, handle the consequences of the refugee crises at the policy level, and how these political markings relate to the normative ideals of social citizenship and universalism. Theoretically the paper draws on Gøsta Esping-Andersen´s welfare state models. The method is public document analysis, and data consist of public documents from Denmark and Norway. The analysis will discuss findings in the light of the welfare state models, here notably the universal and rights based Scandinavian model.