The differential distributions of grievability in Swedish welfare discourse: A study on welfare chauvinism in the Swedish right wing continuum

Abstract: In the context of increasing welfare chauvinism in the Swedish right wing, and a mainstreaming of far right nationalist ideology, it has become increasingly important to analyze the racialized and classed implications of restrictive welfare discourse. Anchored in the feminist, antiracist and postcolonial theoretical field, this thesis analyzes welfare discourse in officially published political texts and budget proposals by three Swedish right wing political parties. The results show that the parties, conceptualized here as the Swedish ‘right wing continuum’, construct borders around welfare access that are rooted in racialized and classed notions of nativeness and labor market value. While the parties attempt to construct welfare as something that should be provided for all people in order to make everyone's life livable, the analysis reveals that such egalitarian notions are not extended to those perceived as migrants. Instead, welfare access is bordered as an extension of a neoliberal national project. Subsequently, the lives of those perceived as migrants are constructed as fundamentally ungrievable as no political regard is shown for their livability.