Why is low wages the right way to integration? : A discourse analysis searching for perceptions of justice in Swedish parliamentary debates

Abstract: This study has centered on the proposal for decreasing the entrance rate in order to create more jobs and integrate the increasing asylum seekers in the Swedish society. Based on a discourse analysis on the parliamentary debates “The road to the labor market” and “Integration”, this thesis examines the discourses around ‘justice’. By applying Nancy Frasers theoretical framework of justice, the arguments were analyzed in order to understand if the constructed problems were built on the dimension of recognition or redistribution and to investigate if the solutions were based on an affirmative or transformative strategy. The analysis shows that the primary justice discourse in the debate of labor and integration is the distribution dimension. The injustices that are presented in these debates are concerned with maldistribution. Affirmative strategies are mostly suggested for solutions which indicates that the politicians in the Swedish parliament have an urge to solve problems in the present instead of focusing on the future and solving the underlying structure.