The reasoned Samaritan: a study on the Swedish government’s reasons behind the restrictive shift in refugee policy in 2015

Abstract: This thesis is concerned with understanding the restrictive shift in refugee policy that occurred in Sweden during the fall of 2015. Several European states decided to deny entry to refugees, which led to a vast immigration in Sweden. The high quantity of asylum seekers resulted in Sweden adopting restrictive measures in order to limit the immigration rate and regain order and stability in the country. Seeing as the state has a history of a generous foreign politics and a government that seeks to strengthen the protection of refugees a restrictive shift in policy came as a surprise. The aim is thus to examine if the government’s actions correspond with their political stance by answering the question “did the Swedish government argue for that the shift in refugee policy was humanitarian, and if so, how?” By looking at the government’s arguments found in speeches, interviews, and reports the analysis shows that the government both explicitly and implicitly argues for adopting a humanitarian politics. Using statistics and the lack of EU cooperation as arguments the government is able to justify their actions as humanitarian and as being in line with their political views.