Civic integration is an essential part of contemporary migration control regimes. This thesis examines what happens when civic integration policy enters domestic courts, by focusing on how Sweden’s migration courts (which are part of the administrative courts) apply the income and housing requirements for family reunification.The thesis revolves around a common discussion in the legal literature, namely whether Swedish administrative courts have become less preoccupied with pursuing national policy objectives and whether the internationalization of the Swedish legal order has constrained the national legislator’s room for action. By looking at when and how the migration courts refer to and discuss legal sources, it provides a deeper understanding of the relationship between the courts and national political aims. The thesis further evaluates whether the courts’ application corresponds with theories in the legal literature of how Swedish courts have adapted to the internationalization of the Swedish legal order. The main findings are the following. First, the migration courts’ application does not correspond with the above-mentioned theories in the legal literature. Second, the migration courts’ application is in line with the national policy objectives that followed the 2015 ‘refugee crisis’, meaning that the courts seem unwilling to intervene in Swedish migration policy (e.g. by using EU law and ECHR arguments). Lastly, the migrations courts’ application differs from parts of the theories of the function of civic integration that have been put forward in recent years. In these theories, civic integration is partly linked to the prevalence of workfare policy, meaning, inter alia, that self-sufficiency and self-improvement have become key civic virtues. The courts primarily reward non-flexibility in the labour market and hinder attempts at self-improvement, which seems to go against a workfare logic. The thesis further highlights that Sweden’s migration courts reinforce processes of social stratification.

Databases are increasingly used in international law settings. This requires new strategies for those who want to critique international legal practices and their effects. In this essay, we claim that legal scholarship tends to conceptualize the database in ways that leave older and inadequate ideas of legal method(s) and sovereignty in the context of international law largely unquestioned or even serve to reinforce them. Further, we argue that these tendencies obstruct proper understandings of international legal practices and prevent adequate critique. To illustrate the extent of these tendencies, we provide examples from our own research areas: migration law and international corporate income tax law. We contend that empirical studies of how databases are used in these and other legal settings, can help demystify and rework well-established assumptions through which international law, and the database, are seen.