Family migration policy, once basing citizens and resident foreigners’ possibilities to bring in foreign family members mainly on the right to family life, is increasingly a tool states use to limit immigration and to push newcomers to integrate into civic and economic life. The family migration policies of Denmark, Norway and Sweden range widely – from more minimal support and age requirements to high expectations of language skills, work records and even income levels. While in Denmark and increasingly in Norway growing sets of requirements have been justified on the need to protect the welfare state and a Nordic liberal way of life, in Sweden more minimal requirements have been introduced in the name of spurring immigrants’ labor market integration even as rights-based reasoning has continued to dominate. In all three countries, new restrictions have been introduced in the wake of the refugee crisis. These cases show how prioritizations of the right to family life vis-à-vis welfare-state sustainability have produced different rules for family entry, and how family migration policies are used to different extents to push civic integration of both new and already settled immigrants.

Denmark and Sweden have many features in common, not least the way welfare state symbols are used in the construction of each country’s national identity, but they display striking differences in approaches to immigrant integration. The chapter argues that this situation reflects the existence of distinctly different dominating ideal typical notions on how social cohesion and welfare state sustainability comes about: In Denmark, a society-centred perspective is predominant, viewing the existence of a particular cultural homogeneity as indispensable for the welfare state to sustain. In Sweden, a state-centred approach instead prevails, referring to the welfare state as a potential promoter of social inclusion. Depending on what ideal typical idea is the dominant, perceptions vary on what are the main challenges from immigration and cultural pluralism, and what policy measures need to be taken. Comparative analysis of a long period of elite discourses and policy developments substantiates the argument.

This special issue addresses the question of how to understand the civic turn within immigrant integration in the West towards programs and instruments, public discourses and political intentions, which aim to condition, incentivize, and shape through socialization immigrants into ‘citizens’. Empirically, it focuses on the less studied Scandinavian cases of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. In this introduction, we situate the contributions to this special issue within the overall debate on civic integration and convergence. We introduce the three cases, critically discuss the (liberal) convergence thesis and its descriptive and explanatory claims, and explain why studying the Scandinavian welfare states can further our understanding of the nature of the civic turn and its driving forces. Before concluding, we discuss whether civic integration policies actually work.

How should we understand that Denmark and Sweden – two countries with manifold features in common – have arrived at strikingly divergent policy responses towards immigrant integration? This paper suggests that, despite similar references to welfare state symbols, dominant national identity constructions in the two countries represent distinctly different ideal typical views on how social solidarity is generated and maintained. In Denmark official political discourse and policy making processes indicates the working of a society-centered perspective on national identity, emphasizing social cohesion as a necessary precondition for public institutions to sustain. This idea is arguably reflected in the Danish immigrant policy approach, where the inclusion of newcomers is conditioned on them acquiring a comprehensive set of demands defining a predefined (and ‘settled’) idea of Danishness. In comparison, the Swedish idea about national identity is more oriented towards a state-centered approach, in the sense that the capacity of the political institutions – notably the welfare state – is typically emphasized as the core promoter of social inclusion and sense of national belonging. In the field of immigrant integration, this idea is mirrored in a widespread conviction that the organization of welfare state institutions, rather than the spirit of the people, constitutes the necessary condition for creating and sustaining national cohesion and integration. The paper gives a historical account of the nation building processes in the two countries and shows that crucial differences in political perceptions along the ideal types mentioned above are to be identified in contemporary political discourses related to the ‘civic’ turn in immigrant integration policies.

This article aims at characterizing and explaining Swedish family migration policies from a European comparative point of view. The analysis shows that Sweden applies equally strict eligibility rules for members beyond the nuclear family as most other European countries. Moreover, Sweden introduced such stricter rules much earlier than other countries. In other respects, however, Swedish family migration policies stand out as exceptionally liberal in European comparison; few, if any, requirements are imposed on the sponsor and joining family members acquire equal rights status either immediately or 2 years after admission. To explain this situation, the article analyzes political processes behind two important family migration policy decisions in 1997 and 2010. The conclusion is that Swedish welfare state ideology and party politics importantly contribute to understanding why Sweden diverges from European trends in family migration policies.

Family migration policies are part of a larger integration policy trend referred to as the ‘civic integrationist turn’. States across Europe have moved away from more rights-based approaches for the integration of immigrants towards a stronger emphasis on obligations, implying that new arrivals must prove to have attained certain integration achievements before accessing rights in the host country. This development has to be understood in relation to growing concerns about national identity and social cohesion where immigrant groups are seen to pose a threat to existing liberal values. Arguably, discourses of gender equality are at the heart of this debate, and have pushed the question of women’s emancipation closer to the borders of Fortress Europe. It is in this context that we locate our paper on gender equality discourses on family re-unification policies and more specifically marriage migration in the UK and Sweden. The rationale behind our comparative approach is that these countries share a similar ‘multicultural’ integration policy legacy and were previously regarded to be the most committed to the ‘multicultural programme’. But while the UK has made significant policy moves, with the introduction of stricter requirements, Sweden remains reluctant towards the use of civic conditioning of rights as an integration policy tool.

The present article offers an account of Swedish integration policies in the post-war period. The theoretical purpose is to assess Christian Joppke’s hypothesis that recent trends of integration policy convergence have rendered the national model approach analytically useless. The analysis shows that Sweden deviates, in some important respects, from the European trend by not formulating demands that link integration achievements to immigrants’ access to fundamental rights. The conclusion is that the Swedish case does not support Joppke’s hypothesis, but rather indicates that path dependency of national models is a valid explanation to ongoing developments. It is argued that the Swedish exception should be understood as an expression of the persistent impact of a policy logic according to which integration requires that all citizens have equal and universal access to certain fundamental rights. The article builds on general comparisons with European policy developments and uses Denmark as a more specific reference point.