Reviewing the Politics of Immigration in Sweden over the Bilateral Remittance Flows between Sweden and Turkey in light of Theories on Remittances

Sammanfattning: In recent years, remittance flows as a part of economic and political competition has become an important issue in politics. Countries intend to increase money inflows by encouraging their citizens who live abroad to transfer their earnings back to their home countries. Today, since the influence of remittances on global economy is perceived to be very critical the remittance flows between countries are closely monitored by important political and economic actors. Sweden and Turkey are the two countries which have developed close relations on migration and remittances over the last fifty years and now Sweden passes through a transition period in terms of evolvement of the public opinion on immigration. This dissertation focuses on the analysis of remittance structure between Sweden and Turkey with a theoretical perspective in order to contribute to evaluation of immigration policies of the political parties in Sweden in light of remittances. The recent general election in Sweden resulted in favor of political parties which support more restricted immigration policies. Eventually, the dissertation aims to contribute with another economic aspect to the comparison on the perspectives of the political parties in Sweden towards immigration. Therefore, the results from the case study is used to verify whether the tendency of the public opinion in Sweden is meaningful. Briefly, in this study, the bilateral remittances between the two countries are examined per se considering views of mainstream theories on remittances and the results are evaluated with the recent political thoughts on immigration in Sweden. The results refers that the negative tendency of public opinion echoed by some political parties in Sweden towards immigration is not economically rational in the sense of remittances.