“Of course we can do this! If the EU takes joint responsibility. If the municipalities in Sweden take responsibility and help each other. If we cooperate” A qualitative text analysis of rhetorical framing of refugee immigration in Sweden between 2014-01-0

Sammanfattning: In 2016, a new restrictive asylum law was passed in Sweden, which limits asylum seekers’ possibilities of being granted residence permits and being reunited with their families. The passing of new restrictive asylum in law is interesting, since values such as solidarity and cosmopolitan ideals are deeply entrenched within the Swedish welfare state, which were evident in expansive immigration policies supported on humanitarian grounds prior to the new restrictive law. To understand the rhetorical reasoning that preceded the policy-change, this study aims to shed light on how key members of the Social Democratic Party have framed refugee immigration in public statements published in daily news between 2014-01-01 and 2016-07-20. In doing so, the thesis aims to explore how key members of the Social Democratic Party have rhetorically reasoned about citizenship rights and cosmopolitan ideals. By analysing the public statements made by key members in the Social Democratic Party, recurring themes in rhetoric reasoning, as expressed during previous critical junctions in the immigration policy field, was discovered. Additionally, by categorising the statements chronologically and according to the theoretical concepts applied; framing, citizenship rights and cosmopolitanism, the study investigates how the representation and framing of refugee immigration by key members in the Social Democratic Party changed between 2014-01-01 and 2016-07-20.