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Empowerment or excessive care? Discourse analysis of the debate around Swedish integration policy

Nilsson, Elvira LU (2011) STVK01 20111
Department of Political Science
Abstract
This investigation is about Establishment reform that was launched by the Swedish government in December 2010, which is looked at from the discourse perspective. In order to reveal the contents of dominating and alternative discourses around the reform, as well as show the existing value conflict, Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis is applied to the documents about the reform, parliament debates and newspaper articles. Besides critical discourse theory postcolonial perspective, governmentality and neo-classical human capital theory are used for the analysis. It is thus shown that while public debate is rather oriented on changing the situation, policy documents point out reproduction tendencies. I reveal two discourses on integration... (More)
This investigation is about Establishment reform that was launched by the Swedish government in December 2010, which is looked at from the discourse perspective. In order to reveal the contents of dominating and alternative discourses around the reform, as well as show the existing value conflict, Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis is applied to the documents about the reform, parliament debates and newspaper articles. Besides critical discourse theory postcolonial perspective, governmentality and neo-classical human capital theory are used for the analysis. It is thus shown that while public debate is rather oriented on changing the situation, policy documents point out reproduction tendencies. I reveal two discourses on integration – liberal and social-democratic, which correspond with two values – empowerment and excessive care. However, the analysis shows that liberal discourse contains even some elements of excessive care. This is in particular seen in passivation and objectification of the newcomers, impersonal and unequal relations in texts between those who make policy and those who are its object. The existing discourses both reflect and reproduce govermentality- and postcolonial tendencies, while the assumption about individuals’ own motives is rationalistic. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Nilsson, Elvira LU
supervisor
organization
course
STVK01 20111
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
keywords
neo-classical human capital theory, governmentality, Etableringsreform, integration, postcolonialism
language
English
id
1967641
date added to LUP
2011-06-20 14:27:41
date last changed
2011-06-20 14:27:41
@misc{1967641,
  abstract     = {{This investigation is about Establishment reform that was launched by the Swedish government in December 2010, which is looked at from the discourse perspective. In order to reveal the contents of dominating and alternative discourses around the reform, as well as show the existing value conflict, Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis is applied to the documents about the reform, parliament debates and newspaper articles. Besides critical discourse theory postcolonial perspective, governmentality and neo-classical human capital theory are used for the analysis. It is thus shown that while public debate is rather oriented on changing the situation, policy documents point out reproduction tendencies. I reveal two discourses on integration – liberal and social-democratic, which correspond with two values – empowerment and excessive care. However, the analysis shows that liberal discourse contains even some elements of excessive care. This is in particular seen in passivation and objectification of the newcomers, impersonal and unequal relations in texts between those who make policy and those who are its object. The existing discourses both reflect and reproduce govermentality- and postcolonial tendencies, while the assumption about individuals’ own motives is rationalistic.}},
  author       = {{Nilsson, Elvira}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Empowerment or excessive care? Discourse analysis of the debate around Swedish integration policy}},
  year         = {{2011}},
}