The chapter contains an analysis of recent debates over irregular migrant’s access to medical care in Sweden. These debates were initiated in the early 2000s in response to political campaigning that sought to secure rights to a group of former asylum seekers that stayed in the country without residence permits. The analysis begins from the assumption that the existence of the group — and the exposure of its precarious circumstances of living — shed light on the boundaries of the welfare state and paved the way for a series of debates over the relationship between membership and entitlement to rights. The analysis, moreover, approaches the exclusion of the irregular migrants as an effect of the current citizenship regime. Citizenship is, both conceptually and practically, marked by a tension between inclusion and exclusion. This tension is, I argue, manifest in the fact that the social rights of the welfare state is reserved for a demarcated community of recognized residents. The paper explores how this linkage between citizenship and access to social rights has been contested through the mobilization of notions of human rights in recent debates in the Swedish parliament. These debates have essentially revolved around whether access to subsidized medical care should be regarded a citizenship right, to be reserved for a demarcated group, or a human right, to be provided to all residents without distinction. The focal point of the analysis is the conceptual component of these struggles and, in particular, the attempts to determine the meaning of the two set of rights.

This thesis explores the political struggles that followed after the appearance of irregular migrants in Sweden. The analysis starts from the assumption that the group’s precarious circumstances of living disrupted the understanding of Sweden as an inclusive society and shed light on the limits of the welfare state’s inclusionary ambitions. The overarching analytical point of entry is accordingly that the appearance of irregular migrants constitutes an opening for contestation of the demarcation of the welfare state. The analysis draws on two strands of theory to explore this opening. Citizenship theory, first, provides insights about the contradictory logics of the welfare state, i.e. the fact that it rests on norms of equality and inclusion at the same time as it is premised on a fundamental exclusion of non-members. Discourse theory, furthermore, is brought in to make sense of the potential for contestation. The study approaches these struggles over demarcation through an analysis of the debates and claims-making that took place in the Swedish parliament between 1999 and 2014. The focal point of the analysis is the efforts to make sense of and respond to the predicament of the group. The study shows that efforts to secure rights and inclusion for the group revolved around two demands. The first demand, regularisation, aimed to secure rights for irregular migrants through status, i.e. through the granting of residence permits, whereas the second demand, access to social rights, aimed to secure rights through turning the group into right-bearers in the welfare state. The thesis concludes that the debates and claims-making during the 2000s resulted in a small, but significant, shift in policy. In 2013, new legislation was adopted that granted irregular migrants access to schooling and health- and medical care. I argue that this was an effect of successful campaigning that managed to establish these particular rights as human rights, and as such, rights that should be provided to all residents regardless of legal status. Overall, however, I conclude that there has been an absence of more radical contestation of the citizenship order, and of accompanying notions of rights and entitlement, in the debates studied.

Allmänna val är demokratins livsluft. På valdagen tillmäts alla röster samma värde. Men vägen fram till valurnan är kantad av förhållanden som skiljer sig åt mellan väljarna. Dessa olika livserfarenheter har betydelse för våra tankar och känslor om politik. Därmed har personliga egenskaper och erfarenheter också betydelse när vi röstar.

I denna bok följer läsaren Den svenska ­väljaren genom livet fram till valurnan. Här analyseras politiskt beteende utifrån olika infallsvinklar och teoretiska perspektiv.

Med hjälp av Michigan-modellens ­berömda ”orsakstratt” beskrivs hur både egenskaper och ­erfarenheter påverkar röstningsbeslut. Läs­aren får veta hur alltifrån kön, ålder, politiskt arv, utbildning, klass, reli­gion, ­identitet, ideologier och värden, till privat- och samhällsekonomi, partiledare, sak­frågor samt taktikröstning inverkar på valet.