Local challenges and national concerns: municipal level responses to national refugee settlement policies in Denmark and Sweden

Transcription

1 Article Local challenges and national concerns: municipal level responses to national refugee settlement policies in Denmark and Sweden International Review of Administrative Sciences International Review of Administrative Sciences 2017, Vol. 83(2) ! The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalspermissions.nav DOI: / journals.sagepub.com/home/ras Gunnar Myrberg Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala University, Sweden Abstract This article investigates how Danish and Swedish national policies vis-à-vis refugees and asylum seekers are perceived, and responded to, at the municipal level in the cities of Aarhus and Malmö. As will be spelled out in the article, municipal representatives raised their voices in both Denmark and Sweden during the middle of the 1990s, arguing that their municipalities had to carry a larger burden of reception than they could manage, and they thus urged for changes in the national dispersal and migration policies. The response at the national level was dramatically different in Denmark than in Sweden, however. This is today apparent not only in the sheer numbers of newcomers but also in municipal introduction practices as well as in the institutional memories of municipal officials. Points for practitioners The findings presented in this study point both to the possibility for municipalities to have a direct impact on national policies, in this case mainly on refugee settlement policies, but also to how policy decisions at one point in time shapes the political opportunity structures at national as well as local levels at later points in time. Keywords Denmark, migration, multi-level government, refugees, regional and local governance, Sweden Corresponding author: Gunnar Myrberg, Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala University, Box 514, Uppsala , Sweden. gunnar.myrberg@ibf.uu.se

2 Myrberg 323 Introduction During the last decade and a half, Denmark and Sweden have become increasingly dissimilar in terms of migration policy. While Sweden has remained relatively open with regard to refugees and asylum seekers, Denmark has gradually closed its borders to the extent that it has been questioned whether the country even lives up to the minimum standards set by international conventions (Brochmann and Hagelund, 2010; Mouritsen and Olsen, 2011; Sainsbury, 2012). Sweden has a refugee dispersal policy which allows newly arrived refugees, asylum seekers and their relatives to choose freely where in Sweden they want to live, provided that they can find their own housing in that particular location. In Denmark, on the other hand, refugees, asylum seekers and their relatives are dispersed as evenly as possible over the countries municipalities, and they have to stay in the assigned municipality for a period of three years before they can move freely within the country. It has thus been argued that in Denmark it is the state that decides where newcomers are to reside, while in Sweden newcomers themselves take that decision (Borevi and Bengtsson, 2014; Djuve and Kavli, 2007: 23; Piil Damm, 2006; Wren, 2003). This article seeks to examine the relationship between local challenges and national concerns in the subfield of migration policy that specifically regards the settlement and introduction of newcomers (Borkert and Caponio, 2010; Christensen and Lægreid, 2008). As will be spelled out in the article, municipal representatives raised their voices in both Denmark and Sweden during the middle of the 1990s, arguing that their municipalities had to carry a larger burden of reception (Robinson et al., 2003) than they could manage, and they thus urged for changes in the national dispersal and migration policies. However, the response at the national level was dramatically different in Denmark than in Sweden, which, in turn, has had a profound impact on the municipal level in the two countries. More precisely, this article investigates how differences between Danish and Swedish national policies vis-a` -vis refugees and asylum seekers are perceived among municipal officials in the cities of Malmo (third largest city in Sweden) and Aarhus (second largest city in Denmark). As will be shown, there is a widespread feeling of crisis in the reception of refugees in Malmo, while the view in Aarhus is rather that things are under control, especially in comparison to how it was before, during the 1990s, when the situation was more akin to Malmo s. While this overall result may be less surprising, the extent and nature of the differences between the reception processes of the two municipalities are highly interesting from an immigration policy perspective: Generous migration policies in combination with an explicit respect for the individual autonomy of newcomers have, apparently, created a difficult situation in terms of housing and introduction in Malmo, which, in turn, probably affects the integration process of newcomers in a negative way. On the other hand, restrictive migration policies in combination with virtually no respect for the individual autonomy of newcomers have created a much smoother process of housing and introduction in Aarhus, while the long-run

3 324 International Review of Administrative Sciences 83(2) consequences of these relatively harsh refugee reception policies are, of course, yet to be seen. This result is also interesting with regard to the so-called local turn in the multilevel governance (MLG) literature (Alexander, 2003; Piattoni, 2010; Poppelaars and Scholten, 2008), since it reveals not only that local governments can influence national policies, as was the case with Aarhus in Denmark, but also that perceptions of success (Aarhus), or failure (Malmo ), from earlier attempts at vertical venue-shopping (Guiraudon, 2000) that is, strategic interaction between government levels in an effort to achieve policy opportunities that cannot be realized on another level (Scholten, 2013: 220) live on for decades among civil servants at the municipal level, shaping expectations and a sense of empowerment/disempowerment, depending on the perceived outcome, with regard to future negotiations with the central government. The vertical dimension of MLG studies examines the implications of local governance for the interactions with upper levels of government, such as the national, and increasingly also European, institutions. However, rather than finding much evidence of vertical cooperation between policy levels, previous studies in this vein of research mainly point to the complexities and dilemmas of MLG. For example, Bak Jørgensen (2012) and Scholten (2013) show that decoupling can take place between national and local policies. This means that policy processes on the national and the local level become disconnected, resulting in policy contradictions and even policy conflicts. In essence, local governments are shifting from a passive to an active role, not only in the sense of implementing policies, but also politically because they become the source of innovation and of new frameworks of relationship with other levels of government (Caponio, 2010). The article is organized as follows. First, I present an overview of the development of migration and settlement policies in Denmark and Sweden from the 1990s and onwards. Second, I discuss the choice of Aarhus and Malmo as cases of refugee-receiving municipalities and the methods and material used in the study. Third, I describe the introduction process of newcomers in the two cities and the challenges, in terms of housing and other factors, that the municipal officials in the two cities perceive in relation to this process. Finally, I discuss the findings and make some concluding remarks. Migration policies in Denmark and Sweden In the current literature on migration, integration and ethnic relations, Denmark and Sweden are often positioned as polar opposites. For example, Brochmann and Hagelund (2010: 30), in their broad historical comparison of Scandinavian migration and integration policies, introduce the concept of a continuum of kindness along which Sweden has often been placed at one end, with Denmark at the other end and Norway in a vacillating, intermediate position. This picture is also reflected in the Migrant Integration Policy Index, which measures policies towards the integration of immigrants of 28 European countries in terms of rights

4 Myrberg 325 allocation. In the 2010 index, Sweden was placed in the top position (with 83 points on a scale from 0 to 100), while Denmark was in place 15 out of 31 countries (with 53 points), trailing behind Finland (69 points) and Norway (66 points) as well (MIPEX, 2010). In comparative research with a focus on outcomes of migration and integration policies in different countries (e.g. employment, education, criminality etc.), Sweden and Denmark are also ranked far from each other, yet in these cases Denmark is generally regarded as being more successful than Sweden (Koopmans, 2010; OECD, 2010). According to Qvist (2012), Swedish refugee and introduction policies are characterized by significant institutional stability. He claims that this stability can be understood as an expression of control practices in the form of unintrusive regulations, rather than economic or regulating frameworks. Qvist, moreover, argues that this stability constitutes one of three peculiarities of Swedish introduction policies, when viewed from a European perspective. The other two peculiarities are, first of all, that the objective of equal rights, opportunities, and responsibilities remains strong and, secondly, that the orientation towards work and employment (the reputed labor policy) has attained a very dominant position in Swedish introduction efforts. In comparison to Denmark, at least since the 1999 Danish Integration Act took effect, it is quite correctly possible to observe pointed differences in relation to the Swedish peculiarities singled out by Qvist. The Danish Integration Act has been criticized because it does not seek to give individuals under Danish law the same rights, opportunities and responsibilities as Danish citizens. The law has, in fact, successively moved in a diametrically opposed direction during the 2000s: fewer rights and opportunities in combination with increased responsibilities (Midtbøen, 2009). Within the context of these developments, stipulations calling for language proficiency and knowledge of Danish society have been introduced for receiving Danish nationality and permanent residence (Integrationsministeriet, 2011). Owing to comprehensive changes in Danish migration policies, the pattern of immigration to Denmark has changed as well, from one consisting of refugees and next of kin from war-torn countries as in Sweden, to one made up of labor immigrants from diverse European countries (Djuve and Kavli, 2007). Long before the Danish Integration Act, labor policy has also been a central component in Danish introduction policies, and in this sense one important parallel exists between Danish and Swedish policies, notwithstanding the fact that linguistic and value issues have been much more of a concern in Denmark than in Sweden (Emilsson, 2008; Vad Jønsson and Petersen, 2010). Finally, Danish refugee and introduction operations are run by quite a different set of administrative practices, with a stricter economic and regulatory framework than its Swedish counterpart. This means that the potential for the state to change policies directly is much greater in Denmark than in Sweden (Green-Pedersen and Krogstrup, 2008; Nielsen and Jensen, 2006; Vad Jønsson and Petersen, 2010). However, Bak Jørgensen (2012) has nuanced the picture of Danish integration policies in an intriguing way by showing that Danish municipalities, at the local level, do enjoy the latitude to pursue more active and inclusive integration policies

5 326 International Review of Administrative Sciences 83(2) than those stipulated nationally. Bak Jørgensen has also shown that the two large municipalities of Copenhagen and Aarhus display a markedly more generous diversity policy than do smaller municipalities, and they also provide greater scope for municipal professionalization in areas such as language learning for children and youth as well as in undertakings to face criminality and disturbances in vulnerable communities. Refugee settlement policies: developments and debate Sweden Ever since the passage in 1994 of Lagen om eget boende (EBO legislation), Swedish policies with respect to the housing of newcomers have given asylum seekers the opportunity to decide for themselves where they want to settle (Prot. 1993/94: 74). According to Borevi (2010: 94 99), EBO legislation represented an emergency measure in a situation when public reception of refugees had crumbled and it was generally expected that only a small percentage of newcomers would choose this alternative. Since then, however, more than half of newly arrived refugees and asylum seekers have had recourse to this law, while the rest have chosen to settle in so-called accommodation centers (ABO) run by the Swedish Migration Board (SOU 2009: 19, bilaga 4). In effect, EBO legislation has opened up for a situation where a small number of municipalities have received large numbers of newcomers, while other municipalities, often affluent suburban ones, have hardly taken on any newcomers at all. This situation has been repeatedly remarked upon and did, indeed, lead the directors of the now defunct Integration Board (phased out in 2006) and the Migration Board to openly criticize those municipalities that refuse to welcome the number of newcomers they would be expected to accept. One municipality which has clearly positioned itself as an opponent of EBO legislation is Malmo. In January 2004, the Social Democratic mayor of Malmo, Ilmar Reepalu, wrote a letter to the (also Social Democratic) government demanding a change of the EBO legislation and a five-year moratorium on any further flow of unemployed immigrants into Malmo (Malmo stad, 2004, 2009a). As a result of this letter, the Minister of Integration, Mona Sahlin, invited representatives of Malmo and other municipalities to a meeting in February In connection to this invitation, she stated her position on Malmo s demands in an article published in the Swedish national newspaper, Dagens Nyheter: Of course I feel for the problems of Malmo, but everyone who has been allowed into our country shall have equal rights and responsibilities. To prevent people from moving feels terribly wrong. But we will dispense with the special compensation for those who move of their own volition. That said, there are municipalities that want immigrants and get none. Maybe compensation should be raised for them instead. (DN, 14 January 2004)

6 Myrberg 327 Subsequent to the 2006 electoral loss and under fire from influential Social Democratic local politicians from Malmo, Gothenburg, and So derta lje, the Social Democratic Party made a remarkable turnaround with respect to the issue of housing for newcomers. In March 2008, Mona Sahlin, who had become party leader the preceding year, called a press conference at which she let it be known that she now wished municipalities to be compelled to accept refugees, and that the right of these refugees to choose their place of residence during the introduction period, lasting one to two years, would be rescinded. Yet it was now the turn of the newly elected right-wing Coalition government to repudiate all proposals which would restrict freedom of choice, both in regard to the right of municipalities to decide on how refugees would be received and the right of refugees to determine place of residence. In a joint reply to the aforementioned appeal from local elected representatives of So derta lje, Gothenburg, and Malmo, the Minister of Integration, Nyamko Sabuni (Liberal), and the Minister of Migration, Tobias Billstro m (Conservative), proclaimed that: Sweden will have a good, functioning reception of refugees. The way forward, however, is not for the state to coerce people to find a home where told to, not even for a limited period. People must have the opportunity to decide for themselves where they want to live. The state cannot on its own predict where the individual refugee enjoys the greatest chance of obtaining employment: this is better left to each person to decide in collaboration with job centers. (DN, 6 March 2007) Recapitulating, it can be affirmed that the issue of providing accommodation for newcomers has been high on the Swedish political agenda, both nationally and locally, for a long time. On the national theater, we have seen a Social Democratic turnabout occasioned by pressure on the party leadership from Social Democratic local government representatives belonging to municipalities hosting large numbers of refugees. It is nonetheless important to bear in mind that this change of mind took place after the 2006 electoral defeat, and that the Coalition government that came to power had long ago rejected compulsory measures regarding both newcomers prerogative to select the municipality of their choice and the rights of municipalities to opt out of admitting newcomers. Denmark As regards the significance of policies of refugee settlement for host municipalities, the political developments in Denmark during the first decade of the 21st century have created an interesting point of comparison to the Swedish case. The tangible hardening of Danish integration policies during the 2000s originated in the early 1990s, when the Social Democratic mayors of west Copenhagen and Aarhus protested against what they believed was an unfair distribution of costs associated with national immigration policies. As opposed to Sweden, where Social Democratic local government officials have unsuccessfully criticized immigration policies in the

7 328 International Review of Administrative Sciences 83(2) national arena for two decades, Danish mayors were from early on supported by leading politicians in the Folketinget (the Danish parliament). The influential Social Democratic MP, Per Kaalund, among others, asked in March 1993 for changes in his own party s position on the issue of refugee settlement: Many Social Democratic politicians have held back because it is Danish mentality to first try on a voluntary basis. But I also feel that fear of being called racist played a role. For a long while I have personally thought that Social Democratic policy in this area has been overly theoretical. But I think that the parliamentary group is moving towards a more realistic stance. (Berlingske Tidende, 19 March 1993, quoted in Vad Jønsson and Petersen, 2010: 184) To be sure, there were leading Danish Social Democrats who strongly opposed toughening up migration and integration policies at this juncture, Svend Auken, the former party leader, being one of them. They were gradually outmaneuvered, however. When Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen selected in 1997 the hitherto mayor of Aarhus, Thorkild Simonsen, as Minister of Interior Affairs responsible for immigration and refugee policies, this marked the dawn of a new Danish policy era (Vad Jønsson and Petersen, 2010: ). Since the adoption of the Danish Integration Act, crafted by Simonsen, in 1999, a strict distribution system for newcomers has been in place, based on a formula that takes account of the number of people with foreign origin residing in the municipalities. Those municipalities that already have a high percentage of individuals with foreign origin have taken in few, if any, newcomers, whereas municipalities with low percentages have to admit a larger number. When the newly arrived refugee has been settled in a municipality, he or she, by stipulation of the Integration Act, is legally expected to remain in the assigned municipality during the entire introduction period (lasting three years), unless relocation is justified by a job offer elsewhere or the newcomer is accepted by another, target municipality. If the newcomer, in spite of the said legal stipulations, goes ahead and moves to another municipality, he or she forfeits the state financial compensation, the socalled start package (Integrationsministeriet, 2007). The explicit intention behind the Danish refugee settlement policy is to create an equal distribution of the number of newcomers across all municipalities, so that more hands can handle the task (Indenrigsministeriet, 2001: 66) and integration thus can be encouraged. There is also an understanding that a dispersion of newcomers will come about, not only between, but also within municipalities, and there are a number of legal instruments in the hands of municipalities to prevent newcomers from living in residential areas with a high percentage of immigrants (Integrationsministeriet, 2011). Why study Malmö and Aarhus? Contrary to previous studies on the relation between national and local integration policies, that have looked closely at different cities in one specific country such as

8 Myrberg 329 Denmark (Bak Jørgensen, 2012) and the Netherlands (Scholten, 2013), this study sets out to compare two fairly similar cities geographically, socially and economically in two neighboring countries, that have chosen completely different paths in terms of migration and integration policies over the last decades. Malmo and Aarhus are two cities that resemble each other in a number of ways. Both of these, old harbors and industrial towns, with a population hovering around 300,000, represent important regional centers that are nonetheless much smaller than the capitals Stockholm and Copenhagen. The geographical arrangement of the cities is also homologous: old, compact downtowns, a stone s throw away from the sea, surrounded by a semicircle of sparse settlements at some distance from the city center. Everything is more or less within walking distance, which has not for all that prevented the rise of substantial socio-economic, and of late ethnic, segregation within city limits. In fact, an important similarity between the two cities is that Malmo s Rosenga rd and Aarhus Gellerupparken have, for decades, stood in the center of each country s national debate on integration and diversity (Aarhus kommune, 1985, 2007a; Andersson et al., 2007; Malmo stad, 1999; Programbestyrelsen, 2008). Naturally, there are also contrasts between these cities. Aarhus is not solely an old industrial city; it is also a significant center of education and research, which cannot be said of Malmo. In comparison to Aarhus, Malmo also has a housing problem characterized by shortages and inefficient moving chains. That said, it must also be pointed out that one important cause of Malmo s housing shortage is that the physical development has not kept pace with the rapid revamping, successful in more ways than one, the city has gone through from an industrially decaying city (1970s to 1990s) to an attractive commercial and cultural center during the first decade of 2000s (Billing and Stigendal, 1994; Dannestam, 2009). With respect to existing conditions for the reception and introduction of newcomers, as we have already seen, the nature of the differences strikes us as of another sort, namely a distinction grounded on the respective national migration and refugee settlement policies of Sweden and Denmark. First of all, changes in Danish migration policies have led Denmark to accept, during the entire 2000s, far fewer refugees and asylum seekers than Sweden, whether in absolute numbers or as share of total inhabitants. Secondly, the Danish Integration Act has meant that in Denmark it is the state that has absolute control over refugee settlement policies, whereas the Swedish state, since the 1994 EBO legislation, has got rid of its right to control newcomers housing patterns, whether by affirmative action or some other legal framework. The Danish policies in both of these areas have led the municipality of Aarhus to admit a few dozen newcomers yearly during the past few years. In contrast, the municipality of Malmo has taken in, when at its highest, around 3000 individuals per year. On the other hand, post-integration Act Danish municipalities have been responsible for compelling all non-western newcomers to go through a three-year integration program which consists of Danish, Danish social studies, and apprenticeships at various workplaces (Integrationsministeriet, 2011; Nielsen and Jensen,

9 330 International Review of Administrative Sciences 83(2) 2006). As far as Aarhus goes, this has meant a fairly extensive responsibility for the reception and introduction of newcomers, in spite of the fact that the municipality hardly takes in any refugee who has just arrived in the country. Another important difference between the refugee settlement policies of the two countries is that the state compensation for those measures Danish municipalities are liable for, according to the Danish Integration Act, is generally viewed as carefully weighed up (Djuve and Kavli, 2007; Nielsen and Jensen, 2006). On this account, Swedish municipalities have long called attention to a seriously underfinanced system of reception and integration of newcomers (Emilsson, 2008; Integrationsministeriet, 2011). Methods and material Two types of material from each municipality are fundamental to this study: (i) interviews with municipal officials positioned at various levels and with other relevant organizations and companies within the municipality; and (ii) municipal documents and public statistics. The fieldwork was conducted over a three-year period from mid-2009 to mid During this period, I have conducted interviews with a total of eight civil servants in Malmo and nine in Aarhus. I have had the opportunity to interview some of the officials on repeated occasions and I have also had regular contacts with some of the officials over the same period. These contacts spanning across time have been invaluable for grasping developments in both municipalities. Interviews lasted between 60 and 90 minutes. Apart from one interview in Malmo when I only took notes, all the rest were taped. The interviews took place at the interviewees office or in nearby meeting rooms. At the beginning of the interviews I presented the research project and explained the context in which the interviews would be used. The taped interviews have been written out in their entirety and the printouts have subsequently been sent via to the interview subjects so as to provide them with the opportunity to revise potential misunderstandings and errors. Concerning the Aarhus interviews, this has been particularly helpful, as I spoke Swedish and the interviewees spoke Danish I translated their answers into Swedish as best I could and asked them to verify my translation, thus obtaining more accurate responses. It has not been possible to guarantee interview subjects complete anonymity in the report. I have, however, chosen not to write the names of the interview subjects, providing instead their organizational affiliation and position. Each subject has also been designated with the letter A or M, followed by a number. Interviewees have been informed about the limited confidentiality in relation to the interviews. During the interviews I have asked questions about factors that, first and foremost, are understood as having significance for the newcomers introduction process. I have also asked whether the settlement of newcomers is viewed as having an impact on the ability to manage challenges such as housing shortages and residential segregation, and if so how and to what extent.

10 Myrberg 331 The introduction process and its challenges Malmö Those who came to Malmo as newly arrived refugees or immigrants up until November 2010 began by registering at Immigrant Service, the municipality s central agency for reception of newcomers. The matter stayed a couple of weeks with Immigrant Service before it was sent to the appropriate district administration. While with Immigrant Service, the board for Swedish language instruction for adult immigrants was contacted and information put together as a point of departure for the size of the introduction allowance, housing subsidies, childcare needs, etc. Immigration Service provided reception courses that shed light on everyday juridical questions, goods and consumption, health care system, and the like. Interpreters helped with the course. A majority of those who came to Immigration Service had obtained information from the Migration Board indicating whom to contact, but many had also been assisted by relatives and friends (M1). When the case arrived at the municipal district office, an introduction official was assigned at the district s Employment and Introduction Center (AIC). For those people who had a right to an introduction allowance, meeting the introduction officer meant the joint drafting of an individual introduction plan in which the person s educational and professional background was noted and also what expectations the person had for the introduction period (M1). During the introduction period different types of labor market information and vocational education were offered. As a result of the Coalition s electoral victory, the Public Employment Service (PES), which is a state agency, was given a concrete mission concerning the newly arrived, which also brought about a new situation at municipal level. The expanded role of the PES during the introduction period is understood to have resulted in prioritizing the alleged employment line, several interviewees believing that this occurred at the expense of the introduction s other aspects, namely participation in and a grip on Swedish society: M1: I think that the employment line receives too much attention. An employment focus we shall have, as it is a main goal. But the labor market orientation has been pushed too far. Another goal of integration policies I judge as important is community participation. But nowadays people don t speak about it as much as they do about self-sufficiency and the work orientation. Coeval with the national Introduction Reform in 2010, the broadened role of the PES during the introduction period has been institutionalized. Now the PES has responsibility for the newcomers, and it is also this agency that pays introduction support. This means that the municipality needs no longer provide labor market services for newcomers. However, according to interviewees M3 and M4, the Introduction Reform has resulted in less consequential changes for the

11 332 International Review of Administrative Sciences 83(2) municipality than expected, which means that the situation continues to be largely the same as before December In Malmo, two factors are accentuated as challenges with regard to the introduction process by the interviewees: housing and the newcomers psychic disturbances: M1: The housing situation is for many simply atrocious. And it is not news that this is the way it is in Malmo. It is likewise in So dertälje, Botkyrka, Gothenburg, Landskrona, Helsingborg, to name but a few municipalities. There s an impact on language instruction. We had hoped that more people would pass one of the school programs, but that is one of the missing prerequisites, housing. The other is psychic disturbances. You feel so wretched when you come. M5: Primary needs must be met before you can assimilate further information and learn other things. If you don t have a place to live, neither do your family, and this is a thorn in the side of other introduction services. So, of course, it is an issue. How can these factors be confronted? With respect to psychic disturbance, Malmo began a special language education called IntroRehab, an introduction educational package geared towards people being treated by Red Cross or undergoing psychiatric treatment owing to migration-related complications (Malmo stad, 2009b). Feedback from the said special education has been positive, but all too few get to go through it given the lack of resources (M1). When we shift focus to housing, there s a widespread impression among the interviewees that Malmo cannot manage this issue locally, and that changes in national settlement policies are necessary in order to give Malmo, particularly its vulnerable districts, a breather: M7: If some breathing space had been given to Rosenga rd for a few years, I think a lot could ve improved. The unceasing dispatch of more people makes it very trying. EBO asks for a lot. Even if I am for people having the right to decide on housing, it takes a lot of effort. There are consequences for the families and, above all, for the children. An aspect taken up by several interview subjects in Malmo is that the freedom EBO legislation gives newcomers to locate a place to settle is in fact limited after the first settlement. There are no legal hurdles to prevent newcomers residing in one municipality from eventually moving into another municipality (it is likewise in Denmark), yet if you change municipalities after one month of having received residence there s no assumption of legal responsibilities by the new municipality to offer an introduction program and introduction allowance: M4: You get a sort of unsavory refill. We return to this issue of housing and, when you opt for something according to EBO (one of Malmo s problems, this EBO!), you choose because you know what you re doing. You feel somewhat safe in unsafe

12 Myrberg 333 conditions. Otherwise one would go for ABO, which more often than not means living with someone you don t know somewhere in a part of Sweden unknown to you. Of course you go for EBO! It is a thoroughly human choice. I think that everyone understands how they think. The problem is that when they get residence and find themselves in Malmo there are no flats and not a whole lot of help available. They are virtually hostages of the town they are in. A fair question is whether it is the sheer number of immigrants that is the main problem in Malmo or if it is in fact the EBO system as such. Numbers are, of course, important, but the real nuisance for politicians and officials in Malmo actually seems to be EBO itself, and that for two reasons. First, EBO creates unpredictability, which makes it very difficult for the municipality to plan any kind of reception efforts. Second, and perhaps even more important, EBO is perceived as an unfair system, since it forces Malmo and a few other municipalities to shoulder a much heavier burden of reception than other comparable municipalities. Aarhus In Aarhus, the municipal Jobcenter is the primary contact for newly arrived refugees and for next of kin. When a refugee or a close relative is granted temporary citizenship in Denmark, the state agency Immigration Service (Udlændingeservice) notifies Jobcenter. As a rule, this contact takes place about one month and a half before the newcomer arrives at the municipality to sign his/her integration contract, at which point the municipality, as stipulated by the Integration Act, assumes responsibility for the newcomer. During 30-odd days the Jobcenter works closely with the Social Service Center and public housing societies (almene boligforeninger). Thanks to the Danish system with social housing allocations, whereby each municipality has the right to make every fourth home available to the housing societies, newcomers are usually provided with their own housing on the spot. Settlement cannot be to run-down urban areas, however, since living in those neighborhoods is believed to delay the process of integration (A6; Aarhus kommune, 2003; Aarhus kommune, 2007b). When the newcomer visits the Jobcenter, a special integration contract is devised together with the officer. The contract is the fundamental linchpin during the introduction phase and it is penned in such a way that it is clear for the newcomer that s/he is responsible, together with the community, for integration to happen. The contract specifies goals for the language level the newcomer is expected to reach by the end of the course. The officer and the newcomer sign the contract, binding for both partners (A6). Concurrent with language lessons newcomers are encouraged to do internships, subsidized or regular work, up to 20 hours per week. The operations of Jobcenter are above all to help well-educated immigrants, often partners of labor migrants, to join the labor market. For this group, Jobcenter assists with translation and

13 334 International Review of Administrative Sciences 83(2) assessment of documents, putting together CVs, as well as giving information about labor market conditions, qualifications, and employment opportunities. Jobcenter also lends a hand with business contacts and thereby has recourse to the Integration Act in order to provide wage subsidies, internships, courses, and education (A7). Over and beyond the work done by Aarhus municipality on behalf of language schooling and internships for newcomers, generous resources are earmarked towards Danish lessons for children. With respect to newcomers children, the municipality must by law provide Danish instruction, but Aarhus has chosen to direct resources also to those children who come after having lived in another Danish community for three years. Experience has shown that these children face greater difficulties in language learning than those who come straight to Aarhus, which in turn may worsen their chances to make it through school (A1, A2). With regard to challenges involved in the introduction process, the answers from the informants in Aarhus have centered more on anterior problems and those that could conceivably arise than on the present situation. There seems to be a consensus that conditions for receiving newcomers are good and that the situation, from the perspective of the municipality, is under control. In fact, when public officials in Aarhus speak of the pre vs post situation, with respect to the Integration Act and the stepwise hardening of immigration policies, contrasts are glaring: A1: What has really mattered is the tightened rules for reunited overseas family members. It has had a decisive impact on immigration patterns. Q: When did it take place? A2: Gradually during 2000s. A1: If the target group consists of newcomers from warring countries, like Lebanon, it doesn t really matter much how hard we try and how buoyant the labor market is. We cannot obtain as good an outcome as when immigration is mixed. Thus, the real challenge for Aarhus today does not seem to be primarily about the reception of newcomers but about how to create a coherent city for all inhabitants regardless of nationality: A2: If you take Gellerup and the issue of why they have settled there, it is not just an isolated problem of Aarhus. Nowadays, the discussion is more about how to create a more coherent city, one where people meet up and down and live more mixed rather than that some people live in some areas and others elsewhere. Before a lot was about employment, one thought that more commingling would strengthen networks and create jobs. It is surely important but in the present climate it has to do with the attempt to design a sounder city.

14 Myrberg 335 It is clear that the regulation of Danish refugee settlement policies, together with a toughening of migration policies in the last decade, have resulted in a negligible number of direct arrivals to Aarhus. The few newcomers who come directly get a well-organized reception, with housing, language lessons, and an internship already set up (often on arrival date). Yet, Aarhus still struggles with issues of social and ethnic segregation and the question is if, and in that case when, the city will overcome these challenges: A7: I am generalizing now, but some of those living in ghettos, say Gellerup, are people who ve lived in Denmark for nearly twenty years. They ve most likely been instructed in Danish but have not been part of a more planned out integration process and, therefore, we began five years ago with a special service to put together a set of more felicitous services for earlier refugees and immigrants. But old habits die hard. I argue that through the work we do now we shall not in ten years have such a large group in Gellerup. Discussion Taken as a whole, divergence at the national level in Denmark and Sweden in terms of immigration policy, has clearly led to far-reaching consequences for the reception and introduction of newcomers at the municipal level in Aarhus and Malmo.Whereas Malmo accepts thousands of newly arrived refugees and immigrants every year, Aarhus is counting in dozens. In Malmö you are struck by a feeling of crisis in the reception of refugees, while in Aarhus the feeling is that everything is under control, not least because public officials remember how it was before, during the 1990s, when the situation in Aarhus very much resembled the present situation in Malmo. Despite intense critique over two decades, the Swedish government, irrespective of political color, has refused to abolish the so-called EBO legislation which gives asylum seekers the right to decide on their own in which Swedish municipality they want to settle down. During these two decades, the relative bargaining positions of the central and the local government have changed several times, at least in terms of how these positions are dependent on external pressures such as the state of the economy and the influx of refugees, and yet the central government has staunchly defended this legislation. In Denmark, on the other hand, local politicians were able to influence national immigration policy quite radically in the mid-1990s. Since then, the national Danish political leadership, supported by the big city mayors, has used its hierarchical power both to dominate the decision-making process and to design the administrative apparatus so as to fulfill the majority of its political goals, turning Danish immigration policy from one of the most liberal and generous in Europe in the 1980s to one of the most restrictive and assimilatory in the 2000s. Yet, there are also similarities between the two cities. One key likeness is the professionalism developed by both municipalities in the reception and introduction

15 336 International Review of Administrative Sciences 83(2) of newcomers. There is a determination in both municipalities to create as efficient and humane reception and introduction plans as possible, given the laws and regulations that the municipalities have to follow. Another similarity between the two municipalities seems to be the absence of sharp political antagonisms regarding these questions at the municipal level. In both Malmo and Aarhus I have asked questions and searched for material on political differences in connection to the undertakings of the municipalities in the reception and introduction areas. However, the search has consistently led to the national level and, as we have seen above all in Sweden, to political disagreements between the national and the municipal levels, as much within as between political parties. In that sense, the multi-level governance character of migration policy-making may perhaps nowhere be as apparent as in the case of the settlement and housing of newly arrived refugees. Concluding remarks Denmark and Sweden have chosen very different paths in terms of migration, settlement, and integration policies during the last two decades. The consequences of these choices are today easily recognizable at the municipal level. While Malmo struggles with the reception of ever more newcomers, Aarhus struggles to create a coherent city with and for the population already in place. In Denmark, there is no pressure for fundamental changes in terms of refugee settlement policies exerted by the municipalities, nor by any of the political blocs in the parliament. It is thus improbable that Danish national policies, at least in the foreseeable future, will move any closer to the Swedish policy positions in the field of migration, refugee settlement, and integration policies. A more likely scenario would be Sweden moving closer to Denmark. In terms of refugee settlement policy, the pivotal question is probably whether the Swedish government can come up with a model that provides a more sustainable distribution of newcomers across all municipalities. Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Bo Bengtsson, Karin Borevi, Peter Scholten, and two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on earlier versions of this article. Funding This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council ( ). References Alexander M (2003) Local policies towards migrants as an expression of host-stranger relations: A proposed typology. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 29(3): Andersson R, Bra ma A and Hogdal J (2007) Segregationens dynamik och planeringens mo jligheter: En studie av bostadsmarknad och flyttningar i Malmo regionen. Malmo : Stadskontoret, Malmo stad.

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