Analysis of the political debate on citizenship testing in Sweden and the UK

Abstract

In recent decades, more and more countries in the Western world have introduced higher requirements on language and civics skills for the granting of citizenship. This tendency has been referred to by Joppke (2007) as ‘the civic integration policy trend’. In the UK, citizenship testing has been an established concept since the 1980s, and the British political discourse on immigration can be said to be in line with the civic integration policy. Sweden on the other hand, is one of the few countries in Europe lacking citizenship tests, and has thus, so far, been considered a deviant from this trend. This study explores and compares arguments concerning citizenship testing in the political discourse of Sweden and the UK using critical discourse analysis. It will analyse political proposals and announcements published between the years of 2003-2018 by the Swedish and British governments. The Swedish and British political discourses were found to differ in certain aspects, for instance in regards of the themes of immigration control, selectivism and elitism. However, common traits were also found, which, in combination with an increased engagement in this issue, may imply a growing influence of the civic integration policy in the Swedish debate.