Numbers, Ignorance and Swedish Migration Policy

Starting in 2015, Sweden embarked upon a series of policy changes designed to reduce the number of migrants arriving to Sweden. Even though the effect of these policies on migrant arrivals remained unclear and a number of societal actors warned of negative ‘collateral’ effects, Sweden pushed ahead with these policy reforms. Through investigating the official policy documents produced by the government and the formal public consultation (remiss) process, this paper focusses on the emphasis on migrant numbers in the justification for and debate around the migration-related legal changes introduced between 2015 and 2020 and 2021. Both the concept of migrant numbers and even specific numeric figures were often invoked by different policymakers yet were rarely defined, explained or placed into a broader context. Thus, even as migrant numbers are often debated politically and publicly, this study suggests that migrant numbers in Swedish policy discussions were the site of ‘strategic ignorance’ by policymakers who both ignored and failed to investigate the effects of these policies on either migrant numbers or society at large.