Management by mistrust

The Swedish minister of integration recently announced that immigrants who refuse to move to an offered job will received reduced welfare remuneration. As he says, "You have a responsibility to find a job and have to be prepared to move".

While this might seem fairly straight-forward to some, it is a continuation of a long series of policies of the last decade or so, which are united by a common theme. They all focus on compelling, or more accurately, coercing immigrants to 'take greater responsibility for their own integration', as the advocates of this regime would formulate it.

This regime is based on the underlying assumption that immigrants are not doing enough to settle in the new society (however this is defined). Thus, they need to be forced to do more to accomplish this. Several reservations can be raised:

1) I can't say that I've seen any research that would suggest that immigrants are unwilling to find jobs or settle in their new societies, or even that such attitudes, or inactivity on their part would be a significant factor in social exclusion or immigrant unemployment. Whatever these types of policies are based on, it is hardly the current state of migration research.

2) The regime itself lays the blame on failed integration on immigrants, and proposed more punishment or adjustments of them, for instance by "raising their competence" through vocational training programs by coercion. Doing so increases the "us" versus "them" divisions in society by finding "them" culpable for their own social exclusion.

At heart, then, this is just another proposal that is based on management by mistrust. I doubt it will have any positive effect, or make immigrants feel like they are treated with respect by the new country.