Martin Qvist

Efforts to include refugees in Swedish society have changed since the Establishment reform was introduced in 2010. In this project, the implementation of the reform has been studied in the municipalities of Eskilstuna and Nyköping. The study shows that refugees have difficulties to decode the reception programs, due to the complexity of the reception system, composed of a mixture of different forms of governance: hierarchical governance, horizontal collaboration and market-based control. The centrally organized Employment service leaves relatively limited space for action at the local level. One of the conclusions is that the Establishment reform so far has not led to any development efforts for inclusion of refugees as the authorities have put the most efforts on solving administrative issues and build routines rather than to actively promote the inclusion of refugees.

The multidisciplinary project Work, Market and Integration addresses the local public-private collaboration in developing novel methods for labour market integration. The main research question is how potential tensions between market-informed solutions and solutions based on strengthening target group involvement inform partnerships: project logic (means and goals), norm building and identities of partners and target groups, and dissemination, learning and communication of new methods.

This PhD-project examines the role of inter-organizational collaboration and partnership in the governance of local integration programs targeted towards refugees in Sweden. For decades these programs have been criticized for delaying entrance into the labour market and it has been a longstanding goal for the government to incorporate them in the Swedish employment strategy, 'arbetslinjen'. Governmental agencies have applied 'soft' policy measures such as guidelines, comparisons, knowledge dissemination and 'agreements' for voluntary policy coordination to create conditions for joint efforts at the local level. Drawing on institutional theory the PhD project examines the impact of this norm building process by focusing on how local actors respond to the governing strategies and in what way collaboration contributes to the development of the programs.