Migration Crisis' Impact on the Discourse of Sweden's Leading Party Concerning the Policy of Multiculturalism in 2014-2017

The aim of this research is to determine how the discourse concerning the policy of multiculturalism of The Social Democratic and The Moderate coalition parties of Sweden has changed in 2015-2017 in comparison with 2014 and what motivated these changes. In order to identify changes in the discourse, first of all, we analyzed Swedish legislation to determine the content of the multiculturalism policy. Secondly, we analyzed party programs to determine the party's initial positions concerning the policy of multiculturalism before the migration crisis. Thirdly, we conducted a discourse analysis of the speeches of the parties’ leaders from January 2014 to April 2017, in which politicians expressed their opinions about migration policy. In order to determine the motivation of the discourse changes, we identified six factors that could affect the emergence of illiberal rhetoric towards refugees. Thus, we compared the periods when the politicians of the parties use negative discourses in the speeches with the periods when each of these factors was most strongly manifested. After that we made a conclusion about how each of the factors influenced the changes in the multicultural discourse.