My doctoral research project examines policy divergence between the central and local government(s) in Sweden in the policy fields of migration and labour market integration.
The study focusses on local efforts to retain and accommodate migrants and the ways in which this can be achieved against the backdrop of increasingly restrictive asylum and exclusionary integration legislation, i.e., how municipalities navigate the institutional mechanisms established at higher levels of governance to pursue their own, locally distinct policy agendas.
Municipal governance structures, as well as subnational cooperative networks and their role in mediating, suppressing, or supporting local policy efforts, will be of particular interest.
