Between Faith and Bureaucracy: The treatment of immigrants’ religion in Swedish integration policy, 1974 –1986

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H

ISTORISKA INSTITUTIONEN

Between Faith and Bureaucracy

The treatment of immigrants’ religion in Swedish integration policy, 1974 –

1986

Author: Matthaios Amanatiadis Supervisor: Pontus Rudberg

Defence date: November 20th 2020 Master’s thesis, 45 credits

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i ABSTRACT

This essay contributes new knowledge on Sweden’s immigrant- and integration policy during the years 1974–1986 by researching the policy’s treatment of immigrants’ religion and that of their faith communities. This is achieved through an empirical analysis on how immigrants’ religion was understood, argued for and regulated during key points of policy evaluation, as well as how this was expressed in practice by relevant actors and measures. The analysis focusses on the official government investigations that respectively formulated and evaluated Sweden’s integration policy. It furthermore delves into how immigrant faith communities were institutionally represented and allocated state support by the two state-affiliated organizations associated with these tasks, namely the Swedish Free Church Council (SFR) and its Cooperation Committee for State Support to Faith Communities (SFRS/SST). The essay draws its inspiration and theoretical departure points from theories on secularism, bureaucratization and models of immigrant incorporation, which are operationalized using a ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ (WPR) methodology. The essay’s empirical findings indicate that religion was initially understood to have reduced cultural and societal significance than ethnicity and language. This understanding gradually changed over time and was amended when Swedish integration policy was evaluated during the 1980s. The empirical analysis furthermore shows that immigrant faith communities received reduced state support in relation to immigrant ethnic organizations, which resulted in administrative and representational dependency on SFR and SST. Following the policy’s evaluation during the 1980s, an initiative to increase state support for faith communities and improve their organizational independence was taken by the Swedish state but had not been implemented by 1986.

Keywords: Sweden, Religion, Integration policy, Swedish free churches, Committee on Integration, Immigrant faith communities, Immigration Policy Committee, SFR, SST

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Chapter 1. Introduction

“The opportunities of the Sami people and ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities to preserve and develop a cultural and social life of their own shall be promoted.”

- Chapter 1, Article 2 of the Swedish Instrument of Government

The above amendment was made to the Swedish Constitution in 1974 in order to officialise Sweden’s stance towards its newly acquired populational diversity: a stance of encouragement which actively supports the development of an emerging multiculturalism. In Swedish immigration historiography, much attention has been paid to what this amendment entailed – in both theory and practice – for Swedish immigrant policy in relation to ethnicity and language. Much less attention, however, has been devoted to what effects this has had for immigrants’ religions and their religious organizations, despite the rapid changes in Sweden’s religious landscape entailed by workforce and refugee migration during the latter half of the 20th_{century. This essay constitutes}

an attempt to cover parts of this historiographical gap by conducting research on the position that immigrants’ religion occupied in Swedish integration policy during the 1970s and 1980s.

1.1. Research aim and questions

This essay aims to contribute new knowledge on Sweden’s immigrant- and integration policy during the years 1974–1986 by researching the policy’s treatment of immigrants’ religion and that of their faith communities. This is achieved by carrying out an empirical analysis on how immigrants’ religion was understood, argued for and regulated during key points of policy evaluation, as well as how this was expressed in practice by relevant actors and in relevant measures. The analysis draws comparisons with similar understandings related to ethnicity and language and elucidates the degree to which immigrants enjoyed the possibility to pursue cultural preservation and societal representation through religious, rather than ethnic, organizational lines. To achieve its aim, the essay poses the following questions to the source material:

• Did conceptions and measures related to religion change throughout the studied period? If so, in what way?

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• How are immigrant religious organizations treated in relation to ethnic ones? If any, how can differences be explained?

• How are immigrant religious organizations treated in relation to Swedish religious organizations? If any, how can differences be explained?

1.2. Background

Sweden’s 1975 integration policy can be best understood against the background of the socioeconomic developments that followed the end of the Second World War. Enjoying exponential economic growth, largely owed to the country’s detachment from the war, Sweden relied on intensive import of foreign workforce to satisfy the needs of its rapidly expanding industries.1_{Workforce importation was initially oriented towards the Nordic labour market but}

would rapidly expand to include various other countries, European or otherwise.2_{Immigration to}

Sweden during these two decades had been predominantly workforce related. Global political developments would, however, result in additional migration cohorts reaching Sweden from countries such as Greece, Hungary and Yugoslavia, though many individuals from these groups did not enjoy – or apply for – refugee status.3_{While workforce migration was limited through work}

permit regulations in 1968 and effectively stopped by 1972,4_{the two preceding decades had, by}

then, led to a substantial increase of Sweden’s immigrant population.

Sweden’s newly acquired populational heterogeneity sparked public and political debates during the mid-to-late 1960s about immigrants’ standing in society, as well as about the state’s responsibility to guarantee their equal treatment in relation to Sweden’s native population. While these debates were oriented towards social and economic equality during the first half of the decade, the latter half saw ethnic and cultural equality become a matter of extensive discussion for political parties, worker organizations and immigrant organizations alike. 5_{Equality was increasingly}

argued to be predicated on offering immigrants the possibility to actively develop the cultural and linguistic characteristics of their respective ethnicities. This went beyond simple acceptance and respect from larger society – active support by the Swedish state was perceived as a necessary element.

This increased attention to the cultural aspects of immigrants’ adaptation to Swedish society would culminate in Sweden’s first explicitly articulated immigrant and minority policy in 1975. The

1_{Byström & Frohnert 2013, p. 11–12.} 2_{Byström & Frohnert 2013, p. 20.} 3_{Hansen 2001, pp. 16–17.} 4_{Lundh & Ohlsson 1994, p. 83.} 5_{Hansen 2001, pp. 140–141.}

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3 new policy openly espoused the idea of a multicultural Sweden. In contrast to previous years, where immigrants were expected to assimilate by default (i.e. to relinquish their cultural values in favour of adopting Swedish ones), the new policy was instead based on an active promotion of immigrants’ integration. The policy’s departure point was argued to be based upon three principles: the principle of equality denoted that immigrants should be able to stand on equal footing with Sweden’s native population in terms of living standards. Freedom of choice indicated the possibility for immigrants to decide for themselves to which degree they wished to adhere to their native backgrounds and to which degree they would adopt a Swedish identity. To ensure that such a choice was indeed a prospect, freedom of choice also denoted that the Swedish state should provide immigrants and minorities with real opportunities to develop their native cultures, languages and religions.6_While

definitions of the term ‘integration’ typically define the term as a strong connection to the sociocultural values of both host and native society,7_{this principle did not demand this to be the}

case. Adaptation to Swedish cultural norms was expected to take place only at a functional level – i.e. at a degree sufficient enough to guarantee functionality in Swedish Society.8_{Lastly, partnership}

alluded to an envisioned, mutually beneficial relationship of solidarity, tolerance and cooperation between immigrant groups and larger society.9

The 1975 guidelines were followed by revisions10_{of pre-existing measures related to immigrants’}

adaptation in Swedish society, as well as the introduction of new ones. Perhaps best known among these was the granting of municipal voting rights to immigrants in 1975, with Sweden being the first country in the world to adopt such a measure.11_{The home language reform}

(hemspråksreformen) of 1977 increased the possibilities of immigrant children to receive education in their native languages, making it mandatory for municipalities to create native language classes when so requested. Pre-existing forms of state support to immigrant organizations were also standardized in 1975 under a recurring activity grant (verksamhetsbidrag) distributed by the National Immigration Board (Statens Invandrarverk, SIV). SIV’s capacity as a contact organ between society and immigrant organizations was also formalized, as was its responsibility to provide these organizations with administrative support and societal guidance.

Like many other measures related to Sweden’s newly adopted policy, the primary measure through which immigrant faith communities would receive financial aid preceded the establishment

6_{Ålund & Schierup 1991, p. 2.}

7_{See for example Berry 1997, Berry 2011.} 8_{Ålund & Schierup 1991, p. 2.}

9_{Lundh & Ohlsson 1994, p. 124.}

10_{Support to immigrant organizations, for example, had been administered in different forms since 1966, and home}

language classes for immigrant children were introduced in 1971. Source: Dahlström 2004, p. 157.

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of the 1975 guidelines. Τhe grant for support to faith communities (stöd till trossamfund)12_{, originally}

introduced in 1971 as a means of financial aid for the Swedish free churches, was expanded in 1974 to include the Estonian Evangelic-Lutheran church, the Catholic Church in Sweden as well as Sweden’s Jewish congregations. Since its introduction, the grant had been distributed by the Swedish Free Church Council’s Cooperation Committee (Sveriges Frikyrkoråds Samarbetsnämnd, SFRS), an administrative organ that consisted of representatives from the various independent Protestant churches that made up the Swedish Free Church Council (Sveriges Frikyrkoråd, SFR).

13_{After 1975, the grant would expand further to include additional immigrant faith communities}

active in Sweden, under the basic condition that they consisted of a least 3.000 serviced members. Prior and for a brief period following this, financial aid to faith communities had been dispensed in individual instances by SIV, under the provision of the grant adaptation measures for immigrants to

faith communities and religious organizations, following the same institutional trajectory with ethnic

immigrant organizations.14_{An interesting observation made by Carl Dahlström in his 2002}

dissertation Nästan välkomna : invandrarpolitikens retorik och praktik is that, in contrast to most measure revisions conducted during this period, this constituted a shift from a specific to a general measure.15_{Understanding the reasons behind this change and what implications it entailed for}

immigrant faith communities has constituted a primary objective for this essay.

1.3. Theoretical points of departure and previous research Religion and secularism

The definition of religion is much contested concept, often understood and defined unilaterally in strictly functionalist (i.e. what religion does) or essentialist (i.e. what religion inherently is) terms. Academic work, particularly within sociology of religion, has not been wholly resistant to such conceptual simplifications. Scholar of religion Russel T. McCutcheon argues vehemently against

sui generis understandings which treat religion as a distinctly isolated aspect of human life, detached

from its connections to society, culture and politics and that have enjoyed prominence in previous

12_{SFS 1974:404.}

13_{In 1974, the Swedish Free Church Council represented the Evangelical Motherland Foundation (Evangeliska}

Fosterlandsstiftelsen), the Swedish Pentacostal Movement (Pingströrelsen i Sverige), the Salvation Army (Frälsningsarmé), the Salvation Army in Sweden (Svenska Frälsningsarmén), the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Sweden (Adventistsamfundet i Sverige), the United Methodist Church of Sweden (Metodistkyrkan), the Swedish Alliance Mission (Svenska Alliansmissionen), the Swedish Mission Association (Svenska Missionsförbundet), the Baptist Union of Sweden (Svenska Baptistsamfundet), the Free Baptist Union (Fribaptistsamfundet), the Örebro Mission (Örebromissionen), the Holiness Union and Prayer League (Helgelseförbundet) and the Bible-sworn Fellows (Bibeltrogna Vänner). Source: SST B1:1, Sveriges med kompletterande handling till ansökan om statsbidrag till vissa trossamfund.

14_{SOU 1974:69, p. 303.} 15_{Dahlström 2004, p. 131.}

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5 decades.16_{The author here argues that Eliadic}17_{distinctions between ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ life are}

both inappropriate and analytically irrelevant for the scholar who endeavours to understand how human beings experience religion, both individually and collectively. On a similar, albeit individual-oriented basis, Nancy Ammerman and Meredith McGuire argue for an understanding of religion as lived, which sees it as constantly evolving and continuously synthesized with believers’ sociocultural contexts as well as with their own personal beliefs and convictions.18_{What these}

works have in common is an understanding of religion as a multilevel modifier for the lives of both individuals and collectives, affecting and affected by the social, political and cultural contexts in which it is situated. The degree to which this statement applies can differ drastically from one sociocultural context to another.

While simplistic and contextually isolated understandings of religion might lead to unproductive or analytically superficial research when kept – as they seldom are – within the confines of academia, such understandings tend to have much deeper ramifications when expressed in state policies. There are, to be sure, numerous evident examples of this assertion to be found among Western democracies, with some of them – the 2010 French ban on face covering in particular19_–

having received notable prominence. The extremities of French laïcité, however, are hardly a fitting point of reference for the scholar who seeks to understand the diffuse – and very often subtle– ways in which state-originating understandings of religion can downplay the influence that religion exerts in society, culture and everyday life. It is rather more analytically useful to understand such policies by operationalizing the concept of secularization.

Much like religion, secularization is neither a readily transparent nor a universally agreed-upon concept. James Beckford’s attempt to provide a sufficiently encompassing description of studies related to the concept describes them as associated with “the extent to which, and the ways in which, the influence of religion has declined over time in one or more of the following areas: the lives of individuals, culture and social institutions”. For much of the 19th_{and 20}th_centuries,

secularization was envisioned as a teleology endemic to modernization and rationality, eventually bound to displace religion’s influence – or presence altogether – from society. For many such perceptions, the use of the term ‘religion’ was used almost exclusively to refer to Christianity.20

Thinkers such as Max Weber and Émile Durkheim exemplify these tendencies to a large extent.21

16_{McCutcheon 1997, p. 13–18.}

17_{As per historian of religion Mircea Eliade’s classification of sacred and profane time/space. Though this dichotomy}

was first introduced by Émile Durkheim, Eliade is considered largely responsible for its popularization.

18_{Ammerman 2007; McGuire 2008.}

19_{A thorough discussion of the societal consequences of the 2010 ban can be found in chapter 2 ‘France: from}

Integration to Segregation’ of Ayhan Kaya’s 2009 book Islam, Migration and Integration: The Age of Securitization.

20_{Beckford 2003, p. 40.} 21_{Beckford 2003, pp. 33–34.}

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Later developments, primarily within the discipline of sociology and during the second half of the 20th_{century, would further nuance and repurpose the concept, largely de-emphasizing perceptions}

of polarity between religious and secular spheres. A notable differentiation is the decline of religious authority and institutional religion contra the decline of religiosity itself. This means is that while the influence of religious institutions –especially so in Northern and North-western European states– may have largely receded, religiosity is more likely to transform rather than downright disappear, taking more individualized, syncretic or private forms instead.22_{José Casanova delineates}

and condenses the above ways of approaching secularization into three different connotations: secularization as decline of religious beliefs and practices, secularization as the privatization of religion and secularization as differentiation of the secular spheres. McCutcheon’s concept of sui generis religion can, in this context, be understood as a combination of the latter two categories.23

During –and following– the studied period, Sweden constitutes a particularly interesting case when it comes to relationships between church, state and individual. Both church and religiosity had, by the 1970s, receded considerably from the public sphere. Social care and welfare had been gradually transferred to the public sector throughout the first half of the twentieth century,24_and

social mobilization had increasingly become the subject of popular movements. While membership to the Church of Sweden was high, the same cannot be said about religiosity and religious practice25

– Grace Davie calls this ‘belonging without believing’. The high frequency of membership can be largely explained by the fact that the Church of Sweden was responsible for civil registrations (folkbokföring) until 1991. Additionally, registration to the Church of Sweden’s registers would take place automatically, with the possibility to de-register at the individual’s initiative. This applied equally to both Swedish citizens and immigrants, regardless of religious adherence. It is a primary interest of this essay to understand how this separation between an administrative notion of registered church membership and one entailed either by religious rites of initiation has affected immigrants’ possibilities of participation in religious organizations, especially when considered against the 3000-member criterion of eligibility for state support. How was church adherence quantified into membership, and what kind of conceptual separations did it entail?

Corporatism, culture and bureaucratization

Equally important with Sweden’s secular background is the form which migrant incorporation has taken in previous decades within the Swedish state’s extensive bureaucracy. In her 1994 book Limits

22_{Beckford 2003, p. 47.} 23_{Casanova 1994.}

24_{Edgardh & Petterson 2010, p. 41.} 25_{Davie 2000, p. 40.}

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7

of Citizenship, Sociologist Yasemin Nuhoglu Soysal argues that the increasing number of migrant

populations in European nation-states has challenged and contested the previously established norms of belonging and societal participation based on national citizenship.26_{Based on that}

observation, she argues for a post-national scheme of migrant incorporation into host societies which depends on the emphasis placed on either individual or collective source of action, as well the degree of state involvement and authority into the process of incorporation. She thus identifies individual-oriented models with minimal state involvement as liberal. Statist models, on the other hand, emphasize the status of migrants as individuals, but, contrary to the liberal model, the individual is not treated as a locus of action; this model instead assumes a top-down perspective where the state assumes central authority in the incorporation process. Α fragmental model is predicated on centralized authority of an organizationally weak state, whereuponmigrant groups’ participation are not guaranteed societal and institutional participation other than through the labour market.27_{Finally, the corporatist model assumes that an individual’s participation in societal}

arenas is contingent on subscription to larger collective groups, which are in turn supported by extensive state administrative apparatuses.28_{Soysal argues that Sweden, along with the Netherlands,}

is a prime example of the corporatist model. Societal participation in the form of corporate groups had indeed enjoyed a long-standing primacy among Sweden’s popular movements even before the policy changes of 1975, with actors such as the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (Landsorganisationen i Sverige) being major hubs of influence throughout most of the twentieth century.

In this context, Soysal argues that “state policies produce official ethnicities and arrange for their highly bureaucratized, structured participation in the Swedish polity”,29_{- an argument that she later}

clarifies further by referring to the larger migrant confederations (riksförbund) under which various local immigrant organizations unite on the basis of nationality.30_{The author’s position on ‘official}

ethnicities’ is far from unfounded, but the same is not wholly true for her position on nationality; while nationality and ethnicity among Sweden’s migrant confederations are in most cases effectively interchangeable, there are instances where de-nationalized notions of ethnicity have received both recognition and central state funding – a good example being the Assyrian and Syriac Association Confederations that are active during this period. In that sense, migrant groups were afforded a certain degree of freedom of choice regarding their collective representation before the state. Despite her critical reflections on official ethnicities, Soysal demonstrates a rather unproblematic

26_{Soysal 1994, p. 2–3.} 27_{Soysal 1994, p. 38–39.} 28_{Soysal 1994, p. 37.} 29_{Soysal 1994, p. 4.} 30_{Soysal 1994, p. 89.}

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understanding of immigrant faith communities, arguing that these act as interest groups that “help their constituencies maintain their cultural identities.” She furthermore asserts that “the religions of all migrant groups, including Islam, are given the same status”. 31_{Though Soysal includes a}

short-term historical overview on the matter, her assertion is made on data collected after 1988. This essay endeavours to bridge this gap in Soysal’s research and present an extended historical evaluation of her assertion. It is furthermore this essay’s ambition to discern whether Sweden’s bureaucratic corporatism produces official religions, rather than just official ethnicities.

Furthermore, the case of Sweden’s corporatist model is especially interesting due to the shifting balance of migrant organizations’ role as hubs of cultural preservation on the one hand, and as platforms for advancement of collective societal interests on the other. In her analysis of Swedish integration policy in Valfärdsstaten i det Mångkulturella Samhället, migration and religion scholar Karin Borevi discusses how the 1975 guidelines placed emphasis primarily on the organizations’ cultural aspects, while also acknowledging their part as collective interest groups akin to Swedish popular movements. Borevi argues that this attributed emphasis would be reversed during the evaluation phase of integration policy in the mid-1980s, highlighting instead the organizations’ role as interest promoters and advocating the need for their increased independence from state interventionism.32

Despite these fluctuations, Borevi’s research shows that collective organization based on ethnic guidelines remained a constant norm throughout the intervening years.

The structural and functional similarities between immigrant organizations and popular movements that Borevi highlights have also been explored in Aleksandra Ålund’s and Carl-Ulrik Schierup’s Paradoxes of multiculturalism: essays on Swedish society.33_{Ålund and Schierup devote attention}

to a historically consolidated pattern of the Swedish state apparatus to incorporate and institutionalize emerging popular movements, adapting and integrating their ideologies and strategies into the bureaucratic framework of state institutions. Ålund & Schierup argue that this effectively regulates popular movements’ ideological trajectories and defines the boundaries of acceptable deviation from them.34_{Similar to Soysal’s view on official ethnicities, the authors argue}

that the same principle has largely been applied to immigrant organizations in the context of Swedish multiculturalism: state support is predicated on standardized definitions of ethnicity and organizational structures, entailing representational exclusion if not adhered to. Considered against Borevi’s reflections on the attributed roles of immigrant organizations, it is concomitant that these standardized forms of ethnicity and organization produce, in turn, ethnicized definitions of

31_{Soysal 1994, p. 94.} 32_{Borevi 2002, p. 159–160.} 33_{Ålund & Schierup 1991.}

34_{Ålund & Schierup 1991, p. 18. Ålund & Schierup exemplify this tendency through the Swedish workers’}

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9 immigrant cultures.35_{As with popular movements, Ålund & Schierup argue, immigrant}

organizations’ fostered dependence on state funding and administrative guidance has also served to limit their organizational independence, as well as to homogenize their administrative structures with a state-compliant model of collective action.36

In their well-known extension of Weberian bureaucratization theory The Iron Cage Revisited,37

sociologists Paul J. DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell categorize the kind of institutional homogenization of organizations described in Ålund & Schierup as institutional isomorphism. The authors assert that organizations which are active in modern bureaucracies find themselves in competition with other organizations for political control and institutional legitimacy. This leads them to continuously change their structure, either in order to better resemble more successful organizations or to match institutionally dictated definitions of legitimacy and success. When legitimacy and success are determined through vertical relationships or broader structural factors, the authors argue, one can talk of coercive isomorphism. This kind of organizational change results from “both formal and informal pressures exerted on organizations by other organizations upon which they are dependent and by cultural expectations in the society within which organizations function”.38_{The essay’s interest in the concept of isomorphic change is to see how it applies to}

religious institutions rather than state or private organizations. Though DiMaggio & Powell do not apply the concept to religious organizations in their article, Sweden’s extensive corporatism constitutes an interesting opportunity to extend the concept to them.

Understanding how the Swedish corporatist model has been applied to immigrants’ faith communities requires some contextualization of the Swedish free churches’ theological and ideological background. The Swedish free churches have been the subject of a sizeable study, compiled and published by Torsten Bergsten in his book Frikyrkor i Samverkan: Den Svenska

frikyrkoekumenikens historia 1905-1993.39_{In what is a primarily descriptive piece of research, Bergsten}

tracks the development of the Swedish free churches’ initiatives of ecumenical cooperation throughout the 20th_{century, presenting how their goals, inter-church relationships and positions}

towards the state and the Church of Sweden change through time. Given the central role of SFR and SFRS in the scheme of support to faith communities, Bergsten’s work has been used in conjunction with the essay’s chosen methodology to provide an enhanced understanding of the ideological, theological and structural presuppositions that affected these organizations’ disposition towards immigrant faith communities.

35_{Ålund & Schierup 1991, pp. 119–121.} 36_{Ålund & Schierup 1991, p. 116.} 37_{DiMaggio & Powell 1983.}

38_{DiMaggio & Powell 1983, p. 147–148.} 39_{Bergsten 1995.}

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1.4. Methodological reflections

The method employed for the essay’s empirical analysis is Carol Lee Bacchi’s ‘What’s the problem represented to be’ (WPR) methodology. The WPR approach is dedicated to the deconstruction of policy into the ideological and conceptual constituents that lead to its formulation. Simply put, WPR “creates the opportunity to question taken-for-granted assumptions that lodge in government policies and policy proposals by interrogating (problematising) the problem representations it uncovers within them”.40

A point stretched at various instances in Bacchi’s methodological guidelines is that the impetus of a WPR analysis is not to identify conscious biases and/or goals that policymakers actively pursue and maintain, but rather to focus on the assumptions and presuppositions that may lie dormant in the ways in which a problem is conceptualized.41_{This position demonstrates a high degree of}

uniformity with the essay’s research purpose -rather than conceptualizing secularism and the emphasis on ethnicity as active counterpoises to religion, these are treated as underlying factors in how religion is conceptualized and regulated. To borrow directly from the author, the purpose here is “to make the 'problems' implicit in public policies explicit, and to scrutinize them closely.”42

Bacchi dedicates a sizeable part of her book to the provision of guidelines and useful examples into how to critically examine various aspects and types of policy, e.g. related to criminal legislation, migration, and healthcare. A number among these are of interest to the essay. More specifically: the WPR methodology calls for special attention to the way policies conceptualize ‘problems’ in the form of binaries and dichotomies, e.g. public/private, legal/illegal or national/international. Such representations are important, firstly because they simplify complex relationships and secondly because they often imply a mutual exclusivity, which has the potential to create qualitative hierarchies.43_{Furthermore, Bacchi’s provides additional elaboration on a specific type of}

dichotomy related to perceptions of equality/difference.44_{This dichotomy is argued to constitute}

a veritable point of contention in policymaking, as it influences the way that laws and policies acknowledge their targets’ rights (especially those of minorities) to be treated either differently or on the same grounds as other individuals/groups.45_{In the context of this essay, Bacchi’s reflections}

on binaries and dichotomies are incorporated by paying increased attention to the dichotomies of religious/ethnic, religion/society, religion/culture and same/different. These distinctions draw

40_{Bacchi 2009, p. xv.} 41_{Bacchi 2009, p. 2.} 42_{Bacchi 2009, p. x.} 43_{Bacchi 2009, p. 8.} 44_{Bacchi 2009, p. 180.} 45_{Bacchi 2009, p. 183.}

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11 inspiration from secularization theory, as well as from the works of Åland & Schierup, DiMaggio & Powell, Borevi and Soysal, and are intended to help discern what exclusions these entail for bureaucratic understandings of religion.

Bacchi’s WPR methodology is put into practice by posing the following questions to the policy, measure, or source material in question, either in the order shown below or separately where the analysis necessitates their use:

1. What's the 'problem' (e.g. of 'problem gamblers', 'drug use/abuse', domestic violence, global warming, health inequalities, terrorism, etc.) represented to be in a specific policy?

2. What presuppositions or assumptions underlie this representation of the 'problem'? 3. How has this representation of the 'problem' come about?

4. What is left unproblematic in this problem representation? Where are the silences? Can the 'problem' be thought about differently?

5. What effects are produced by this representation of the 'problem'?

6. How/where has this representation of the 'problem' been produced, disseminated and defended? How could it be questioned, disrupted and replaced?46

The six questions proposed by Bacchi constitute a both extensive and flexible framework for answering the essay’s chosen questions. Question 1 is used to identify problematizations related to immigrants’ religion and situate them within broader constructions of immigration as a problem. Questions 2 and 4 are suitable for critically assessing the way in which secularist understandings of religion affect the formulation of policy and what omissions this entails. Question 3 is likewise suitable for contextualizing the understandings expressed in the historical context that precedes them. Question 5 is useful for application on the measures that are introduced as a result of the understandings identified through usage of previous questions.

1.5. Source material

To analyse how understandings on religion have shaped its treatment in Swedish integration policy, the essay bases the first and third part of its analysis on the Swedish government’s official investigations (Statens Offentliga Utredningar, SOU). Swedish government investigations occupy an interesting position in relation to the governments that commission them. Though their directives are determined by the state, the expert committees that constitute them maintain a degree of autonomy as to how to conduct relevant research, as well as what parts of that research is included in the final report. Moreover, the committees themselves are not homogeneous, but rather consist of a combination of experts, academics and state officials. For the purposes of this essay, this is considered an analytical advantage, as it contributes towards a more universal representativity

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regarding the prevalent understandings of religion in relation to integration policy. The essay’s main focus is on the two reports associated with the formulation and evaluation of Swedish immigrant policy, i.e. the 1974 Commission on Integration (Invandrarutredningen, IU)47_{and the 1984 report}

of the Immigration Policy Committee (Invandrarpolitiska Kommittén, IPOK) respectively. For chapter 1, additional analytical reflections have been drawn from the 1972 report of the State and Church Advisory Committee (Stat- och Kyrka Beredningen, SSB).48_{For chapter 3, IPOK’s report}

is supplemented with an analysis of the final report and work conducted by the Workgroup for the

review of rules related to state support to immigrant faith communities, commissioned in 1986 following

IPOK’s recommendations. 49

To analyse how understandings on religion have been applied in practice, the essay focusses on the administrative workings of SFR and SST, the predecessor to what today is the Swedish Agency for Support to Faith Communities (Myndigheten för stöd till trossamfund). Throughout the studied period, SST constituted the financial mediator between the Swedish government and Sweden’s immigrant faith communities. SST is both an interesting and an ambiguous actor during the time frame that the essay is concerned with. Though it is, at the time, the only administrative organ whose function is directly associated with interaction with immigrant faith communities, the regulation that bestows it this responsibility is somewhat unclear. Other than general guidelines for administering the state grant to faith communities, no further indication is given as to what its position or its responsibilities in relation to these communities are, nor with other important immigration-related actors such as SIV. SFR occupies a similarly ambiguous position; while its official role is that of a cooperation organ for Sweden’s free churches, it is also associated in the literature with the interest representation of immigrant faith communities despite not being a state institution.50

Studying SFR and SST as active actors within Sweden’s immigrant and integration policy presents an important opportunity to operationalize the essay’s theoretical reflections, as well as to contextualize the previous research that has been consulted for the essay’s purposes. More specifically, it allows the empirical analysis to discern how bureaucratization is manifested beyond the defined boundaries of state institutions. Moreover, the duality of SFR’s role in relation to immigrant faith communities and the Swedish free churches that officially constitute makes it analytically fruitful to focus on how these roles interact and potentially conflict. Given that both SFR and SST are constituted of members of Protestant Evangelical churches, it is also possible to

47_{SOU 1974:69.} 48_{SOU 1972:36.} 49_{Ds C 1986: 12.} 50_{Soysal 1994, p. 94.}

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13 discern how the theological background of the two actors influences isomorphic changes for immigrant religious organizations.

1.6. Chronological framework and structure

The essay’s timeframe focusses on the years between 1974 and 1986. These dates correspond to the publication of IU’s final report, as well as that of the Workgroup for the review of rules related to state

support to immigrant faith communities respectively. As the workgroup’s report constituted an important

continuation of IPOK’s 1985 final report, the chronological boundaries of the essay have been expanded to include it. Inspiration for this timeframe has been drawn from Borevi’s work in

Välfärdsstaten i det mångkulturella samhället, which classifies these as points of formulation and

evaluation respectively for Swedish integration policy.51_{This has been evaluated as a satisfactory}

timeframe for discerning continuities and changes in regard to the issues analysed in the essay. For Sweden, these years also constitute a period of increasingly intensive refugee reception, which saw groups of diffuse faiths settle permanently in the country. Among these were Syriac Orthodox Christians from Lebanon, Syria and Turkey, Sunni and Shia Muslims from Iran, Roman Catholics from Poland and Buddhists from Vietnam.52_{Given the continuously evolving character of}

Sweden’s religious landscape during this period, the timeframe is expected to provide analytically fruitful results on how these changes are reflected in the source material.

The essay’s chapters follow a thematic structure. Chapter 2: Immigrants’ religion and the beginnings of

Swedish integration policy focusses on the work of IU and SSB, analysing how religion was understood

and treated in relation to notions of ethnicity, culture and language. Attention is paid on the dichotomies of religion/culture religion/society same/different. These are intended to correspond to the essay’s research questions, as well as to provide an explanatory context for the form that state support to immigrant faith communities took in the following years, which is discussed in chapter 3.

Chapter 3: SFR, SST and Immigrant Faith Communities focusses on the representation and grant

allocation scheme developed under the jurisdiction of SFRS/SST throughout the essay’s timeframe. Additionally, this chapter delves into the evolution of SFR’s administrative and theological relationships with immigrant faith communities, as well as its position vis-à-vis the Swedish state and SFRS/SST. Given a lack of available literature on how these relationships and concepts developed during this period, this chapter follows an inductive research design.53_Research

51_{Borevi 2002, p. 95.}

52_{Svanberg & Tydén 2005, p. 342.} 53_{Gustavsson & Svanström 2018, p. 19.}

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has thus been conducted using broader criteria, with theories and interpretations applied to the research results afterwards. Some parts of this chapter are thus more descriptive than analytical in comparison to chapters 2 and 4. Though descriptive historical research is sometimes discouraged, its conduction has been deemed necessary given the lack of available information on the researched topic.

Chapter 4: Immigrants’ religion and the evaluation of Swedish integration policy focusses on the work and

final report of IPOK, paying attention on the same dichotomies as the ones employed in chapter 2. Considering IPOK’s direct connection with IU, this chapter is used as a way to discern how understandings of religion have changed over time, as well as what significance and function is attributed to immigrant faith communities. The chapter furthermore continues with an analysis of the 1986 final report of the Workgroup for the review of rules related to state support to immigrant faith

communities. The chapter uses Bacchi’s ‘WPR’ methodology to analyse the workgroup’s suggested

changes to the current form of state support to immigrant faith communities, drawing parallels with contemporaneous changes in the state support to immigrant ethnic organizations, as well as the recommendations and understandings expressed by IPOK.

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15

Chapter 2: Immigrants’ religion and the beginnings of Swedish integration

policy

This chapter focuses on the years 1974-75 and the initial formulation of Swedish integration policy. It follows a sequential mode of analysis which starts with the SSB’s and IU’s 1972 and 1974 final reports, proceeds with the proposition 1975 ‘proposition on guidelines regarding immigrant and minority policy’ and concludes with the changes – or lack thereof – of measures related to immigrants’ religion during the same time period. This chapter also serves as an extended background for the ones that follow it.

2.1. The Committee on Integration (IU) and the State and Church Advisory Committee (SSB)

IU was commissioned in 1968, a year following the submission of the Aliens Investigation Committee (Utlänningsutredningen). The Aliens Investigation Committee’s final report and proposals, having dealt with issues related to immigration policy and the regulation of foreign workforce, had received criticism from numerous sources for not having dealt with issues of long-term adaptation in Swedish society.54_{IU can be seen as an amendment to that criticism as, well as}

an expression of the contemporaneous debates about immigrants’ adaptation.55_{The committee’s}

directive stated that, despite enjoying the same rights as Swedish citizens, immigrants faced additional problems with adaptation which were “connected to the fact that they speak a different language, are used to different societal and living conditions or have a different religion.”56_{The IU}

committee was thus encouraged to first create an overview of immigrants’ different problems in Swedish society and then suggest ways and measures in which Swedish society could amend these problems. Special attention was to be directed to the ways in which immigrants could be offered possibilities to maintain contact with their native cultures and languages, assuming that they were inclined and willing to do so. The committee was furthermore instructed to do the same with the problems of “established ethnic and religious minorities”, barring the Sami people. 57

Though not immediately apparent by the directive’s formulation, IU’s assigned tasks did not, in reality, prioritize immigrants’ religion-related problems as a point of evaluation. Following an explicit request by LO to do so,58_{the primary responsibility for this task was instead assigned to}

54_{Hansen 2001, p. 139. Criticism was levied, among other sources, from LO, members from the Liberal and Social}

Democratic parties’ youth organizations, as well as from the Estonian minority of Sweden.

55_{Hansen 2001, p. 159.} 56_{SOU 1974:69, p. 3.} 57_{SOU 1974:69, p. 3.} 58_{SOU 1974:69, p. 48.}

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SSB, which began its investigation a year later, in 1968.59_{Similar to IU, SSB was commissioned as}

a direct continuation of the Church-State investigation of 1958, immediately after the latter had submitted its final report following a decade’s work. Rather than present proposals for a renegotiation of church-state relations, the 1958 Church-State committee focused on gathering information that could be used as a reference for future initiatives and proposals related to such a renegotiation.60_{The SSB was thus commissioned to investigate and propose guidelines for a}

redefinition of relations between the state and the Church of Sweden, which was understood to hold a disproportionately privileged position in comparison to other faiths and denominations in Sweden.61_{In all actuality, this denoted an aspiration for a separation of church and state: the original}

1968 directive states that “in order to facilitate a future decision, it should therefore be necessary to at least broadly present the conditions for a church that is organizationally separate from the state”.62_{As is discussed later in this chapter, SSB’s state-church separation proposal included}

various measures related to inter-faith relations. In contrast to IU, however, SSB’s final report would never be incorporated into a state proposition. While the final report would receive support from the Social Democratic majority and positive feedback from the Swedish free churches and immigrant faith communities, it would be met with opposition from the Centre and Moderate parties, as well as from the Swedish Church.63_{In light of this polarized feedback, the Palme}

administration decided to postpone any discussions related to the separation of church and state, including the SSB’s proposed revised model of support to faith communities.64

2.2. IU’s final report

While IU conducted independent research on immigrant faith communities, its low prioritization of religion as a point of evaluation due to SSB’s parallel work is both apparent and acknowledged.65

In relation to measures, IU mostly limited itself to evaluating and reaffirming the one existing at the time, rather that suggesting major changes. The extension of the grant for support to faith

communities to immigrant and other non-Christian faith communities was deemed to be “a very

positive development, and its continuation at its current form is therefore supported by IU.66_The

proposed criterion for grant eligibility here made no differentiation between organization types: a

59_{SOU 1974:69, p. 49.} 60_{SOU 1972:36, p. 27.} 61_{SOU 1972:36, p. 29.} 62_{SOU 1972:36, p. 29–30.} 63_{Ekström 1999, p. 31.}

64_{The separation of church and state would take place 27 years later, in January 1}st_{, 2000.} 65_{SOU 1974:69, p. 304.}

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17 minimum requirement of 3.000 members, IU argues, should apply for ethnic organizations as well as religious ones, with SIV assuming a similarly supportive position for organizations with insufficiently large memberships. It was furthermore argued that financial support should be high enough to “make it possible for an organization to maintain a central chancellery with locales and employed staff”.67_{Moreover, a proposal was made to enforce a limit as to how big a part of an}

organization’s costs can be covered via state support annually, which IU suggested to be set at 75%.68

On the closely associated issue of membership, IU advocated a voluntary basis for registration and positioned itself against a central registration of group membership (ethnic or religious), arguing for the sensitivity of that type of information and citing fears from many refugees that such information could be used harmfully.69_{This can be interpreted as an expression of what Hansen}

identifies as a distinct anti-Nazi, anti-racist sentiment endemic to the formulation of Swedish immigration and integration policy during the 1960s and the 1970s. Central registration of data alluding to collective group membership constituted a very sensitive area still, even if the basis of the policy reforms in question are contingent on the recognition of such identities. Given the diffuse array of understandings surrounding the term, IU argued that the task of providing a definition and a set of minimum requirements for membership should be defined by the respective state institutions tasked with administering the grants.70

Among IU’s evaluations on the topic of religion, the following stands out: in the section dedicated to evaluating the form of state support to immigrant religious communities, it is stated that IU shares the following mutual understanding with SSB:

Even if, in the beginning of a migration wave, there are reasons to give special treatment to a denomination that immigrants bring with them, these reasons cannot, according to IU’s understanding, be invoked when the group in question has established itself in Sweden and its members have become e.g. Swedish citizens. IU considers it both difficult and inappropriate to differentiate between ‘immigrant faith communities’ and other faith communities when it comes to providing societal support to them or their position in society71

The above assertion is a notable departure from IU’s overall stance on issues of immigrant identity for a number of reasons. Firstly, it constitutes a representation of a projected problem based on nationality in a report which otherwise uses a deliberately post-national definition of immigrant

67_{SOU 1974:69, p. 292.} 68_{SOU 1974:69, p. 293.} 69_{SOU 1974:69, p. 293.} 70_{SOU 1974:69, p. 261.} 71_{SOU 1974:69, p. 304.}

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citizenship to formulate its evaluations and policy recommendations.72_{Secondly, it comes into stark}

contrast with how IU envisions the future relationship between the state and ethnic organizations, for which adherence to the status of cultural minority could theoretically be extended permanently, according to the principle of freedom of choice.

The presuppositions that underlie this problem representation can be best understood against two factors – the first being IU’s conceptual standpoint regarding immigrant groups on one side and minority groups on the other. Throughout the report, these terms are referred to separately, denoting the chronological length of a group’s presence in Sweden – Estonians, for example, are identified as an ‘established minority’, whereas e.g. Greeks are identified as an immigrant group. Despite this loosely defined differentiation, IU deliberately avoided making distinctions related to the measures and principles concerning these two groups. IU argued that since both immigrants and established minorities – barring the Sami– trace their origins to immigrant backgrounds, ‘immigrant’ and ‘minority’ should be regarded as the same thing.73_{The same principle here is}

applied to the distinction between immigrant faith communities (e.g. the Serbian Orthodox Church) and minority faith communities (e.g. the Jewish communities of Sweden) – both were to be treated equally for the purposes of state support. While, for ethnic immigrant organizations, this terminological conflation meant that older groups would contest the same selective source of funding as new ones, the same conflation would predicate a different set of relations for immigrant faith communities: these would instead be allocated the same grant with both existent religious minorities as well as with the native evangelical denominations that made up the Swedish free churches. This effectively meant that, in contrast to the specific support measures adopted for ethnic immigrant organizations, immigrant faith communities would be supported through a universal measure. This is a clear expression of a ‘likes should be treated alike’ presupposition74

which, as illustrated in chapter 2, would facilitate inequalities between the faith communities affected by the grant.

An interpretation as to why immigrant’s religion, in contrast to linguistic acquisition and ethnicity-based collective action was relegated to a universal rather than a specific measure is that it lacked a clearly defined functional purpose to accommodate its significance for identity preservation. Mastery of the Swedish language, widely considered to be the primary factor for integration into Swedish society, had been a major focal point in debates on Swedish integration

72_{Borevi 2002, p. 94. Borevi here illustrates that the report endeavored to use a primarily linguistic definition of}

minorities as a departure point. She supplements this argument with the ethnic connotations of the report in chapter 4.

73_{Borevi 2002, p. 93.} 74_{Bacchi 2009, p. 181.}

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19 and immigration policies since the mid-1960s.75_{Other than being a primary concern among many}

immigrant groups, native language acquisition was also understood as a positive factor to the mental and emotional development of immigrant children, as well as a vital component of a much-desirable bilingualism.76_{Likewise, as indicated previously, ethnic organizations were envisioned to}

constitute the primary channel of interaction between immigrants and state actors, as well as collective interest groups akin to popular movements.77_{This is reflected in IU’s argumentation}

regarding the religion of immigrants: though religious identities are argued by IU to carry equal importance as ethnic or linguistic ones, it is specifically “immigrant organizations based on ethnic or linguistic adherence” that are argued to merit selective support, recognised to be “a natural extension of the support offered to popular movements”.78_{Immigrants’ religion is otherwise}

associated exclusively with religious ceremonies and church attendance. That is to say that, even though IU’s directive indicated immigrants’ religion was initially understood to be a problem for societal adaptation, IU’s prioritization of objectives and the understanding expressed about it was left mostly unproblematic. While not altogether neglected, religion was perceived to have no contributive societal counterpart in the framework of functional integration determined by the policy.

2.3. SSB and envisioned ecumenism

As indicated above, IU’s non-distinctive evaluation of immigrant’s religion and the subsequent recommendation to perpetuate pre-existing measures was made with reference to SSB’s final report. How, then, has this representation of the ‘problem’ come about and, likewise importantly, what is left unproblematic by this representation of the ‘problem’? This preferential dichotomy can be best understood by a closer examination of the way that IU relates its assertions to those found in the final report of SSB.

SSB’s final report, submitted in 1972, envisioned a development of church, state and faith community relations that differed significantly from the one that would eventually come to pass during the following decade. Its proposed guidelines suggested that an eventual separation between church and state would be feasible by 1983, with transitional measures taking place in the intervening years to gradually lead to the split, changing the Church of Sweden from a state church

75_{Lundh & Ohlsson 1994, p. 120.}

76_{Hansen 2001, p. 198. Native language education was also understood to be a contributing factor to the integration}

of second-generation immigrants, as well as a supportive resource for learning the Swedish language, either simultaneously or later in life.

77_{Borevi 2002, p. 147.} 78_{SOU 1974:69, pp. 287–288.}

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to a people’s church. Central to the proposal was the abolition of the church tax and its replacement with a voluntary membership fee, applying equally to all faith communities. Most importantly, the SSB proposed that state support should be provided via a central grant to all religious communities, while exercising minimum control in relation to its usage and allocation. Religious communities would decide on its distribution among themselves by means of ecumenical cooperation, which would take place through a government-appointed Joint Council of Religious Communities (Trossamfundens samarbetsråd). The 3.000 member eligibility criterion would be maintained, supported by project grants from SIV for smaller communities, as well as by a system of voluntary registration of religious adherence that would replace the automatic registration to the Church of Sweden.79_{This model corresponds roughly, in both form and purpose, to the first category in the}

distinction Borevi makes between state grants aimed at providing organizations with resources for independent action (organizationsbidrag) and state grants aimed at promoting a specific line of action (verksamhetsbidrag).80

Simply put, SSB envisioned a model of ecumenical corporatism that would run parallel to the ethnic corporatist model proposed by IU for non-religious immigrant organizations, which would, in theory, afford religious communities a corresponding degree of autonomy and state support. Notwithstanding its advocacy of faith communities’ right to self-determination, there is very little to indicate that SSB maintained a different understanding than IU regarding religion’s relationship with culture and society. The report states in passing that “in addition to its purely spiritual tasks, the Church of Sweden as well as other denominations (and also other non-profit organizations) both within and outside the country carry out considerable activities that can best be described as social or cultural.”81 No further connection between culture and religion is explored throughout

the report. There is, in that regard, some merit in understanding SSB’s final report as secularist in the “separation of the spheres” sense of the term. Conversely, SSB’s proposed model supported a larger degree of autonomy for faith communities than the equivalent model for immigrant ethnic organizations, lacking a regulatory liaising actor (i.e. SIV) between the state and the measure’s target group. 82_{SSB’s model, however, was predicated on horizontal, rather than vertical, inter-faith}

relationships between the faith communities that it was meant to include. Furthermore, while the lack of distinction between faith communities alluded to the structure of a universal measure, the proposal advocated some initial provision of support to smaller and/or structurally weak faith communities during their period of establishment.

79_{SOU 1972:36, p. 135–136.} 80_{Borevi 2002, p. 141.} 81_{SOU 1972:36, p. 95.}

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21 Figure 2.1: Visual representation of the form of state support to religious communities as

proposed by SSB (left) versus its realized form (right) after 1974.

2.4. Recontextualizing the grant for support to faith communities

Understanding SSB’s proposed ecumenical corporatist model allows for a more elaborate contextualization of the original 1971 grant for support to the Swedish Free Church communities – both in relation to its original purpose and its eventual ramifications. The grant was introduced by the Committee on Culture (Kulturutskottet)83_{as a response to three motions raised by}

representatives of the Centre, Social Democratic and People’s parties.84_{The decision significantly}

echoed SSB’s suggestions, maintaining both the membership criterion and the conditions for ecumenical allocation through SFRS. A notable aspect of this decision that, while acknowledged by the SSB,85_{would go unaccounted for in IU, is that the Committee on Culture would define the}

decision to distribute the grant as a “provisional measure while pending the results of the work within the 1968 investigation on state and church.”86

83_{KrU 1971:15.}

84_{Mot. 1971:34; 1971:35; 1971:364. The second and third motions suggested a budget allocation of 3.000.000 and}

3.500.000 Swedish crowns respectively. The Committee on Culture’s allocation consisted of 2.000.000 Swedish crowns for the year 1971/2.

85_{SOU 1974:69, p. 28, 59. The report acknowledges the grant as “an important step towards equality between religious}

communities”.

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The positive feedback that the grant received by IU can be largely understood against the circumstances of its initial allocation. Though a Joint Council of Religious Communities would never be created, the form that state support to faith communities took at this stage for the Swedish free churches was effectively identical to the one advocated in SSB’s proposal. This is owed to the structure and cross-denominational relationships that the Swedish free churches had even before the introduction of the grant. The Swedish free churches had had an operational ecumenical committee in the form of the Free Church Cooperation Committee since 1918 (renamed to SFR in 1963).87_{Moreover, the selective nature of the grant (i.e. allocated exclusively to the Swedish free}

churches) and the conditions for board membership in SFRS effectively meant that the Swedish free churches were given the liberty to allocate resources amongst their own members.

The membership criterion –which, as chapter 2 illustrates, would constitute one of the most recurring points of contention regarding the measure– was also relatively unproblematic for the faith communities concerned: A pre-existent consolidated official membership largely guaranteed a degree of representation for the purposes of the grant’s allocation. In that accord, this membership-related advantage should be understood against the legal background of religious freedom in Sweden, specifically concerning the Dissenter Acts – a series of reforms beginning in 1860 and finalized in 1873, as well the 1951 Law on Religious Freedom. Established in close chronological proximity to the emergence of major evangelical movements,88_{the Dissenter Law}

introduced the possibility of individuals’ detachment from the Church of Sweden, provided that ceased membership was accompanied by registration to another state-recognized religious community.89_{Since the only state-recognized free church until 1951 was the Methodist Church,}90

the possibility for denominational changes would remain very limited for free church adherents. The very issue of membership would become a central point of focus and cooperation for the Swedish free churches throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Following the 1951 Law on Religious Freedom and the recognition of free churches as religious associations by the state, free church representatives and key members of the FSK would take various initiatives to inform members of their newly-acquired right of unconditional de-registration and urge them to officially join the respective churches to which they had hitherto unofficially belonged. Consolidated membership was thus actively pursued not only for administrative purposes, but also as a denominational and ideological stand against existing church-state relations.91

87_{Bergsten 1995, p. 33.} 88_{Ekström 1999, p. 20.} 89_{Ekström 1999, p. 20–21.} 90_{Bergsten 1995, p. 210.} 91_{Bergsten 1995, p. 212–213.}

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23 One of the reasons why the free churches’ background on membership is particularly important is that SFRS would, at the early stages, be given the jurisdictional liberty to define what counted as the sum of a faith community’s ‘serviced’ members92_{and regulate the criterion accordingly.}93_Upon

the initial adoption of the measure, SFRS conducted an investigation meant to provide an estimate of total membership based on each church’s circle of influence rather than just the sum of officially registered members. This included individuals affected by the churches’ activities and initiatives among youths, members’ children and pensioners, as well as a documentation of the different modes that each church used for defining and registering membership. The investigation showed that the total volume of membership was approximately 330.000 individuals, with an estimated 800.000 individuals being included in the Swedish free churches’ total area of influence. The sustainability of conducting the same process annually, however, made SFRS decide upon a distribution based on individual registered membership rather than the area of influence.94_{It is}

likely that this decision also reflected theological considerations rather than solely administrative ones: while church membership via infant baptism was not uncommon among local free church congregations, the majority of them conferred membership by means of believer’s baptism, either independently or as a means to complete a church initiation started by a pre-existing infant baptism.

95

Correspondence between SFRS and its constituent members suggests that this distribution model became a point of contention even between the Swedish free churches, primarily on behalf of the smaller denominations.96_{A primary concern relates to the implications of proportional}

distribution following the separation of the Church of Sweden from the state, though the relevance of this problematization would recede after 1974. In light of this, SFRS decided upon an allocation scheme between a base grant (150.000 Swedish crowns) and a half-grant (75.000 swedish crowns), allocated to faith communities with more and less than 3.000 registered members respectively. The second part of the grant, i.e. the variable grant, was allocated proportionally according to membership size.97_{Effectively, this meant that the grant’s allocation scheme was, at this stage,}

tailored to correspond almost identically to the structure and understanding of membership of the free churches that it was allocated to.

92_{SFS 1974:404, 2 § 3, ”Statsbidrag utgår till församling som tillhör sådant samfund eller ingår i sådan grupp av}

församlingar som betjänar minst 3 000 personer i Sverige.

93_{Ds C 1986: 12, p. 30.} 94_{Ds C 1985: 12, p. 31.}

95_{Bergsten 1995, p. 289–290. Believer’s baptism (also known as adult baptism) is practiced by many evangelical,}

primarily Baptist, Christian denominations when a member is deemed to have reached the age of accountability – typically in adolescence or adulthood.

96_{SST E1:1 Beträffande modell för fördelning av statsanslag till de fria trossamfunden, 1973-06-14.} 97_{Ds C 1985: 12, p. 24.}

Between Faith and Bureaucracy: The treatment of immigrants’ religion in Swedish integration policy, 1974 –1986

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ISTORISKA INSTITUTIONEN