Differentiation of Rights in the Norwegian Welfare State: Hierarchies of Belonging and Humanitarian Exceptionalism

Abstract

Controlling mobility and borders has become a central, defining feature of the state today. Using the Norwegian welfare state as a case study, I argue that the differentiation of rights depending on status categories is an important way in which the state deals with irregular migration. It is also an integral element of border construction and how mobility is managed. How is the Norwegian welfare state differentiating the rights to work, health care, and economic welfare benefits and through which argumentations does the state legitimate these differentiations? This article argues that the practice of differentiation contributes to establishing hierarchies of belonging and enforces the nexus of welfare rights–migration management. Further, the exclusion of certain categories of people from accessing basic welfare services and, consequently, creating precarious lives, is legitimized by the discourse of humanitarian exceptionalism, through which migrants gain some support outside the welfare state system. This facilitates policies and regulations that are “tough on migration”, and produces the irregular subject as apolitical, a victim, and unwanted. The differentiation of rights and the discourses that the state uses to legitimate these differentiations are keys in the negotiation of who should be entitled to which rights in the future.

Rättssäkerheten och solidariteten - Vad hände?: En antologi om mottagande av människor på flykt

“…Det skiljer sig markant från den logik som genomsyrar välfärden, att grundläggande rättigheter ska gälla alla och på lika villkor. En fara med att ansvaret för att tillgodose grundläggande välfärd för vissa grupper förskjuts till civilsamhället är att staten förmår upprätthålla migrationskontrollerande funktioner med hjälp av välfärden, samtidigt som kritiken mot att människor försätts i total utsatthet mildras genom humanitära, civilsamhälleliga insatser (Bendixsen 2018). De akuta stödinsatser som civilsamhället bistått med har varit enormt viktiga för ett stort antal individer.…”

Introduction

“…Furthermore, we paid attention to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on undocumented migrants in Finland and, in particular, their access to healthcare during the pandemic. The law is the same for everyone (including undocumented migrants) in Finland, but the local healthcare micropractices (Bendixsen 2018) and public services differ greatly in respect of undocumented migrants.…”

“…Moreover, the condition of "illegality" is produced, not only by institutions like the police and the immigration authorities, but also by officials in education, health, and housing and by private employers or landlords, who all verify migration documents (Khosravi 2010a: 96). Liminal situations are therefore created ad hoc by control micropractices at the local level (Bendixsen 2018), or even at EU borders (in Greece, to cite but one), where people are kept with undecided status for long periods of time, with the idea of guaranteeing the flexible governance of migration. In this way, however, what is created is in reality 'a new form of governance that further disentangles territory from rights' (Papoutsi et al 2019(Papoutsi et al : 2200; thus, irregular migration, per se, turns out to be a political construct and its 'governance .…”

“…Undocumented migrants must live in the system, yet remain outside of it at the same time: again, they live undefined in-between lives. Their lives are determined by short-term practices (Bendixsen 2018;De Certeau 1984) that might eventually become long-term experiences guaranteeing their survival in countries that are rejecting them. They need to sleep, eat, work, and possibly enjoy some leisure time, but only in the shadow of the system-the system we call a welfare society, neoliberal society, or any kind of society.…”

“…Scholars have particularly addressed the healthcare issues of undocumented migrants in, for example, Sweden (see Andersson et al 2018;Nordling et al 2017;Wahlström Smith 2018) and Norway (see Bendixsen 2019;Myhrvold and Småstuen 2019;Onarheim et al 2018). Paradoxically, undocumented migrants appear to experience greater hardship in advanced welfare states, such as Scandinavian countries, which apply strict immigration controls (Bendixsen 2018;Faist 1993), and have strongly regulated labour markets, than in Southern Europe, which by contrast has a higher degree of institutional informality (Arango and Jachimowicz 2005). Düvell (2011) demonstrated that, when a country applies strict immigration rules, the number of undocumented migrants in that country increases.…”