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39
IMPACT OF EXTERNAL MIGRATION
ON CHANGES IN THE SWEDISH RELIGIOUS
LANDSCAPE
M.M. Agafoshina S.A. Gorokhov b c
a Moscow Pedagogical State University 1/1 M. Pirogovskaya Str., Moscow, Russia, 119991
b Institute of Geography Russian Academy of Science 29 Staromonetny Per., Moscow, Russia, 119017
c Pushkin Leningrad State University 10 Petersburgskoe sh., Pushkin, St. Petersburg, Russia, 196605
For most of its history, Sweden has been a country dominated by the Lutheran Church, having the status of the official state religion. Starting in mid-to-late 20th century, mass immigration to Europe had a considerable impact on the confessional structure of Sweden's population. The growing number of refugees from the Balkan Peninsula, the Middle East, and Africa has turned Sweden into a multi-religious state. Sweden has become one of the leaders among the EU countries as far as the growth rates of adherents of Islam are concerned. Immigrants are exposed to adaptation difficulties causing their social, cultural and geographical isolation and making relatively isolated migrant communities emerge. This study aims at finding correlation between the changes in the confessional structure of Swedish population (as a result of the growing number of non-Christians) and the geographical structure of migrant flows into the country. This novel study addresses the mosaic structure of the Swedish religious landscape taking into account the cyclical dynamics of replacement of Protestantism by Islam. The methods we created make it possible to identify further trends in the Swedish religious landscape. This study adds to results of the complex sociological and demographic studies of the confessional structure of the Swedish population.
Keywords:
Sweden, migration, confessional structure of population, religious landscape, Islam, refugees, parallel communities
Introduction
Globalisation driving economic and demographic polarisation in different regions worldwide intensifies migration processes [1]. Thus, in 1990 there were 153 million international migrants in the world (2.9% of the world's population) whereas by mid-2019 the number of international migrants went beyond 272 mil-
To cite this article: Agafoshin M.M., Gorokhov S.A. 2020, Impact of external migration on changes in the Swedish religious landscape, Balt. Reg., Vol.12, no 2, p. 84-99. doi: 10.5922/2078-8555-2020-2-6.
Received 31 December 2019 doi: 10.5922/2079-8555-2020-2-6 © Agafoshin M. M., Gorokhov S.A., 2020
BALTIC REGION ► 2020 ► Vol.12 ► №2
lion people (3.5 % of the world's population). Moreover, this number is expected to keep growing1. Jacques Attali, Alvin Toffler and other globalisation philosophers believe that the mere existence of the global world that, according to Thomas Friedman, has become 'flat' [2], is related to forming a nomadic civilisation, a civilisation of new nomads [3; 4].
Most researchers admit that social, demographic, economic, and political factors [5; 6] define the nature and intensity of global migration processes. We would like to add to this list another factor that drives migration worldwide, and that has become particularly relevant due to globalisation. This factor means that in the modern world, different countries and regions tend to become more and more heterogeneous in terms of religions, cultures and ethnicities. As a result of mass migration, numerous parallel communities (diasporas, ethnic and religious minorities) emerge. Considering the low growth rate of 'indigenous' population in North America and Europe, the share of migrants in the population keeps growing. The migration crisis of 2014—2016 that caused millions of people from Asia and Africa come to Europe has immensely aggravated the problems of social and cultural adaptation of migrants to the life in the host societies [7]. These problems have become particularly pressing in countries that host more migrants from Islamic countries, especially in Sweden.
Some Russian experts in foreign affairs (like Leonid Fituni and Irina Abram-ova) note that members of parallel migrant communities tend to escape from the new reality concentrating in enclaves, to refuse to integrate into the European civil society, and to create parallel bodies of power [8]. Members of such parallel communities maintain close relations with their country of origin and their relatives who stayed there, thus increasing the migrant flow from that country and inhibiting the cultural assimilation of the diaspora, as it was noticed by German researcher Thilo Sarrazin [9, p. 259 — 260]. On the other hand, as it was noticed by Anatoliy Vishnevsky, the eminent Russian demographer, in a globalised environment migration flows may become bridges between different civilisations, countries and nations [10, p. 319 — 325]. In this connection, we should note that diasporas play a crucial role in establishing economic relations between the country of origin of its members and their new homeland and that different migrant organisations drive integration of their members into the new social and cultural environment by helping them in terms of accommodation, employment or education.
Nevertheless, intensification of migration processes that cause emerging of parallel communities in the developed countries with low birth rates may result in 'indigenous' population gradually becoming a minority. This process is known as a 'third demographic transition'. According to David Coleman, a British demographer, the author of this concept, the benchmark for this transition is 'a pri-
1 United Nations. Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Population Division. International Migration. URL: www.unmigration.org (access date: 20.11.2019).
ori, a decline of former majority (indigenous) populations to below of 50 per cent of the total' [11, p. 32]. In this connection, Russian demographer Mikhail Klupt emphasises that 'this transition results in developing world moving westwards' [12, p. 67].
Materials and methodology
The research is based on national statistical sources detailing the structure of migration traffic to Sweden as well as the location of migrants within the country2. The information about affiliation in Sweden and countries generating migrant traffic to it is put to analysis basing on consolidated sources of statistical data3, including public opinion polls [13 — 15] and monographic reference books [16].
We propose to use the Modified Fractionalisation Index (MFI) [17] as the key indicator of changes in components and structure of the religious landscape. We have created this index while studying the religious environment in different countries by eliminating several drawbacks in the Ekkel's Fractionalisation Index [18], which is often used by Russian researchers:
MFI = „ '
l — l/m
where n. is the impact of the ith actor on the situation structure (or the share of this actor in such a structure) by a certain parameter; m is the number of actors.
In any case, MFI may have values varying in the interval from 0 to 1. Dividing it by segments, we get the following subinterval values for fractionalisation by this or that parameter: 0.000—0.280 means extremely homogeneous; 0.281 — 0.556 means relatively homogeneous; 0.557—0.820 means relatively heterogeneous; 0.821 — 1.000 means extremely heterogeneous [19, p. 129].
Our hypothesis implying that religious landscape dynamics has a cyclic nature shaped by competition of religions [19, p. 173—204] is quite in line with the ideas by David Coleman about the third demographic transition. The cycle of supplan-tation one religion by another may be triggered by the migration of adepts of the religion that will compete with the one that previously prevailed in the religious landscape of the hosting country. Our calculations show that on average, such a cycle lasts for 106 years. It consists of 4 stages (initial supplantation, sustainable supplantation, parity, and final supplantation) each having a certain duration and special impact on the structure of the religious landscape (see Table 1).
2 Statistiska centralbyran (SCB). URL: https://www.scb.se (access date: 15.10.2019).
3 Brown D., James P. Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project: Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), COUNTRIES ONLY. URL: http://www.thearda.com/Archive/Files/ Descriptions/RCSDEM2.asp (access date: 18.11.2019).
Table 1
The phase duration and running conditions that comprise the "average" religious competition cycle
Phase Duration, years Running conditions
Values of MFI Structure of confes-
sional landscape
Initial supplantation 18 MFI e (0,000; 0,280] Share of the religion under supplantation > 87 %
Stable supplantation 21 MFI e [0,281; 0,556] 87 % > share of the religion under supplantation > 70 %
Parity 29 MFI e [0,557; 1,000] e [1,000; 0,557] 70 % > share of the religion under supplantation > 30 %
Final supplantation 38 MFI e [0,556; 0,000) Share of the religion under supplantation < 30 %
Source: [19, p. 225].
Results and Discussion
In Sweden, demographic development has always been influenced mainly by external migration. Since the Middle Ages, Sweden has been receiving migrants from Northern Germany, mainly merchants and artisans. In the 17th century, the discovery of significant iron reserves attracted Walloon Protestants who taught ironworking to their new compatriots4. They flew from the territories that now belong to Belgium in virtue of religious persecution.
Since the 16th century, Lutheranism has become the official religion in Sweden, and the activities of other religious organisations were restricted. A royal edict of 1617 prohibited non-Lutherans to permanently live in Sweden; preachers of other religions had the same status as high traitors and were prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, including death penalty. That is why it was difficult for non-Protestants to migrate to Sweden.
As time went by, Swedish law became more liberal in terms of religious freedom. Thus, in 1858 the law that prohibited religious assemblies outside the church houses was abolished; since 1870 non-Lutherans were no more prohibited to go in for politics; since 1880 it is permitted to change religion [20]; finally in 2000 Lutheran Church lost its status of the official church of Sweden [21]. Neverthe-
4 Sweden and migration. URL: https://sweden. se/migration (access date: 19.11.2019).
less, for quite a long time religious liberalisation did not entail any considerable increase in the share of the non-Protestant population in Sweden, so Protestantism (in the form of Lutheranism) has prevailed in Sweden's religious landscape.
Consequently, until the mid-20th century migration inflow had no significant impact on the ethnical or confessional structure of the Swedish population. As a whole, the country remained mono-ethnic and mono-religious, and most of the migrants managed to become naturalised and even to accept the dominating Lutheranism.
After the Second World War, Sweden faced increasing migrant inflow, which was mainly due to the favourable economic situation there. As the Swedish economy proliferated after the war, it was in desperate need of labour force. In 1950, there were 198,000 migrants (which accounted for 2.8 % of the country's population): half of them originated from the neighbouring Scandinavian countries, and more than one third came from other countries of Europe (see Table 2).
Table 2
Structure of immigration to Sweden by region of origin, 1950 — 1980
Region and country of migrants birth Year
1950 1960 1970 1980
thousand pers. thousand pers. thousand pers. thousand pers.
Nordic countries1 except Sweden 99,1 174,0 320,9 341,2
Finland 44,8 101,3 234,5 251,3
EU-282 except the Nordic countries 76,2 76,0 139,2 151,3
Poland 7,8 6,3 10,8 20,0
Germany 21,6 37,6 41,8 39,0
UK 2,1 2,7 5,4 8,2
Greece 0,0 0,3 11,8 15,1
Hungary 2,0 8,5 10,6 12,9
Rest of Europe 9,3 35,1 48,2 61,2
Yugoslavia 0,2 1,5 33,8 38,0
USSR 8,1 31,9 7,2 6,8
Turkey 0,1 0,2 3,8 14,4
Asia 0,9 1,5 5,9 30,3
North America 11,3 11,7 15,6 14,5
South America 0,4 0,7 2,3 17,2
Chile 0,0 0,0 0,2 8,3
Africa 0,3 0,6 4,1 10,0
Total 197,8 299,9 537,6 626,9
Source: Compiled by the authors based on: Folkmangd efter fodelseland 1900—2018. Statistiska centralbyran (SCB). URL: https://www.scb.se (access date: 19.11.2019).
5 In this article Nordic countries stand for Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Finland.
6 In this article the composition of the EU is considered as on January 1, 2020.
After the migration law was liberalised in the 1950s, Swedish labour market faced a considerable inflow of migrant workers7 mostly coming from Scandinavian countries, Germany and countries of Eastern Europe (Yugoslavia and Baltic republics of the USSR). The postwar migration inflow to Sweden lasted till the late 1970s when the government stopped supporting labour migration. The postwar migrant inflow was relatively homogeneous, consisting mainly of Western Christians.
In the period from 1950 to 1970, migrant flows to Sweden was predominantly generated by one region — Scandinavia. Thus, in 1970 the share of migrants coming from Scandinavian countries reached its maximum of almost 60 % (about 3/4 of them coming from Finland). During the same period, more than 25 % of migrants came from the countries that are now members of the EU. Only about 15 % of migrants came from elsewhere. If we further calculate the MFI by home countries of migrants, during the period from 1950 to 1970 its value decreased reaching its minimum in Sweden's recent history, i.e. in 1970 it was recorded as 0.789 for the first time changing from extreme heterogeneity to relative heterogeneity (Table 3).
Table 3
Dynamics of MFI for immigrants and shares of religious communities in Sweden population, 1950 — 1980
Index 1950 1960 1970 1980
MFI of the flow of immigrants to Sweden 0,887 0,837 0,789 0,825
MFI of the religious population of Sweden 0,037 0,035 0,065 0,123
Proportion of Protestants in the religious population,% 98,354 98,376 96,991 94,171
Proportion of Catholics in the religious population,% 0,397 0,430 0,973 1,509
Proportion of Orthodox Christians in the religious population^ 0,079 0,162 0,519 1,022
Proportion of Muslims in the religious population,% 0,016 0,028 0,176 1,556
Proportion of religious population in Sweden,% 90,014 82,609 75,204 73,840
Source: Compiled by the authors based on Brown D., James P. Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project: Demographics v. 2.0 (RCS-Dem 2.0), COUNTRIES ONLY. URL: http://www.thearda.com/Archive/Files/Descriptions/RCSDEM2.asp (access date: 18.11.2019).
7 Sweden and Migration. Post war immigration. Swedish Institute (SI). URL: https://sweden. se/migration/#1940 (access date: 17.02.2020).
However, after 1970s migrant flows to Sweden became more heterogeneous with more people coming from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe outside the EU. Changes in the geographic structure of migrant flows to Sweden resulted in increased MFI value by migrants' homeland. In 1980 it reached 0.825, thus returning to extreme heterogeneity.
In average, more than 70—75 % of post-war migrants came to Sweden from countries having much in common in terms of their culture, history and religion. This is why before 1970, the decrease of Lutherans' share in Sweden's religious landscape was almost unnoticeable. However, the MFI value of Sweden's religious population was sustainably growing after World War II, which means that the share of non-Protestants in the country grew due to a more diversified migrant inflow [22].
Most migrants coming from Poland, Hungary and Latin America are Catholics; those who come from Greece or Romania are predominantly Orthodox Christians; those who come from Turkey and Iran are mostly Muslims; whereas natives of Yugoslavia may be Muslims, Catholics or Orthodox Christians, depending on their ethnicity. In such a way, the confessional structure of the Swedish population is mainly shaped by migration and not by religious conversion, which is not at all typical for the Swedes. While analysing the confessional structure of the Swedish population, we consider only the religious people, since active secularisation processes have made many Swedes religiously unaffiliated, just like migrants from Scandinavian countries and Western Europe [23; 24].
In overall, during the period from 1950 to 1980, the number of Catholics in Sweden has increased almost fourfold; Orthodox Christians became 12.5 times more numerous, whereas the number of Muslims has increased almost hundredfold. Postwar migration resulted in appearing of other religious communities, like Buddhists from China and Thailand, Bahais from Iran etc. Thus, as the religious landscape in Sweden is becoming more mosaic, there appear religions that can potentially compete with Lutheranism, i.e. trigger the cycle of religious competition changing the country's religious landscape.
In the late 1970s, when the economy and the employment rate in the industrial sector took the downward trend, the structure of immigration flows to Sweden started to change due to a decrease in demand for workforce. Labour permits were issued only to migrants coming from Scandinavian countries, and since 1995 to the EU citizens too. This is why refugees and immigrants from develop-
ing countries replace labour migrants from developed countries. It is essential to emphasise that culture and religion in the majority of developing countries differ considerably from the ones prevailing in Sweden [25]. In Sweden, migration policy was rather humanistic, and the country proclaimed itself as a 'humanitarian superpower'8. As the country emphasised protection of human rights, receiving refugees who sought to be rescued from political repressions, wars, poverty, and famine was largely supported by the Swedish society.
We can trace several migration waves in Sweden's recent history. In the 1970s, Sweden received refugees from Chile who were fleeing from military dictatorship by Augusto Pinochet as well as migrants from Uganda who were seeking refuge from the regime of Idi Amin. Later, in the 1980s, there were refugees of the war between Iran and Iraq [26].
In the 1990s, there started mass migration of refugees to Sweden. Its first peak was due to the flow of migrants (mostly Bosnians) from the former Yugoslavia then facing the civil war. For instance, only in 1992 (the record-setting year in terms of the number of refugees) Sweden granted asylum to 84,000 migrants mostly coming from the former Yugoslavia. Besides, Sweden received refugees from the Middle East and the Horn of Africa who sought safety because of military conflicts and economic insecurity faced by their countries (Table 4).
In the 2000s, the flows of migrants from these regions kept increasing due to many reasons. Firstly, the law of Sweden guarantees the right of families for reunification, so relatives of migrants headed for Sweden. About 50 % of all the migrants coming to Sweden since the 1990s sought the reunification of their families [27]. Secondly, the situation in countries generating migrant traffic to Sweden did not improve. The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 caused the migrant traffic from that country to triple within just a decade. To give an example, in 2007 Sodertalje, a small city near Stockholm, received 1,268 immigrants from Iraq, i.e. more refugees than were received by the USA and Canada together during that year.9
8 Новую волну иммигрантов Швеция тоже выдержит // Radio Sweden Russian. URL: https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2103&artikel=5945202 (access date: 22.11.2019).
9 Statistics Sweden, Tables on the population in Sweden 2007. URL: https://www.scb.se (access date: 20.11.2019).
Table 4
Structure of immigration to Sweden by region of origin, 1990 — 2018
Region and country of migrants' birth Year
1990 2000 2010 2018
thousand pers. thousand pers. thousand pers. thousand pers.
Nordic countries except Sweden 319,1 279,6 263,2 235,6
Finland 217,6 195,4 169,5 147,9
EU-28 except the Nordic countries 175,7 193,1 274,2 369,7
Poland 35,6 40,1 70,2 92,8
Germany 37,8 38,1 48,2 51,1
Romania 8,8 11,8 19,7 31,0
Rest of Europe 71,2 169,3 216,0 259,2
Yugoslavia 43,3* 72,0 70,8 65,1
Bosnia and Herzegovina 51,5 62,1 59,4
Turkey 25,2 31,9 42,5 50,0
Asia 124,4 220,7 410,1 745,3
Syria 5,9 14,2 20,8 186,0
Iraq 9,8 49,4 121,8 144,0
Iran 40,1 51,1 62,1 77,4
Afghanistan 0,5 4,3 14,4 52,0
Thailand 5,0 10,4 31,4 42,4
India 9,1 11,1 17,9 35,2
North America 19,1 24,3 31,3 40,1
South America 44,2 50,9 63,7 72,5
Africa 27,3 55,1 114,9 219,9
Somalia 1,4 13,1 37,9 68,7
Eritrea 3,1 10,3 42,3
Total 790,4 1003,8 1384,9 1955,6
Source: Compiled by the authors based on: Folkmangd efter fodelseland 1900 — 2018. Statistiska centralbyran (SCB). URL: https://www. scb. se (access date: 19.11.2019).
The next wave of refugees to Sweden was a result of the Arab Spring in 2011, and the events that followed it in the countries of the Middle East, including the civil wars that broke out in Syria and Iraq. These events generated more massive refugee traffic from the Middle East and Africa to Europe, thus entailing a migration crisis there. Comparing to other European countries, Sweden has received the largest number of refugees per capita. For instance, in 2014 the country hosted 81,000 refugees, and in 2015 (the peak year of the migration crisis) Sweden received more than 162,000 asylum applicants10. In 2014, every fifth immigrant in Sweden was a Syrian native, whereas in 2015 almost every fourth immigrant arrived from Syria. In 2017 Syrians became the most numerous group of migrants to Sweden outnumbering the Finns who had been holding the first position in these terms since the beginning of the 20th century. The Iraqis are holding the third position being slightly inferior to the Finns in number11.
In the 2010s, the most fast-growing groups of migrants to Sweden come from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Somalia, India, and Iran. Today, more than 50 % of all the migrants arriving in Sweden either apply for asylum or seek reunification of their families.
In 1990—2018, the geography of countries generating migrant flows to Sweden has become broader, which is evidenced by higher MFI value for the migration flow structure. This diversification was contributed by more migrants coming from Asia and Africa, which naturally entails changes in the religious landscape of the hosting country. Most of the migrants coming from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Somalia, Kosovo and almost half of the migrants coming from Eritrea are Muslims. Our assessment shows that, considering the confessional structure of the population in the countries that generate immigrant traffic to Sweden, Muslims account for more than 80 % of the migrants. This is why the share of Muslims was the most fast-growing segment of Sweden's religious landscape. The peaks in the number of Muslims in Sweden were recorded in the 1990s and after 2010, which historically matches the two significant waves of refugee flows to Sweden: the one from Yugoslavia and Bosnia, and the one from Syria and Iraq (Table 5).
10 Migration Policy Debates N°13 January 2017. OECD. URL: www.oecd.org/migration (access date: 18.11.2019).
11 Utrikes fodda samt fodda i Sverige med en eller tva utrikes fodda foraldrar efter fodelseland/ ursprungsland, 31 december 2018, totalt. URL: https://www.scb.se (access date: 20.11.2019).
Table 5
Dynamics of MFI for immigrants and shares of religious communities in the population of Sweden, 1990—2018
Index 1990 2000 2010 2018
MFI of the flow of immigrants to Sweden 0,910 0,946 0,964 0,971
MFI of the religious population of Sweden 0,183 0,228 0,260 0,311
Proportion of Protestants in the religious population,% 91,160 88,566 86,856 83,371
Proportion of Catholics in the religious population,% 1,713 1,934 2,194 2,248
Proportion of Orthodox Christians in the religious population,% 1,539 2,083 2,036 1,903
Proportion of Muslims in the religious population,% 2,998 6,265 7,754 13,850
Proportion of religious population in Sweden,% 72,477 71,113 68,485 67,050
Source: Compiled by the authors based on Brown D., James P. Op. cit.
During the period from 1990 to 2018, the share of Muslims in Sweden's religious population increased more than 4.6-folds. Today Muslims account for almost 14 % of the religious population in the country, and according to our calculations, Sweden is home for 950,000 Muslims. The share of Catholics increased by 1.3 (which is mainly due to more migrants coming from Poland), whereas the share of Orthodox Christians has slightly decreased. During the same period, considerable groups of adherents of other religions appeared in Sweden. Each group is genetically linked to a particular group of migrants. Thus, most of the Hindus come from India and Sri Lanka, most of Buddhists come from China and Thailand, most of the Bahais come from Iran, most of the adherents of Alevism come from Turkey, most of Yazidis and Mandaeans12 come from Iraq. The fact that migration has turned Sweden into a multi-religious country is supported by higher MFI values for the religious population with their peaks chronologically matching the years when maximum refugees arrived in Sweden (the 1990s and the 2010s).
Today's Sweden is literally a country of migrants. In 2018, 930,000 of its residents (i.e. 9.1 % of the country's population) were citizens of other countries, and more than 1.2 million of Swedish citizens were born abroad. In overall, Sweden is the home country for 2.5 million people (i.e. almost 25 % of the country's pop-
12 Mandaeans are the adherents of an ancient Gnostic religion that appeared in the Southern Iraq and that survived till our days. As a result of migration, Sweden is home of the largest group of Mandaeans in the world (11 thousand pers.) [28].
ulation) having foreign origins, which means that either they were born abroad or at least one of their parents was born abroad13. In terms of their geography, migrants are located in Sweden in a quite uneven manner with more than half of them concentrated in 3 of the country's 21 lans (counties). These are Stockholm, Vastra Gotaland, and Skane where the country's largest municipalities (Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmo) are located. The same three lans host almost 60 % of migrants coming to Sweden from Islamic states. Muslims are particularly numerous in the lan of Stockholm, home for 27 % of the country's Muslims, i.e. about 260,000 people that accounts for more than 22 % of the total lan's believers. About 80 % of the population in Rinkeby, northwestern district of Stockholm municipality (sometimes nicknamed Little Mogadishu), adhere to Islam. The situation is almost the same in Rosengard (a district of Malmo) with almost 86 % of its inhabitants being of foreign origin, most of them come from Iraq, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lebanon, Somalia Afghanistan and other (predominantly Muslim) countries14.
The fact that since the 1990s Sweden predominantly receives immigrants adhering to other cultures and other religions, makes it rather hard to ensure their integration into the Swedish society (and in case of Muslim immigrants this is closing in on impossible)15, contributes to their social degradation and criminal-isation and results in emerging of parallel migrant communities. Parallel communities are concentrated in the so-called 'vulnerable areas', enclaves where the state monopoly on law enforcement is challenged by the institutions of traditional leadership based on the Islamic religious rules that are not quite in line with the West European liberal values. In 2017, the country had 61 vulnerable areas inhabited by 560,000 people (more than 5 % of the country's population)16. According to the Swedish police, these vulnerable areas host 5,000 criminals and 200 criminal networks. Government of Sweden has proclaimed 23 of these areas with a total population of 200,000 people to be 'Especially vulnerable', almost uncontrolled by the authorities [29, p. 136]. These include Rinkeby in Stockholm and Rosengard in Malmo.
In such a way, it took the external migrants only 50 years to transform Sweden's religious landscape. Migration flows to the country grew more diversified due to more migrants coming mostly from Islamic countries, which resulted in the
13 Befolkningsstatistik i sammandrag 1960—2018. URL: https://www.scb.se (access date: 20.11.2019).
14 Sweden and migration. URL: https://sweden.se/migration (access date: 19.11.2019).
15 Veretevskaya A.V. Muslims in Sweden: integration aggravation of the crisis. Perspektivy: setevoe izdanie Tsentra issledovanii i analitiki Fonda istoricheskoi perspektivy [Perspectives: online publication of the center for research and Analytics of the historical perspective Foundation]. URL: http://www.perspektivy.info/misl/cenn/musulmane_v_shvecii_obostrenije_ integracionnogo_krizisa_2013-09-12.htm (access date: 19.11.2019).
16 Har ar fakta om de 556.000 som lever i utsatta omraden // Dagens Nyheter. URL: https://www.dn.se/debatt/har-ar-fakta-om-de-556000-som-lever-i-utsatta-omraden (access date: 19.11.2019).
growing share of Muslims in the country's population thus triggering the cycle of replacement of Protestantism with Islam in the religious landscape of Sweden. The first stage of this cycle of religious competition (initial supplantation) started in 1994 when Muslim migrant inflow from Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran, and Iraq reached its maximum. The fact that the religious landscape in Sweden had undergone the initial supplantation stage of the religious competition cycle is supported by the MFI value for the religious population that remained below 0.280 in 2010. In contrast, the share of adherents of Islam in the country grew to almost 8 %.
The next peak of Muslim migration to Sweden was in 2014—2015 when the country received the record number of refugees from the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, which triggered the second stage of the religious competition cycle. Thereby, in Sweden, the first stage lasted for 20—21 years, a period that approximately matches its average duration of 18 years. By 2018, the MFI value for the confessional structure of population had increased to 0.311, and the share of Muslims increased to 14 % thus matching the parameters of the next stage in the religious competition cycle, — the stage of sustainable supplanta-tion. Considering that in an ideal cycle it may last for 21 years, we may suppose that by 2036 — 2040 sustainable supplantation will give way to parity, i.e. by that time the share of Muslims in the religious population of Sweden may reach the threshold of 30 %. It is interesting to note that our forecast is in line with the data of Pew Research Center stating that in case intense immigration to Sweden continues, by 2050 the share of Muslims in the country's population will have gone beyond 30 % [13]. However, parity stage has already become a reality in some districts of Sweden's largest cities where the majority of the population is Muslim.
Conclusion
Today's Sweden is one of the first countries in the world that in just 50 years has turned from a monoethnic state with a dominating official religion to a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country. External migration became the key transforming factor for the Swedish society changing its cultural traditions and the vector of its civilisational development. Initially, this migration had an economic background as the country's explosively growing economy had created a demand for human resources. However, later, accepting migrants from the world's most troublesome regions became a kind of 'humanitarian imperative' for Sweden. Growing Muslim community that is gradually becoming, and in some parts of the country has already become the "second majority" after the adherents of Lutheranism, creates serious problems for its adaptation and integration into the Swedish society. It turned out that not only the migrants but also the Swedes themselves adhering to different religions (and often to different values) are not ready to coexist within one country. This is why the grow-
ing cultural, social and geographic isolation of refugees in Sweden makes the sustainable parallel migrant communities emerge. The policymakers in Sweden are yet to develop a new migration strategy. On the one hand, the political parties of the 'old' system have reached consensus on the image of Sweden as a 'multicultural humanitarian superpower' where discrimination restrictions for Muslim migrants are unacceptable. On the other hand, many politicians in Sweden can not afford to ignore that quite many Swedes are asking to restrict migrant flows to the country. As a result, the new party of Sweden Democrats (that aims at protecting national identity and ensuring wellbeing and safety of Swedish citizens endangered by Muslim migrant inflow) grew very popular and received its record-setting 62 seats in Riksdag with 17.6 % votes [30]. Of course, now we can not imagine that Sweden could become a monoethnic state again or that being non-Protestant may be equalled to high treason. However, we believe that under the electorate pressure Swedish government will have to abolish its 'generous' migrant policy changing it to a more practical one, where receiving fewer refugees will slow down the cycle of religious competition in the country.
The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation within project No. 19-18-00054
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The authors
Maxim M. Agafoshin, Assistant Professor, Department of Economic and Social Geography, Moscow Pedagogical State University, Russia. E-mail: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0245-0481
Prof. Stanislav A. Gorokhov, Leading Researcher, Institute of Geography Russian Academy of Sciences; Pushkin Leningrad State University, Russia E-mail: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9984-6054
