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TheSwedish integration debate shouldfocus on the difficult trade-offs needed in a country that is not structurally optimal for immigration, rather than getting bogged down in the semantics of racism, argues political scientist Andreas Johansson Heinö.

There is a lack of political action in Sweden to address integration thathas long been compensatedby strong rhetoric that bashes old policies. "We might even stop talking about immigration policy," Ola Ullsten, a prominent Liberal Party (Folkpartiet) politician, said in the 1970s.

When the term "integration" came intovogue in the 1990s,it was meant to replacethe then stigmatized concept of multiculturalism. And when Iranian-born professor Masoud Kamali presented the findings of astate inquiryon structural discrimination in2006, the solution was toscrap integration policy.

More recently, some suggested ahead of the Social Democrats' party congress in Gothenburglast week that if theytake power, they should abolish the job of integration ministerall together. The party's governing board said that integration is "a problematic concept" that should preferably not be used.

Commentators from different political camps applauded the initiative.

Per Wirtén, a columnist with the centre-left DagensArena newspaper, wrote that he sympathizes with thespirit of the proposal, but would rather see aname change: letone anti-racism ministertake over thefight against "structural racial discrimination."

Theword "immigrant"has been purged from the new proposed party programme. While both the 1990 and 2001 programmes dealt with integration problems, the 2013 analysis saysit time to face racism with a general policy of equality. The programme warns that "poor groups and impoverished areas"will be translated into an ethnic problem in the public debate. Accordingly, the Social Democrats have since calleditself an "anti-racist" party.

Is this a return to traditional social democratic equality policy, a settlement with thelast remnants of thecraze for identitypolitics under the former leadership ofMona Sahlin? Hardly.

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