Strategic Interplay in Times of Crisis. Opportunities and challenges for state-civil society interaction during the Swedish “Refugee Crisis” of 2015-2016

Between mid 2015 and early 2016, more than a million refugees and migrants arrived in Europe crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Sweden quickly emerged as one of the main destinations they as-pired to reach. During the so-called “refugee crisis” of 2015-2016, the city of Malmö became the management center of the reception of refugees. In this context a series of interplays emerged be-tween governmental institutions, NGOs and SMOs involved in helping refugees. Looking at the refu-gee crisis in Malmö through the lens of the interactionist approach to contentious politics and the theory of strategic action fields, the article analyzes the strategic interplay between SMOs, NGOs and governmental institutions in the different phases of the crisis, as well as scrutinizes the conditions that have facilitated or hindered the cooperation between these actors. Results show that the crisis initially strengthened the role of SMOs, but that in order to enter into lasting and established coop-erations with NGOs and institutionalized politics, SMOs had to meet three conditions: 1) have a clear organizational structure, 2) downplay their political ideology, and 3) assume a “complementary” role to the other involved actors. For most SMOs, this limited their room for maneuver, leading them to adopt different strategies: adapting to the new conditions, challenging the rules and players of the arena or exiting the arena altogether.