When voting becomes a question of belonging: Six CMIR researchers on Sweden's post-election debate
Following Sweden's 2026 election, public debate has questioned the influence of Muslim voters and recently naturalized Swedish citizens on the result. In a recent Dagens Nyheter op-ed, six researchers at the Center for Migration and Integration Research (CMIR) examine how such claims can turn democratic participation into a question of whose votes are considered legitimate.
Photo: Tomas Ohlsson / DN
Political participation is generally treated as a democratic good. Yet in the debate following Sweden's election, the votes cast by particular groups of citizens have themselves come under scrutiny.
This contradiction is the starting point for a recent DN Debatt article by Sofi Jansson-Keshavarz, Anton Ahlén, Nina Carlsson, Andrea Monti, Sarah Philipson Isaac, and Paolo Velásquez.
The authors focus particularly on the term röstboskap, roughly "voting cattle", which was used in the post-election debate to describe newly naturalized Swedish citizens. For the researchers, the problem extends beyond this dehumanizing choice of words. Such rhetoric, they argue, risks treating some citizens' political participation as less legitimate than that of others.
Participation, but on whose terms?
Low voter turnout among people with foreign backgrounds is often described as a democratic problem and a sign of insufficient participation. Yet when members of the same groups exercise their right to vote, their involvement can instead be portrayed as problematic if their choices contribute to an unwanted electoral outcome.
This creates a double bind: not voting can be interpreted as evidence of failed integration, while voting for the "wrong" parties can become evidence that immigration itself has gone too far.
The authors also challenge the tendency to present voters with foreign backgrounds as a homogeneous political bloc. Describing citizens as röstboskap, they write, reduces individuals to a demographic group rather than recognizing them as voters with their own motives, interests, and political convictions.
More than a choice of words
The article places this rhetoric in a wider historical context. Animal metaphors have repeatedly been used to portray groups as less capable of independent thought and, consequently, less entitled to equal influence and rights.
In contemporary Sweden, the authors argue, people with foreign backgrounds, particularly Muslims, are often expected to repeatedly demonstrate that they belong. Questioning their political choices collectively can reinforce a distinction between citizens whose place in society is taken for granted and those whose membership remains conditional.
The article also considers the role of the media. Checking whether voting data support claims that a particular group decided an election may be reasonable. But focusing exclusively on the numbers risks leaving the underlying premise unexamined: why are the votes of some Swedish citizens singled out as requiring a special explanation?
For the six researchers, the central issue is democratic equality. The right to vote does not depend on a citizen's name, religion, background, or political preference. Questioning the legitimacy of particular groups' votes because of how they are cast undermines that principle.
Read the full opinion article (in Swedish):
Här är vad de egentligen menar när de talar om "röstboskap" (Dagens Nyheter)
