Managing unlawful feelings: the emotional regime of the Swedish migration board

Abstract

How do organisations develop emotional regimes that make perfect sense to members but appear paradoxical and even morally outrageous to non-members? Exploring the case of a department for the investigation of asylum applications at the Swedish Migration Board (MB), I argue that through repeated and various types of interaction rituals, an emotional regime is enacted and sustained that provides employees with a sense of authenticity, meaning and organisational loyalty. At the department procedural correctness and the professional epitomise the emotional regime and the preferred organisational identity, including ways of acting on and managing emotions. The organisation becomes an emotionally self-enclosed system.