Abstract
This chapter provides foundational information for the discussion conducted in further parts of the book. The Introduction includes a review of the existing literature and contemporary perspectives on migration and security, focusing on different modes and practices of securitisation. It outlines the aims and methods of the book, arguing for a more inclusive, interpretative and framing-centred reading of securitisation theory. In doing so, the chapter also clarifies the interpretative characteristics and scope of the research presented in the book. The introduction ends with an outline of the book, discussing its structure and the aims of each chapter.
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1.1 Introduction
The relationship between migration and security has always been a complex one, often generating deeply politicised and polarised debates in political, societal, journalistic, and also academic circles (Ibrahim & Howarth, 2017; Triandafyllidou, 2018). In the last decade, the rise of trans-border migratory flows and the corresponding increase of radicalisation of public debate and the re-emergence of extreme nationalism and xenophobia, has only contributed to the complex nature of the migration-security nexus, making it one of the most contentious and ideologically charged issues in the European Union (EU) (Rheindorf & Wodak, 2017). In this respect, the rise of fear-driven narratives of security and uncertainty towards migrants have become explicitly embedded in global and regional contexts, profoundly stimulating public debates and political discourse (Karyotis & Skleparis, 2013; Squire, 2015; “The Securitisation of Migration in the EU: Debates since 9/11,” 2016).
With deepening political and economic destabilisation in the European Union’s neighbourhood and escalation of protracted conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, the number of civilian populations seeking refuge from war and poverty has steadily grown in recent years amounting to approx. 80 million by the end of 2019Footnote 1 (UNHCR Website, 2020). While most forced migrants have been internally displaced or remained in the neighbourhood of their country of origin, the numbers of those attempting to seek refuge in Europe has substantially increased since 2015, triggering what has often been described as uncontrollable mass migration to the EU territoriesFootnote 2 (Bledsoe-Gardner, 2017; Lucassen, 2017). As reported by Frontex, in 2015 the number of irregular border crossings into the EU quadrupled in comparison to the previous years, reaching more than 1.8 millionFootnote 3 (Frontex, 2015). Similarly, in 2015 and 2016 the EU Member States recorded an unprecedented increase of asylum claims, reaching a total of 1.2 million applications in each of these two years (Eurostat Website, 2017a). In this respect, very quickly the EU has become a rapidly unravelling site of the so-called “migration crisis”, which has become one of the most complex security and migration-related challenges Europe has faced since the end of World War II.
The situation on the borders was quickly reflected in the public perception of migrants and migration in Europe. In the November 2015 Eurobarometer, an unprecedented 58% of respondents from the EU and candidate countries defined migration as the leading security concern for the EU, topping such traditional sources of insecurity as terrorism and economic instability (Eurobarometer, 2015). It is not without reason as the political and media-driven framing of the “migration crisis” have filled the collective European imagination with mixed and often contradictory opinions and images of drowning children, invading refugees, terrorists, and economic migrants, often increasing a sense of confusion, uncertainty and insecurity about the nature and consequences of the crisis (Jaskulowski, 2019; Ragazzi, 2015; Triandafyllidou, 2018). This uneasy situation has provided fertile grounds for further securitisation of migration in Europe, intensifying narratives and policy actions that have been pushing migration deeper into the realms of discourses and practices of security. Under these conditions, the European Union (EU) has been put at the forefront of political problematisation of the “migration crisis”, becoming one of the key actors responsible for the shaping of policies and common responses. In this way, the EU policymaking environment has become an important arena for further securitisation of migration in the European context.
1.2 Migration and Security in Academic Literature
The “migration crisis” has certainly rekindled scholarly interest in linkages between migration and broadly understood security, expanding on the already rich and well-established academic literature (Guild, 2009; Huysmans, 2006; Huysmans & Squire, 2010; Neal, 2009; van Munster, 2009). The studies on the migration-security nexus have initially, but not exclusively, caught the attention of the Copenhagen School and securitisation scholars, who started exploring elite-driven processes through which migration has been securitised, that is discursively constructed as a threat to security (Buzan et al., 1998; Wæver et al., 1993). Studies on securitisation of migration have quickly grown into dynamically expanding research agenda, focused on exploring new actors (e.g. security practitioners, the EU), sites (e.g. borders), processes (e.g. technologisation of migration control), all of which contributing to different modes and logics of securitisation (Bigo, 2002; Bourbeau, 2011; Leonard, 2010a; Leonard & Kaunert, 2019).
One of the most prominent strands of literature on securitisation of migration refers to the politics of fear and insecurity, most commonly observed in national contexts with powerful actors, such as political parties or the media, capable of shaping the public imagination (Huysmans, 2006; Wodak, 2015). This type of securitisation is often reflected in exceptionalist, populist, exclusionary, and racial political discourses which are supposed to spread suspiciousness and resentment towards migrant communities (Huysmans, 2006, p. 8). This type of securitisation is often linked to societal security and an idea that the identity of the host society is existentially threatened by the alien newcomers (Buzan et al., 1998). Examples of such securitisations can be found in analyses of political and media discourses on the flows of Hispanics into the United States (Ackleson, 2005) or North Africans and East Europeans to Western Europe (Carling, 2007; Ceyhan & Tsoukala, 2002), each following a similar narrative, describing migrants, refugees and asylum seekers as inferior, barbaric and dangerous to the stability and internal order of the host society (Skleparis, 2016). Wodak points out that these nationalistic, anti-immigrant discourses often serve very utilitarian political purposes, such as mobilisation of electorate and with the aim of gaining and sustaining politcal power (Pohl & Wodak, 2012). They introduce a sense of pride and superiority among members of the host society and propose a clear definition of an enemy, a scapegoat of sorts, which can be blamed for all failures and wrongdoings (Wodak, 2015).
Securitisation driven by fear and resentment is often reflected in immigration and integration policies, which abandon the idea of “multicultural integration” in favour of homogeneity of the state and assimilation of immigrants (d’Appollonia, 2015). Policies of this type “reproduce a myth that a homogenous national community or Western civilisation existed in the past and can be re-established today through the exclusion of those migrants who are identified as cultural aliens” (Huysmans, 2000, p. 758). In this respect, integration policies may have a securitising effect by no longer focusing on the “equalisation of opportunity, but rather on the discouragement and penalisation of migrants who do not possess certain attributes” and do not fit into a required template (Ryan, 2008, p. 312). This feeds the idea of the superiority of the culture and identity of the host society and deepens, often already historically embedded, divisions between host society (threatened us) and migrant communities (threatening them) (Klaus, 2017). In this way, securitisation driven by the politics of fear, resentment and alienation constitutes one of the key ingredients of the contemporary securitisation of migration at national level (Huysmans, 2006).
Numerous scholars have started exploring securitisation of migration beyond the discourse and politics of fear, turning their attention to administrative practices, technologies of surveillance and border control, or population profiling (Balzacq, 2011; Bigo, 2002; Bourbeau, 2014; Leonard, 2010a). This alternative perspective has changed the trajectory of securitisation research, steering it to actors and settings that operate in a more mundane realm of security, focused on management of risks and uncertainties associated with human mobility (Williams & Baláž, 2012). Many researchers have been trying to merge the discursive and practice-driven approaches to securitisation, by showing how these two modalities co-exist in a broader governmental landscape, such as the Schengen Area and its unique border security regime (Bigo, 2014; Neal, 2009; Sperling & Webber, 2019). For instance, Huysmans (2000) has been focusing on the correspondence between the political and the practical aspects of securitisation of migration and the fact that the discursive processes are in fact closely associated with technological and technocratic aspects of securitisation. Following this thread, van Munster (2009) observes that the signing of the Schengen Agreement in 1985 began a trend in the securitisation of migration, which has deeply impacted the EU’s approach to immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, beginning a transfer of migration to the technocratic world of risk and population control. The introduction of Schengen also marked the first time when at transnational level migration (especially in its irregular form) has been so closely associated with international terrorism, transnational crime, and border security, becoming one of the key domains of the EU internal security policy (Bali, 2008, pp. 471–473).Footnote 4
Many securitisation scholars indicate that the security apparatus within the Schengen Area has been set to comprehensively control human mobility in the name of freedom of movement and more efficient governance of the internal and external borders of the EU (Bigo, 2000; Bossong & Rhinard, 2016; Kaunert & Leonard, 2010). The question of borders has been playing a significant role in the securitisation literature, often being defined as the first point of contact between security and the migrant, a site where categories are assigned and decisions are taken about “who is ‘legitimate’ and who is ‘illegitimate’; who is ‘trusted’ and who is ‘risky’; who can be allowed to cross freely and who is excluded” (Peoples & Vaughan-Williams, 2015, p. 175). Walters observes the liberalisation of border checks caused by Schengen has transformed the traditional idea of borders from “sharp lines at the outer edge of member states into a more diffused, networked, control apparatus, substantially increasing the scope of exposure of migrants to security” practices (Walters, 2002, p. 573). In this respect, the locus and scope of potential sites of securitisation of migration in the EU has dramatically expanded, transforming the EU’s internal security domain (Area of Freedom, Security and Justice) into a complex network of securitising discourses, practices, and policies designed to control risky populations within the EU. As noted by Bigo (2000, p. 185),
security checks are no longer necessarily done at the border on a systematic and egalitarian basis, but can be carried out further downstream, within the territory, within the border zone or even upstream with police collaboration in the home country of immigrants, through visa-gathering systems and through readmission agreements.
Securitisation scholars have devoted much attention to the role of technologies of surveillance and control in securitisation of migration (Jeandesboz, 2016; Marin, 2017; Stokes-Dupass, 2017). The conceptualisation and implementation of dataveillance and biometric technologies, smart borders packages, a vast interoperable IT system has become a crucial part of security discourses and practices deployed in the EU and beyond (Bellanova & Duez, 2016; Jeandesboz, 2017). These technologies of population surveillance and control have been often described as a knowledge-driven instrument of “pre-emptive securitisation of migrants”, where every mobile person is treated as potential risk to security (Jeandesboz, 2017; Rijpma & Vermeulen, 2015). Jeandesboz (2017) notes that the contemporary construction of security is driven by flows of security knowledge within apparatus of governance, which assigns social power and legitimises securitisation of migrants based on a degree of certainty about them being a source of insecurity. This trend in securitisation has been strengthened by the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 and later bombings in Madrid (2004) and London (2005), when high technology has become crucial in management of mobile and risky populations, which had to be identified and contained before threats come to realisationFootnote 5 (Leonard, 2010b; Ragazzi, 2016). This technocratic and technology-driven mode of securitisation of migration is not centred on definition of existential threats but rather “traceability” of risky migrants and their neutralisation if the need arises (Dijstelbloem & Meijer, 2011; Maguire, 2015).
The literature of securitisation of migration has been also focusing on investigations into the consequences of security discourses and practices on migrants themselves, their vulnerability and human security (Gasper & Sinatti, 2016; McDonald, 2010). Guild (2009, p. 3) proposes refocusing research on the migration-security nexus from mass migration-centred, dispassionate inquiries to an analysis of “how does the individual fit into a set of state structural frameworks and become categorised as a threat to security and to state control of migration”. Here, categories assigned to specific migrants matter, especially in regard to sites of security such as borders, detention centres or refugee camps, which often reflect an amalgamation of security and humanitarian practices (Pallister-Wilkins, 2015; Williams, 2015). For instance, Aradau (2008) analyses how security categories applied to counter human trafficking policies, may turn migrants into threatening criminals, unwanted immigrants on one hand or individuals requiring protection on the other. She uses an example of women categorised as victims who can be admitted to rehabilitation centres, cared for and/or deported voluntarily, while women categorised as prostitutes will be most likely held in detention centres and eventually forcibly returned to the country of their origin (Aradau, 2008). In cases such as human trafficking, the line between irregular migrants and migrants at risk or refugees can be unclear and might lead to securitisation and victimisation of groups of people that were not supposed to be subjected to security in the first place (Aradau, 2008). This is a good example of how practices of making divisions, drawing lines and distinguishing between different categories of mobile people, in this case trafficked women, enables the securitisation of migration (Peoples & Vaughan-Williams, 2015, p. 173).
The rapidly growing literature on securitisation of migration reveals a rather complex and fragmented picture, which does not allow this process to be fit into one specific template or modality. Indeed, within the literature there have been many indications that the construction of security is in fact entangled in a variety of logics, as well as discourses and practices dictated by them (Balzacq, 2015; Bourbeau, 2015; Kessler & Daase, 2008; Salter et al., 2019). These logics are often conceptualised within broader governmental landscapes of migration, security and border management. The EU certainly represents such a landscape, which has been expanding and evolving quite dynamically over recent years. For this reason, it is necessary, as this book does, to look more deeply into this tangled nature of the securitisation of migration and investigate how specific logics of securitisation co-exist and intertwine with one another at the EU level.
1.3 Aims of the Book
Having in mind a burgeoning nature of securitisation literature devoted to the “migration crisis”, this book aims to integrate the existing perspectives and shed a new light on the policy-driven securitisation of migration at the EU level. It is the author’s contention that as a result of the crisis there have been important developments in the ways the relationship between migration and security has been framed and enacted in the EU. These developments strongly highlighted the inherently messy and intricate nature of securitisation of migration, reflected in the multiplicity of policy actors who have “something to say” in regard to migration and security, but most importantly in the diversity of perspectives on how security is understood and enacted (i.e. security logics).
In this regard, this book aims to complement the already rich literature on securitisation of migration, in which the link between migration and security is most often viewed through the lenses of a dominant narrative or security logic (e.g. as a humanitarian or border security matter). Instead of focusing on one distinctive securitising logic, this book offers the missing link between earlier and current studies, showing how the securitisation process can be viewed as a complex tapestry. This “securitising tapestry” is woven out of multiple, colourful threads, each of which representing a different logic that configures the securitisation process in a distinctive way. These include more traditional notions of security reflected in a state of emergency, as well as newer concepts corresponding with risk, resilience or humanitarianism. To exemplify, the securitisation analysis presented in this book unravels how the idea of risky migrant populations becomes interwoven with the militarisation of EU borders and the notion of protection of vulnerable groups among migrants. The analytical framework proposed in this book allows examination of how these patchworks of different logics translate into policy-driven securitisation in the EU. This unique perspective makes it possible to trace the enactment of and tensions between different security logics, to investigate the consequences of multiple security discourses and practices, as well as to question the depoliticising or desecuritising nature of security logics (e.g. risk) that linger below the threshold of state of emergency.
In general terms, this book focuses on the internal complexity and, what could be described as, the “tangled nature” of securitisation of migration at the EU level. It is concerned with the ways policy actors operating within the EU promote specific interpretations of the migration-security nexus and propose policy schemes with reference to the “migration crisis”. In order to do so, they mobilise different security logics rooted in existential security, risk management, resilience or human security, weaving them into the securitisation process. To show how security logics imbue the EU migration-security nexus, the book provides an insight into specific stages of EU policy framing of the crisis (i.e. diagnosis, evaluation and response to the crisis), investigating (1) how different EU policy actors produce and promote their interpretations of relationship between migration and security; (2) how these interpretations co-exist, intertwine and merge in this process; and (3) to what end. In doing so, it discusses the purposes and consequences of mobilisation of specific security logics vis-à-vis migrants and migration. It untangles an interpretative dynamic of securitisation and traces how the interpretation of the relationship between migration and security changes within EU security discourse depending on the stage of policymaking and the type of EU institutional actor involved.
Additionally, from a theoretical standpoint, the book also introduces a refreshed perspective on securitisation by proposing to look at securitisation of migration in the EU as the work of policy framing. This has been done in order to break up some of the most rigid theoretical building blocks of the traditional Copenhagen School’s iteration of securitisation theory that have been obstructing a more nuanced analysis of construction of security. In this sense, the presented framework diverts from the traditional speech act-based approach to the theory and proposes replacing speech act with policy frames and framing processes as the vehicle of securitisation. This allows to focus on a processual and iterative character of securitisation of migration in the EU and analyse it as a dynamic filled with multiple policy actors representing often contradictory interpretations of security, which are marginalised and/or emphasised in this process. Further, the book proposes a specific conceptualisation of interaction between securitising actors (e.g. politicians) and audiences (e.g. wider society), which have the power to accept or reject proposed interpretations of security problems and remedial actions. Here, the EU policy actors, being locked in a form of dialogical relationship, simultaneously play the role of actors as well as audiences, while producing specific interpretations as well as accepting or rejecting them. Finally, the book proposes to treat securitisation of migration in the EU as a contextually embedded process – a continuum of security discourses and practices deployed in relation to migrants and migration. In this sense, it recommends viewing securitisation of the “migration crisis” through the lenses of security policy frames that have been developing in the integrating Europe since the 1970s.
1.4 Methods
In order to investigate securitisation of migration on the EU level and its underwriting logics, the book employs a qualitative method of analysis. It focuses on examination of the EU frame-narrative which emanates from policy texts on the “migration crisis” produced by the key policy actors in the EU, namely the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Council between late 2014 and the beginning of 2018. The research also includes analysis of relevant textual data produced by the key EU agencies involved in the framing of the crisis, including Europol, Frontex, European Asylum Support Office. Here, the frame-narrative has a rhetoric- and action-oriented character and is comprised of three main segments, namely diagnosis, evaluation and conceptualisation of remedial actions. Each of these segments plays a different role in the interpretative process. In respect to securitisation, the diagnosis of the security problem concentrates on its root causes and sources of threats; the evaluation focuses on attribution of blame (naming the key actors, culprits responsible for the instigation of threats and the security problem), as well as parties responsible for dealing with the problem; lastly, the remedial actions segment is devoted to conceptualisation of specific policy responses to defined threats. Each of these segments is imbued with different, often tangled security logics.
In this research, a frame-narrative is construed as a type of policy story, which underwrites, stabilises and connects the assumptions and interpretations for policymaking in situations that persist with many unknowns, a high degree of interdependence, and little, if any, agreement (Schön & Rein, 1994). In this respect, it helps to clarify the analysed textual material and create a sense of a logical and sequential interpretative process. More importantly, the frame-narrative approach makes it possible to flesh out specific security interpretations existing in particular stages of policy framing process and how they co-exist and intertwine in the collective securitisation of migration at the EU level.
The analysis feeds on three types of data: primary textual (e.g. official EU policy texts, reports, communications, press releases, materials from official websites,), secondary contextual (e.g. policy-relevant research and analyses produced by NGOs and thinks tanks specialising in migration, asylum and border policies), and 15 semi-structured elite interviews with representatives of selected EU institutions and agencies (ten male and five female interviewees). The interviews were anonymous and were conducted between 2016 and 2018 with representatives of EU institutions and EU agencies involved in the management of the “migration crisis” (the group included MEPs, DG HOME representatives, European Parliament Research Service representatives, Frontex, EASO and Europol field officers and case officers). It should be noted that the textual data retrieved from the EU institutions and agencies served as the primary sources of data, while the interviews were treated as a supplementary material, allowing a more nuanced insight into specific motivations and possible alternative interpretations hiding behind EU policies. In this sense, the interviews were conducted after the analysis of primary data and the respondents were asked to weigh in on the interpretation of more controversial policy initiatives, and comment on the preliminary findings. In this respect, data retrieved from the interviews was used primarily in the sections, which were concluding application of specific security logics, in a form of closing and summarising comments.
Nonetheless, every method has its limitations and challenges. In terms of the analysis the greatest challenge of this study was the sheer volume of material to be coded and scrutinised. In order to mitigate this challenge, I followed suggestions of the Copenhagen School and built the corpus of data incrementally, starting with the most relevant, strategic documents, which are seminal for the contestation of analysed policies. Then the selection proceeded with the identification of inter-discursive patterns in respect to the hierarchy and order of policy texts produced by the selected actors. Additionally, I used the concept of “theoretical saturation”, which refers to the “point beyond which, no additional data are being found whereby the researcher can develop properties of the analysed item or category” (Glaser & Strauss, 1967, p. 61). That is why additional material data was introduced to the main corpus only up to the point when it ceased to be of added value for the analysis.
1.5 Clarifying the Scope and Main Characteristics of the Book
The “migration crisis” has certainly sparked a new academic interest in studying securitisation of migration at the EU level. This is not surprising, as the crisis represents a critical case for this type of research, allowing one to look at how different modalities and dimensions of securitisation have been catalysed by increased migratory flows to the EU. Even though there is a growing literature on securitisation of migration in the EU, knowledge on securitising practices deployed at the EU level is fragmented, focused on specific actors (e.g. Frontex) or policies (e.g. EU asylum policy). Often, the findings included in these analyses are lacking correspondence and an answer to a broader question about the nature of securitisation of migration at the EU level. To this end, there is limited research devoted to a more comprehensive analysis of the EU, which encompasses various framings and security logics, interpretations and approaches mobilised against migrants and migration. For this reason, this book focuses on the internal dynamics of the EU securitisation practices, concentrating on policy discourse on the “migration crisis”, its content and consequences for human mobility to and within the EU.
In this book, I apply quotation marks whenever I refer to the “migration crisis” in order to underline the socially constructed and contested nature of this phenomenon. There is a multitude of names such as “refugee crisis”, “immigration crisis” or “asylum crisis” that operate within the academic and non-academic literature, each imbuing increased migratory flows with a sense of urgency and linking them with different policy concerns.Footnote 6 It is not the aim of this book to provide an ultimate definition of the “migration crisis”, but rather explore how it is framed and then translated into specific policy actions. That is why I decided to employ the term “migration crisis” more as a broad linguistic token representing this phenomenon rather than a name, which is supposed to represent its specific nature. Of course, one cannot escape from framing one’s research with selected names and categories, but I believe it is important to be aware of the significance of such names, especially in an interpretative study such as this.
Further, I predominantly use the term “migrant”Footnote 7 in order to refer to the participants in the mixed migratory flows into the EU. However, in this book I also apply four supplementary categories of migrants that are prominent within the EU policy discourse, namely “refugees”,Footnote 8 “asylum seekers”,Footnote 9 “economic migrants”,Footnote 10 and “irregular migrants”.Footnote 11 These categories, whenever they are used in this book, emerge from the analysed material and are used to reflect interpretative processes of the EU policy actors rather than the author’s declaration regarding the type of migrants that have been a part of the “migration crisis”. As aptly noted by Crawley and Skleparis (2018, p. 48), most contemporary categories of migration “fail to capture adequately the complex relationship between political, social and economic drivers of migration or their shifting significance for individuals over time and space”. As often indicated in the literature, strict categories fail to account for the fact that migratory flows consist of various people with different statuses and motivations for travel, which are often dynamic and change in the course of migration (Haddad, 2008; Samers & Collyer, 2017). In this respect, an individual migrant may change his/her status, simultaneously fit in two or more categories, or not qualify for any pre-existing categories at all (Collyer, 2010).
1.6 Structure of the Book
The book is divided into seven chapters. It opens with the Introduction, which provides a review of the existing literature on the migration-security nexus, focusing predominantly on scholarship devoted to studies on securitisation of migration. This section delivers basic information about the topic of the book, introduces and defines basic concepts, provides statistics and presents a brief outline of the chapters. The second chapter is devoted to the Copenhagen School of security and the theory of securitisation. It explores how this particular theory views the social and discursive construction of security and discusses its main building blocks such as speech act, logic of exception, actor-audience interaction, outlining the criticism of the theory as well as its alternative modalities, which have emerged in the new waves of securitisation literature. This leads the theoretical discussion to the third chapter, which sketches out the analytical framework applied in this book by proposing to look at securitisation as the work of policy framing. This approach makes it possible to investigate not one specific understanding of security that is supposed to “break normal politics” (as is suggested by the Copenhagen School), but the whole plethora of entangled security logics that to different degrees frame migration as a security issue as well as shift power relations and control over migration within the EU. To this end, the chapter provides an overview of specific security logics and discusses how their application opens the securitisation analysis to a more interpretative reading.
The fourth chapter of the book marks the beginning of the securitisation analysis. It investigates which security logics and policy actors have been most prominent in the shaping of the migration security nexus in the EU prior to the “migration crisis”. Here, a distinction in the securitisation of migration in the EU is made between “constitutional securitisation” of migration stimulated by the treaties, and “secondary securitisation” stimulated by EU legislation. In this way, the chapter unravels the so-called migration-security continuum in the EU, reflecting historically and institutionally embedded security frames, which have been influencing the EU approach to migration. It discusses how the notions of control and management of possible risks and security deficits generated by increased liberalisation of border control have been gradually coming to dominate the EU’s migration policies, making the logic of risk management a key feature of securitising practices deployed at the EU level.
The fifth chapter focuses on the first segments of the EU frame-narrative (i.e. diagnosis and evaluation) and discusses how the EU has mobilised and emphasised different security logics while framing the crisis. In this regard, the chapter discusses how human security has deeply saturated the discourse on the “migration crisis”, becoming the most relevant logic during the diagnostic and evaluation segments of policy framing. It examines specific policy actors such as the European Parliament, which played the role of the key promotor of this logic, employing a humanitarian perspective while diagnosing the root causes and assigning the blame for the crisis. The chapter also focuses on risk-centred interpretations, which visibly influenced the first stages of the framing process. It provides an analysis on how the interpretation of the crisis shifted into more risk-oriented logics when the crisis “entered” the Schengen Area, which deeply influenced the interpretation of the nature of the crisis, referent objects, security concerns and their causal effects. With the shift of logic, the locus of the framing process also changed, introducing the European Commission and the Council of the European Union as key promotors of this type of framing. The discussion on specific logics is divided into sub-sections, each concluded with summarising comments extracted from the interviews.
The sixth chapter focuses on the last segment of the EU frame-narrative on the “migration crisis,” analysing the discursive institutionalisation of security logics hiding behind policy actions proposed and mobilised vis-à-vis increased migratory flows. It discusses how in this last stage of the framing process the prominence of the logics has changed as compared to the diagnosis and evaluation stages. Elements of human security, so visible in the previous segments, have become less evident, and rather deemphasised and dispersed between risk management, “exceptionalist” security and resilience. In this sense, most of the remedial actions conceptualised at the EU level and discussed in the chapter included “humanitarian concern”, although to different degrees and ends. However, the prominence of the broadly understood risk logic remained and split into risk management and resilience-oriented policy actions In this respect, the EU policy discourse on management of risks was proliferated with calls for policy initiatives directed at normalisation and control of migratory flows, as well as stabilisation of the situation on the EU borders, while resilience-oriented actions concentrated on the robustness of the administrative capabilities of the EU asylum system, border security system, as well as the EU neighbourhood and countries of origin. Further, the chapter discusses how risk management, resilience and human security intertwine with the logic of exceptional security reflected in the militarisation of policy responses. Here, such existential threats as trans-border organised crime or terrorism are strategically deployed as reasons for mobilisation of extraordinary, often militarised means such EUNAVOR “Sophia” or EU border operations. Similarly, as in the previous chapter, sub-sections corresponding with specific security logics are concluded with comments extracted from the interviews.
The book ends with conclusions devoted to revisiting of patterns of securitisation and security logics in the EU frame narrative on the “migration crisis”. This chapter summarises the findings of the book and provides concluding remarks. It is supplemented with a table encompassing the whole structure of the EU policy framing process. It revisits how security logics intertwined and influenced each other within the whole EU frame-narrative produced in response to the “migration crisis”, indicating points of convergence and divergence in the securitisation process.
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Even though since 2018 there has been a decrease in arrivals, often construed in media reports as the end of the “migration crisis” the latest developments on the EU borders (e.g. in Greece) suggest that the next waves of increased migratory flows will take place in the near future and the crisis should not be treated as a single event (Euroactive Website, 2020).
- 3.
Taking into account that one person could illegally cross the EU external border more than once (Frontex, 2015).
- 4.
The historical analysis of securitising practices deployed at the EU level is included in Chap. 4.
- 5.
Some scholars argue that the terrorist attacks had rather limited impact on securitisation of migration in the EU (Boswell, 2007).
- 6.
It should be noted that the use of the term “crisis” carries a securitising effect. Boin (2005, p. 2) and his colleagues observe that the term “crisis” already suggests an existentially threatening situation to the basic structures and fundamental norms of a protected system. The term “crisis” also initiates extraordinary decision-making procedures, which envisage mobilisation of extraordinary measures under highly uncertain conditions.
- 7.
There is no uniform definition of a migrant in the international legal or policy frameworks. In this book, I build on International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) conceptualisation of a migrant who is defined as “any person who is moving or has moved across an international border or within a State away from his/her habitual place of residence, regardless of (1) the person’s legal status; (2) whether the movement is voluntary or involuntary; (3) what the causes for the movement are; or (4) what the length of the stay is” (IOM Website, 2018b).
- 8.
As indicated by the UNHCR, “a refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence. A refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. Most likely, they cannot return home or are afraid to do so” (UNHCR Website, 2018b).
- 9.
An asylum-seeker is defined as a refugee “seeking sanctuary in another country, they apply for asylum – the right to be recognised as a refugee and receive legal protection and material assistance. An asylum seeker must demonstrate that his or her fear of persecution in his or her home country is well-founded” (UNHCR Website, 2018b).
- 10.
An economic migrant is defined as a person who engages in cross-border mobility to “improve his/her live by finding work, or in some cases for education, family reunion, or other reasons” (UNHCR Website, 2018a).
- 11.
An irregular migrant is defined as a person who engages in cross-border mobility “outside the regulatory norms of the sending, transit and receiving countries”. This usually involves travelling illegally through borders, without the necessary authorisation or documents required under immigration regulations (IOM Website, 2018a).
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Stępka, M. (2022). Introduction. In: Identifying Security Logics in the EU Policy Discourse. IMISCOE Research Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93035-6_1
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