Contesting European Solidarity During the “Refugee Crisis”: A Comparative Investigation of Media Claims in Denmark, Germany, Greece and Italy

Abstract

The migration crisis of 2015 and 2016 was a litmus test for EU solidarity, when increasing numbers of newly arriving refugees fueled its public contestation. Our overall assumption is that the “refugee crisis” contributed to a solidarity gap between inclusive liberal-cosmopolitan and exclusive communitarian attitudes in the EU. We investigate this assumption by contrasting positions regarding solidarity with refugees among state and societal actors. We base our analysis on a fresh dataset of solidarity claims in the largest print newspapers in Denmark, Germany, Greece and Italy for the period of August 2015 – April 2016 coded in the TransSOL project. These four countries were affected differently by the “crisis” and differently attractive for refugees and asylum-seekers as arrival, destination or transit countries. Results suggest a solidarity gap between state actors and societal actors and a higher degree of solidarity contestation in countries with state actors strongly promoting exclusive notions of solidarity. Results speak to the discussion about media representations of migration as well as the contestation of solidarity as a fundamental value.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editors of this Special Issue for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. This research was funded within the European Union’s H2020 Framework (TransSOL – Transnational Solidarity at Times of Crisis, GA No. 649435, transsol.eu).

The authors report no conflict of interests.

Supplementary Material

The supplementary data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

¹ For reasons of readability and despite the different legal statuses of the terms “refugee” and “asylum seekers”, we adopt the term “refugee” in a more inclusive sense.

² Obtained from https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/figures/living_en#quality-of-life, numbers for 2018. Last accessed on 26 September 2019.

³ Obtained from Eurostat (Numbers of First-Time Asylum Seekers).

⁴ Chapel Hill Expert Survey Data 2014; item: lrgen, ranging from 0 (extreme left) to 10 (extreme right); item immigrate_policy, ranging from 0 = fully opposed to 10 = fully in favor of restrictive immigration policies. Since DK is not part of the CHES survey 2017, we relied on the previous round to have comparable data for all countries.

⁵ Eurobarometer data averaged across three waves 05/2015 – 05/2016.

⁶ Note that the TransSOL sample includes 8 countries, 4 of which were included for this study.

⁷ This concerns mainly the LIVEWHAT project: see http://www.unige.ch/livewhat/for more detailed information. Note that the dataset and codebook of the TransSOL project will be published after an embargo period on 1 June 2020. Please follow updates on transsol.eu for further information.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme [649435].

Notes on contributors

Verena K. Brändle

Verena K. Brändle (Ph.D., University of Copenhagen, 2017) is a post-doctoral research fellow associated with Siegen University and the Department of Media, Cognition and Communication at the University of Copenhagen. Her research interests include people’s contestation of citizenship with a focus on online and offline spheres.

Olga Eisele

Olga Eisele (Ph.D., University of Vienna, 2017) was a post-doctoral researcher at Siegen University and is now affiliated with the Department of Communication at the University of Vienna. Her research interests include political communication and public opinion with a focus on the relationship between media and politics, legitimacy and the European Union, as well as automated content analysis.

Hans-Jörg Trenz

Hans-Jörg Trenz (Ph.D., European University Institute, 1998) is a professor in Modern European Studies at the University of Copenhagen and a adjunct professor at ARENA, Center for European Studies at University of Oslo. His research interests include sociology of European integration and transnationalization, political communication, public sphere and the media.