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Abstract
The migration-security nexus, already at the heart of EU policymaking before the 2011 Arab uprisings, became acute after the forced displacements from Syria and the deterrence measures introduced. The internalisation by broader publics of “security knowledge” regarding migration contributed to the securitisation move. However, the construction of migration into a security-laden notion goes beyond both the adoption of deterrence measures and the straightforward association of migration with state as well as societal (in)security. Through the lens of its cooperative tools with its southern neighbours, the EU has built complex interdependencies between migration, post-2011 regional stabilisation and security. In order to read the EU’s securitised migration politics properly, the migration-security nexus must be embedded in its social, geopolitical and temporal fields. Perceptions of geopolitical threats, concurrent strains and divergences over European integration and immigration constitute an enabling terrain for the politics of securitisation.
Notes
1 Achcar, Morbid Symptoms.
2 Huysmans, “The European Union”.
3 Buzan et al., Security: A New Framework.
4 Balzacq, “Three Faces of Securitization”, 179.
5 A critical juncture approach entails swift reactions to a “generative cleavage” such as war or an economic crisis. Nevertheless, it needs to be contextualised within a spectrum of continuity and change. See Hogan, “Remoulding the Critical Junctures Approach”.
6 Weinblum, Moving Beyond Security.
7 Hooghe and Marks, “Europe’s Crises”.
8 Huysmans, “The European Union”, 758.
9 Stritzel, “Security, the Translation”.
10 See for example Karyotis, “Securitization of Migration”, and Leonard, “EU Border Security”.
11 Buzan and Waever, Regions and Powers.
12 Buzan et al., Security: A New Framework.
13 Balzacq, “Three Faces of Securitization”; Stritzel, “Security, the Translation”.
14 Balzacq, Ibid., 172.
15 Ciutǎ, “Security and Problem of Context.”
16 Stritzel, “Security, the Translation”.
17 Balzacq, “Three Faces of Securitization”, 181.
18 Huysmans, “The European Union”.
19 Collyer, “Geopolitics as Migration Governance Strategy”.
20 Geddes, “Governing Migration”.
21 ENP, 2004, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2004_2009/documents/com/com_com(2004)0373_/com_com(2004)0373_en.pdf
22 European Commission, “Responding to the Challenges of Migration”.
23 Huysmans, “The European Union”.
24 On the importance of practices in securitising migration, see Bigo, “When Two Become One”. On the importance of discourses, see Buonfino, “Between Unity and Plurality”.
25 Leonard, “EU Border Security”, 236.
26 For an attempt to go beyond this debate and highlight instead how contexts matter, see Karyotis, “Securitization
of Migration”.
27 Balzacq, “Three Faces of Securitization”.
28 Fandrich and Fargues, “Migration after the Arab Spring”.
29 Carrera et al., “EU Migration Policy”.
30 Pinyol-Jiménez, “The Migration-Security Nexus”, 52.
31 Dekalchuk, “When the Revolutionary Wave”.
32 Barry, “Europe’s Dilemma”; De Haas, “Europe’s Tiny Refugee Burden”.
33 Collett, “Faltering Movement”.
34 Migrant flows to Europe originate from several conflict-ridden and economically unstable states such as Eritrea, Somalia, Afghanistan, Tunisia and Kosovo. Yet by 2014, Syrian refugees constituted by far the largest group. See Fargues, “2015, the Year”
35 See, “Europe: Syrian Asylum Applications”, UNHCR, http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/asylum.php
36 Weinblum, “Moving beyond Security”.
37 Traynor, “Pressure to Resolve Migration Crisis”.
38 “How is the Migrant Crisis Dividing EU Countries?”, BBC, 4 March 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world–europe–34278886
39 Ostrand, “The Syrian Refugee Crisis”, 266–7.
40 European Agenda on Migration, May 2015, http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-migration/background-information/docs/eam_state_of_play_20151014_migration_priority_en.pdf
41 Hallett, “Orban: If we cannot Protect”.
42 Buzan et al., Security: A New Framework.
43 See “Refugees in Germany. Cologne’s Aftershocks”, The Economist, 16 January 2016, 25–7, http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21688418-ultimate-victim-sexual-assaults-migrants-could-be-angela-merkels-liberal-refugee.
44 Gander, “Today Refugees”; Nail, “A Tale of Two Crises”.
45 Nail, Ibid., 158.
46 A case in a point is the Refugee Welcome Movement that has spread to various EU countries such as Germany,
Austria, Spain and Italy.
47 European Commission, “Standard EuroBarometer”.
48 Pew Research Center, “Europeans Fear Wave of Refugees”.
49 Wæver, “Security, the Speech Act”.
50 Hooghe and Marks, “Europe’s Crises”, 2.
51 See “Hungary PM Claims EU Migrant Quota Referendum Victory”, BBC, 3 October 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37528325
52 Boswell, “The Net Migration Target”.
53 Ciutǎ, “Security and the Problem of Context”, 18.
54 Geddes, “Governing Migration”.
55 Dandashly, “The EU Response”.
56 Seeberg, “The Arab Uprisings”.
57 Carrera et al., “EU Migration Policy”.
58 See “Europe Promised Principled Foreign Policy. Now it is Desperate for Quick Deals”, The Economist, 30
January 2016. http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21689602-europe-promised-principled-foreign-policy-now-it-desperate-quick-deals-value-shoppers.
59 See the article in this issue by Okyay and Zaragoza-Cristiani, doi: 10.1080/03932729.2016.1235403.
60 Thibos, “One Million Syrians”.
61 European Agenda on Migration, May 2015, http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-migration/background-information/docs/eam_state_of_play_20151014_migration_priority_en.pdf
62 European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI), 2014, http://www.euneighbours.eu/ENI
63 See, for instance, Lebanon’s Single Support Framework (SSF) under the 2014 ENI.
64 European Union Global Strategy. Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe, June 2016, 17–9.
65 Stritzel, “Towards a Theory”, 367.
66 Balzacq, “Three Faces of Securitization”, 181.
67 For an account of these arguments, see Stritzel, “Towards a Theory”.
68 Balzacq, “Three Faces of Securitization”, 181.
69 On the importance of such questions, see Ciutǎ, “Security and Problem of Context”.
70 Muriel Asseburg’s intervention in the conference “Arab Revolutions, Five Years on”, Issam Fares Institute, American University of Beirut, 23 January 2016.
71 Hooghe and Marks, “Europe’s Crises”, 2.
72 Sassen, “Anti-Immigrant Politics”, 13–4.
73 Expression inspired by Cooley and Spruyt’s work, Contracting States.
74 Robinson, “The European Union”.
75 Stuttaford, “Counter-Narratives”.
76 European Commission, “Standard EuroBarometer”, 37.
77 See Stritzel, “Towards a Theory”, 366.
78 Hansen, “Reconstructing Desecuritisation”.