https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0252-5180
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ABSTRACT
As migration and its securitisation change the political environment in the EU, we examine whether security speech acts (restrictive suggestions) prevail over human security speech acts (a liberal approach) towards irregular migration in the eighth (EU) parliamentary debates and which structural determinants predict delivering one or the other speech act. To achieve this goal, we first conducted a content analysis by which we selected (human) security speech acts; then, a set of binary logistic regressions followed. We explored whether, in the plenary debates, members of the European Parliament propose human security speech acts towards irregular migration rather than security speech acts. Thus, it seems that the attitudes of the members of the European Parliament differ in plenary sessions from the decision-making process. Based on the set of binary logistic regressions, we argue that the left-right division, attitudes toward European integration, and especially the division between the new and old member states are the crucial structural determinants for delivering (human) security speech acts in the plenary speeches.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 There are several approaches in assigning terminology to the increased irregular inflow of people in 2015 and the following years. For instance, Niemann and Zaun (Citation2018) speak about a crisis of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), Thielemann (Citation2017) refers to the war in Syria and uses “Syrian refugee crisis”. However, strictly speaking, people moving to Europe usually become refugees when they receive such status. Therefore, in the same way as Slominski and Trauner (Citation2017), we use the more inclusive term “migration crisis” commonly used in public discourse.
2 The exception is studies focused on security and humanitarian discourse produced and surrounded by the European Border Coast Guard (e.g. Pallister-Wilkins Citation2015, Moreno-Lax Citation2018).
3 Niemann and Zaun (Citation2018) distinguish between three types of responses such as the internal dimension (hotspots; relocation and resettlement; unrealized reform of the CEAS), external dimension (EU-Turkey and EU-Libya agreements; policing external borders through the European Border and Guard Agency (EBCG); establishing trust funds), and the combined internal-external dimension (re/definition of safe countries of origin). Moreover, as a side effect of the EU migration policy, a stronger involvement of the NGO’s was occurred in order to address irregular migration (Cuttitta Citation2018).
4 In opposition, the Paris School (PS), instead of focusing on “speech acts”, emphasizes bureaucratic procedures, security agencies, technology and expert knowledge, which forms a specific kind of governmentality (Collective CASE Citation2006). Researchers (e.g. Pallister-Wilkins Citation2015, Chouliaraki and Zaborowski Citation2017, Moreno-Lax Citation2018) have recently found linkage between securitization and humanitarian practices and protection of human rights. In other words, migrants were presented as threats to border security and, at the same time as victims of human trafficking. Such conceptualization diminishes the normative background of securitization which is not necessarily wrong in the context of the EBCG’s officials (see Pallister-Wilkins Citation2015, Moreno-Lax Citation2018). On the other hand, in the political context where securitization works mainly as a strategy that serves to legitimize policies and consolidate political capital (Bauman Citation2016), it is worthwhile or even necessary to differentiate between human and security speech acts. Differentiating among these two discursive frames would also be worthwhile for the media (see Chouliaraki, Zaborowski Citation2017), whose aim is always strategic – to gain the attention of the audience. For these reasons, we do not follow the recent framework of “humanitarian securitization” (Watson Citation2011, Chouliaraki and Zaborowski Citation2017).
5 Speeches in the plenary debates, contrary to roll-call votes, are less likely to become part of the political struggle between political groups since they are not “affected by partisan and institutional constraints in the Parliament (such as the strategic decision to demand a roll call)” (Proksch and Slapin Citation2010, p. 590). Thus, speeches are relatively free of such bias and can serve as a tool for capturing audiences. Moreover, elite surveys, interviews and election manifestos do not focus on parliamentary behaviour and preferences of the MEPs themselves (Ibid.). For these reasons, we argue, speeches in the plenary sessions are important and relatively unstudied source of data.
6 GAL stands for Green, Alternative, Libertarian, whereas TAN stands for Tradition, Authority, Nation.
7 The EU approach (national party pro-/anti-EU positioning of the MEPs) is important but not a crucial structural determinant (Frid-Nielsen Citation2018).
8 According to Zaun (Citation2016), strong regulators in AFSJ are Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France and Sweden. Medium regulators are Austria, Belgium, Spain, Finland and Luxembourg. Weak regulators are Greece, Italy and Portugal. However, Zaun (Citation2016) does not include Denmark and Old member states in her categorization. We used a cluster of Old member states in the previous variable, however, we also want to find out whether CEE member states play a role. For these reasons, we created the clusters “CEE” as well as “Others”, which is composed of Malta, Cyprus and Denmark.
9 The length of the speeches does not differ significantly from one to another, as MEPs always have a set time limit (from 1 to 2 min) for their comments. The exceptions are rapporteurs and political coordinators who tend to have more time. However, in relation to the purpose of our research goal, we did not think that it would have a significant effect on our results.
10 Most of debates in the research file were subject to the resolution of annual and other reports of other institutions (Rule 132/2). There is a debate that was subject to an own-initiative procedure requesting the European Commission to put forward a legislative proposal, and a debate which was based on an oral question to the Council and to the European Commission (Rule 136/5) and one debate which is subject to the resolution and delegation act in the same time; see . Given the similarity of the procedures, we think that there is no bias in this sense.
11 We did not code the statements by guests (members of other EU institutions) or the expressions of the MEPs who were in charge of each debate since his or her speech concerned the management of a plenary session.
12 There are currently 24 official languages in the EU, and all are equal.
13 Multilateralism, the bottom-up approach, and regional focus are other principles of the human security approach (Kaldor et al. Citation2007). However, the occurrence of these three principles was marginal in the MEPs’ speeches. For these reasons, for the operationalization of human security speech acts, we just used first two principles.
14 As the proportion of the cluster “Mixture of both” is very low, regression analysis is limited to the clusters “Security speech acts” and “Human security speech acts”.