The Securitisation of Migration in the EU

Debates Since 9/11

Gabriella Lazaridis, Khursheed Wadia, Gabriella Lazaridis, Khursheed Wadia, Gabriella Lazaridis, Khursheed Wadia

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781137480583
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Military Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Since 9/11 Western states have sought to integrate 'securitisation' measures within migration regimes as asylum seekers and other migrant categories come to be seen as agents of social instability or as potential terrorists. Treating migration as a security threat has therefore increased insecurity amongst migrant and ethnic minority populations.

Part I

Securitisation of Migration

1

The Securitisation of Migration: An Absent Presence?

Vicki Squire

Introduction

Nearly 15 years after 9/11, whether or not migration is the subject of securitisation appears to be a question worth asking. Is the linkage between migration and security a stable and enduring feature of contemporary society and politics? Or is the assumption of migration’s securitisation misplaced and lacking the appropriate evidence? Some scholars have suggested that migration has, indeed, been addressed as a security issue in both the pre- and post-9/11 period (Huysmans 2006; Van Munster 2009). Others, by contrast, question whether it is appropriate to claim that migration has been securitised in a context marked by intensified concerns over terrorism (Boswell 2007a).

Christina Boswell (2007a) suggests that it would not do to simply presume the securitisation of migration, nor would it do to automatically assume that 9/11 led to an intensification of such processes. Rather, she claims that it is important to pay attention to institutional interests and cognitive factors conditioning processes of securitisation (or non-securitisation), if we are to better understand whether or not migration has become articulated and addressed as a security problem in a post-9/11 context. This chapter concurs with Boswell’s suggestion regarding the importance of unpacking processes of securitisation, rather than assuming their presence. However, it also suggests that her challenge to the claim that migration has been securitised post-9/11 falls short, because it fails to take on board some of the key insights of scholars in the field of critical security studies.

Rather than simply ask whether migration has or has not been securitised post-9/11, the chapter contends that it is more appropriate to pose this as a question regarding as to how far, in what ways, and with what consequences migration been has securitised over the past 15 years and more. This can facilitate appreciation of the securitisation of migration, which is neither absent nor present in any straightforward way. By contrast with Boswell, this chapter thus argues that raising these broader questions can help us to develop appreciation of securitisation as an absent presence in the contemporary European context.

An entrenched divide

A key argument of this chapter is that divergent responses to the question of whether or not migration is securitised not only reflects divergent conceptualisations of securitisation, but also the entrenchment of a disciplinary divide between scholars of migration studies and scholars of critical security studies. In order to develop such an argument, the analysis examines key dimensions of Boswell’s argument regarding the absence of securitisation, in order to set out some of the elements of critical security studies that she appears to overlook.

Boswell argues that, although there is evidence of the securitisation of migration in the United States, this is not the case in the European context (2007a: 590). Specifically, she argues that there is no evidence of a direct causal linkage between migration and terrorism at the level of political discourse or rhetoric in the European context, and that at the level of practice, there is evidence of the transportation of migration control instruments into anti-terrorism practice, but not of the transportation of anti-terrorism practices into the field of migration control (Ibid.). Drawing on neo-institutionalism and systems theory, she argues that there is no evidence that 9/11 led to the securitisation of migration. This, she suggests, is a finding that is demonstrative of the deficiencies of scholarship in the field of critical security studies.

We will come back later in this chapter to consider some of the assumptions that Boswell imports through her reading of critical security studies as primarily exploring how ‘public discourse can legitimise security practices’ (Ibid.). For now, however, it is worthwhile reflecting on the broader academic context within which her intervention is situated. In particular, this chapter will emphasise the significance of a series of differences, which arguably suggest an entrenched divide between scholars of migration policy and critical security studies scholars. This divide can be understood primarily as reflecting the different emphasis or focus of each body of literature, which also reflects a different political orientation and a different account of what serves as an important analytical intervention in the related fields of migration and/or border studies.

For scholars of migration policy, the emphasis has often been orientated toward explaining the development, persistence and/or significance of liberalised immigration policies, particularly in light of the strength of popular anti-immigration sentiment. This reflects an interest in the ‘liberal constraints’ on government policy, such as liberal institutional norms or interests and the legitimacy of civil or human rights claims (for example, Freeman 1995; Joppke 1998). Such a focus often entails an analytical intervention that explores the relationship between interests or institutional structures/norms and the development of policy and practice (see Boswell 2007b). In the broader literature in this area, liberal im/migration policies appear to stand in a relation of opposition to processes of securitisation (see Gibney 2004).

By contrast, scholars of critical security studies do not assume a distinction between liberalisation and securitisation, but instead focus attention on the illiberal practices of liberal states (Bigo and Tsoukala 2008). A key focus of critical security studies scholarship over recent years has been the development of border controls as manifestations of an (il)liberal rationality or form of governmentality. This includes consideration of the relationship between bordering practices and restrictive migration policies more broadly, as well as consideration of the development of techniques of surveillance and data management in particular. For example, critical scholars have focused on the exclusionary political effects of security discourses and practices in relation to the politics of mobility, particularly, though not exclusively, in the European context (for example, Aradau, Huysmans and Squire 2010; Guild 2003; Jones 2012; Lazaridis 2011; Squire 2009). Others have focused in more detail on the problematic implications of governing migration or mobility through risk-based biometric technologies (for example, Ajana 2013; Amoore 2006; Epstein 2007; Huysmans and Buonfino 2008; Lewis 2005; Lyon 2005; Muller 2005, 2010, 2011) and through digital forms of data management and surveillance (for example, Balzacq 2007; Bellanova and Fuster 2013; Bonditti 2004; Rygiel 2011, 2013; Salter 2008). This reflects a critical orientation toward the ways in which mobility or migration is governed. For some scholars, this is conceived of in terms of an exceptionalist politics marked by sovereign power and the violence of the decision (for example, Salter 2003, 2012). For others, it is seen as the result of the ordinary law and practices of liberal states (see Basaran 2008). The latter in particular contributes to what Didier Bigo (2002) has called the production of a ‘generalised unease’.

It is not the aim of this chapter to interrogate how the different strands of critical security studies address the issue of migration (see Huysmans and Squire 2015). Nor is it the aim to pose either liberal migration studies or critical security studies scholarship as more important than the other. Rather, the aim of this chapter is to draw attention to differences in the focus, approach and orientation of migration studies and critical security studies scholarship, in order to emphasise the ways in which these lead to differing assessments of the securitisation of migration. This is developed here as a means to argue for the importance of a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between liberalisation and securitisation, as well as for a critical understanding of securitisation as a much more complex process or set of practices than Boswell assumes it to be. The chapter thus highlights the significance of a critical perspective, without dismissing the important insights that scholars of migration policy such as Boswell develop.

In other words, this chapter seeks to make the case for a more careful consideration of the logic, practices and effects of security practices (or processes of securitisation), as a means to develop a more nuanced appreciation of the securitisation of migration both pre- and post-9/11. This is done by developing three lines of argument. First, the chapter sets out a more nuanced understanding of what it means to analyse the securitisation of migration. Second, it argues for an understanding of what Boswell suggests to be the absence of securitisation as an absent presence. Third, it emphasises the importance of understanding the coexistence of liberalisation and securitisation in terms that do not discount the important insights that a range of critical security studies scholars have developed over recent years. Having set the scene of a disciplinary divide in the context of which these three interventions are developed, the chapter will now set out each argument more fully by engaging in further detail with the various dimensions of Boswell’s argument.

The securitisation of migration

The first line of analysis that Boswell develops emerges from her focus on the rhetorical or discursive dimensions of securitisation. She refers to this as the ‘non-securitisation of migration control’ at the political level (2007a: 598). Here, Boswell argues that migration is not correlated with terrorism in political debate in the European context, and that there are three key cognitive and practical reasons for this. First, she argues that this represents a case of non-securitisation because terrorism and migration present incongruous images, such as that of the destitute asylum seeker versus that of the organised terrorist cell (Ibid.: 598). Second, she claims that migration is not causally related to terrorism because the links between terrorism and migration are not held up by empirical evidence, with many terrorists found to be European nationals (Ibid.: 598–600). Third, she argues that a causal linkage is absent because of a clash between the securitisation of migration control and more liberal policies toward labour migration that have been predominant in Europe in the 2000s. For example, she notes that centre-left governments in the UK and Germany during that period had recently reintroduced schemes for highly skilled migration and were ‘loosening access to labour markets for foreign students’ (Ibid.: 600).

Boswell clearly highlights some important points here in assessing securitisation understood as a discursive or rhetorical process of articulating migration as a security issue. In particular, her insights are important for an analysis of the securitisation of migration as a ‘speech act’ (Buzan, Wæver and Wilde 1998), because it facilitates an appreciation of the ways in which the process of securitisation can fail if key audiences do not accept statements regarding migration as a security threat. For example, in a context whereby the links between terrorism and migration are subject to question, or whereby the positing of migration as a security threat lies in conflict with wider discourses regarding the positive contribution of migration, then wider audiences may be unlikely to accept a securitising speech act. This would be understood as a failed securitising move, according to scholars inspired by the Copenhagen School of securitisation theory (see Balzacq, 2005). That Boswell pays attention to the specificity of the institutional context, as well as to the way in which a speech act of security involves cognitive processes that are important to the issue being accepted by an audience, is thus helpful from this perspective.

Nevertheless, questions arise as to whether these insights support the argument that Boswell makes regarding the non-securitisation of migration control. For example, that the asylum seeker and the terrorist represent incongruous images does not necessarily lead to non-securitisation. Even if there is no direct and explicit link made between terrorism and migration, these can still be articulated as mutual threats, and accepted by an audience as such. For example, migration and terrorism were flagged up by the UK rotating presidency of the European Union in 2005 as equivalent challenges in an increasingly ‘interconnected’ world: ‘Many of the issues faced by governments today, such as terrorism, asylum and immigration, and organised crime can be tackled most effectively through increased cooperation between member states’ (Council of the European Union 2004: 5). Statements such as this are indicative of a mode of securitisation that does not presuppose the need for a direct or causal link between migration and terrorism, but rather involves the presence of associational links as dimensions of the process of securitisation (see Squire 2009).

It might be argued that it is precisely through such associational links that the securitisation of migration resonates with wider publics. Indeed, links between migration and terrorism are more widely evident in political and popular discourse throughout the 2000s. A notable example here is the 2000 Afghan hijackers case, whereby nine men fleeing the Taliban regime hijacked a domestic Afghan flight and forced the crew to land the airplane at Stansted airport in the UK. This was the subject of widespread debate in the UK media and government, particularly as it went through processes of appeal in the courts in the mid-2000s. The attention that this case gained might itself be understood as indicative of an intensification of the securitisation of migration, rather than as its absence, because of the resonance of the hijacking of an airplane and the terrorists’ attacks of 9/11. However, what is important from the perspective developed here is that securitisation involves associational processes through which migrants are constituted as ‘culpable’ or ‘threatening’ subjects (see Squire 2009: 72–74). We can thus go further here in drawing on Boswell’s analysis to show how, even in the absence of evidence of any direct empirical linkage between migration and terrorism, such associations are precisely indicative of the extent to which securitisation has become a key way of framing migration (or articulating migration as an issue to govern) over recent years. To say that there is an absence of securitisation at a rhetorical or discursive level in this regard would seem to miss processes of securitisation that rest on associative relations. It is precisely through indirect associations between migration and security concerns such as terrorism that some forms of migration have come to be addressed as threatening and have thus become addressed as a question of security.

Moreover, if we move on to the second line of argument developed by Boswell regarding the linkages between migration policy and counter-terrorism at the level of practice, it would appear that her intervention may inadvertently further support the suggestion that securitisation has become key to the framing or governing of migration over recent years. She suggests that, at the level of practice, there is a clearer linkage of migration control and anti-terrorism measures (Ibid.: 600). For Boswell, however, the direction in which these practices travel is posed as indicative of the absence of migration’s securitisation, with little change in migration practices post-9/11, but significant use of migration measures in the field of counter-terrorism. For example, she argues that migration measures such as linked databases, passenger record information sharing, and border checks have been used as counter-terrorism measures, but that counter-terrorism measures have not been similarly carried over into migration control (Ibid.: 601). By contrast, I want to suggest that the institutional or practical links that Boswell points to are precisely indicative of the securitisation...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• Part I  Securitisation of Migration
• Part II  Securitisation and Its Impacts on Migrant and Ethnic Minority Communities
• Part III  Populist Responses to Securitisation and Migration in a Crisis Europe
• Index