Migration Management in the European Union: Between Extraordinary Measures and Routinized Risk Management

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International Relations

Migration Management in the European

Union

Between Extraordinary Measures and Routinized Risk

Management

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Abstract. This thesis examines the migration management of the European

Union from 2015 until 2019. The discursive approach towards securitisation of the Copenhagen School will be applied in order to examine the processes of security that underlie the European Union’s approach to migration. However, since the European Union’s discourse on migration does not fulfil the requirements of emergency language required by the Copenhagen School and often relies on the language of routinised migration management, the concept of risk as developed by Critical Risk Studies will be introduced in order to account for the perception of migration as an issue of security for the European Union. By conducting a discourse analysis of selected speeches by high ranking EU officials, this thesis will argue that European Union migration management since the refugee crisis in 2015 is defined by a normalisation of migration as a security issue in the official discourse. This discourse is constitutive of as well as constituted by routinised practices of security and risk management.

Key Words: Migration, securitisation, risk, European Union Word Count: 12066

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List of Abbreviations

CoEU Council of the European Union

CoS Copenhagen School

CRS Critical Risk Studies

EC European Commission

EU European Union

IR International Relations

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1 Introduction

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Immigrants to the European Union have acquired the politically salient status of ‘risky’ and ‘dangerous’ when only a few decades ago they were considered a peripheral question to the project of European integration.

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Van Munster (2009: 1) The perception of migration as a threat represents an issue that has been central to the concern of policymakers and academia alike since the early 2000s (Ceyhan & Tsoukala, 2002; McDonald, 2008; Van Munster, 2009; Tsoukala, 2005). While immigrants into the European Union were initially perceived to be advancing the economy of the member states, this perception has gradually shifted (Ceyhan & Tsoukala, 2002: 22). Especially in the context of the 2015 refugee crisis, migration has been constructed as an existential threat by European political elites as well as European Union officials and agencies (Andersson, 2017; Ceccorulli, 2019). Nowadays, migrants are commonly portrayed as a threat to (national) identity and economic welfare within the European Union. Subsequently, border management and immigration control have become normalised as an essential part of European internal security (Ceccorulli, 2019; Rijpma & Vermeulen, 2015). In the light of these developments, this thesis aims at understanding the processes that underlie the normalisation of the issue of migration as relevant to the European Union’s internal security rather than dealing with it in terms of an economic or humanitarian issue.

1.1 Research Problem, Aim and Purpose

Immigration represents a phenomenon that is persistent within Europe since the 1960s. Yet, it has only been perceived to represent a threat since the early 2000s (Van Munster 2009: 1). Therefore, International Relations scholars tend to agree that migration mostly represents a constructed security issue, a threat without any objective reality to it. This has led scholars to rely on frameworks of discursive security such as the Copenhagen School in order to understand the processes that have constituted migration as a security threat (Buzan et al., 1998; Ceyhan & Tsoukala, 2002; Huysmans, 2000; Peoples & Vaughan-Williams, 2010). By analysing how migration gets represented as an existential threat in elitist discourses, those studies have been able to shed light on the processes of security that underlie the construction of migration as a threat.

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However, research conducted within the theoretical framework of securitisation theory has only been able to account for the construction of migration as dangerous where the language of exceptionalism and emergency is utilised. It has been argued that there is a difficulty in the case of the European Union to explain the securitisation of migration by using the classical framework of the Copenhagen School (Neal, 2009; Van Munster, 2009). Due to the supranational character of the European Union and its complex technocratic structure, it creates a multitude of discourses which often use language below the threshold of existential threats. That makes it difficult for researchers to identify the necessary speech-act as defined in Buzan

et al. (1998: 26). Consequently, the research puzzle that this thesis is built on is about how to

understand the European Union’s construction of migration as a threat, considering the absence of the language of emergency and, subsequently, a normalisation of the connection of migration to EU internal security.

Considering this research puzzle, the aim of this thesis is to understand the processes underlying the construction of migration as a threat by the European Union in the period following the refugee crisis in 2015. The thesis will examine how the discourse on migration is constructing the issue as one of security, not by invoking a language of exceptionalism, but rather by relying on a discourse of long-term risk management that normalises and institutionalises migration management as an essential pillar of EU internal security (Van Munster, 2009). In order to account for the discursive process of securitisation in absence of so-called ‘high-points’ of security, I will incorporate the concept of risk into the theoretical framework of this thesis. Scholars working within the field of Critical Security Studies have argued for the advantage of using risk as a theoretical concept in International Relations. Those scholars have argued that the concept of risk enables researchers to adapt to a transformed international security landscape in general (Aradau et al., 2008; Jarvis & Griffith, 2007; Kirk, 2020; Lund Petersen, 2008, 2011), as well as to account for an increasingly routinized nature of migration management in particular (Neal, 2009; Van Munster, 2009). In the context of these considerations, this thesis will be based upon and try to answer the following question:

How can the European Union’s migration management be understood, seen within the context of increasingly routinized practices of border management and population control since the 2015 refugee crisis?

Through a combination of the linguistic approach of the Copenhagen School with the concept of risk, a theoretical framework will be developed which is capable to account for the EU’s

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construction of migration as a security issue through discursive practices that do not respect the threshold of the language of emergency which is defined as a prerequisite for the speech-act of the classical Copenhagen School approach to securitisation (Buzan et al., 1998). It will be argued that the securitisation of migration in the European Union can be understood as relying increasingly on a discourse of normalisation and routinized risk management. In this context, the discourse of EU officials can be understood as constitutive of and as legitimising the need for long-term measures against migration. Furthermore, it will be argued that the relationship between security discourses and practices can be interpreted as relational. Not only is the discourse creating a threat in response to which routinized security practices are developed, but security practices also serve as a source of legitimacy for constructing and normalising migration as a security issue within the official discourse.

In order to answer the presiding question of this thesis, I will conduct a discourse analysis of press releases from relevant EU agencies as well as speeches held by EU officials. In order to produce a comprehensive account of the official discourse surrounding migration, I will focus on speeches by three key EU officials: i) the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker as the organisation’s highest representative; ii) the EU Commissioner for

Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos who is responsible for the

internal dimension of European migration management; and iii) the High Representative of the

European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, in order to

account for the external dimension of European migration management. The time frame will be from 2015, where the refugee crisis led to a break within the dominant discourse, until 2019 when the legislative term ended. This careful selection of material will increase the validity of this research and the accuracy of the results.

1.2 Relevance to the Field of International Relations

The research puzzle outlined above is relevant to the academic discipline of International Relations both theoretically and empirically. First of all, securitisation theory in general and the Copenhagen School in particular are strongly connected to the theoretical paradigm of IR constructivism as well as to the field of International Security Studies (ISS) which is often defined as a sub-discipline of International Relations (Buzan & Hansen, 2009; Emmers, 2016; Peoples & Vaughan-Williams, 2010). Furthermore, the empirical issue of migration is well researched by International Relations scholars (Bigo, 2002; Ceyhan & Tsoukala, 2002; Little & Vaughan-Williams, 2017; Tsoukala, 2005; Van Munster, 2009). Migration as an empirical

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issue is relevant to the field of international relations since it usually involves the crossing of national borders. Additionally, migration into the EU triggers a joint response by its member states. Hence, European Union migration management represents a case of regional governance and is of interest to the academic discipline of International Relations.

The relevance of the concept of risk for International Relations is less obvious Traditionally, risk is a concept predominantly used by sociologists and economists (Castel, 1991; Ericson & Haggerty, 1997; Ewald, 1991). However, in recent years there has been an increased interest in the concept of risk within IR, mainly by critical security scholars, and there exists a growing amount of risk literature in major IR journals (Lund Petersen, 2011: 695). Scholars have argued that the debate around risk can be interpreted as part of the widening debate within International Security Studies and the usefulness of the concept has been demonstrated by applying it to analyses of terrorism (Aradau & Van Munster, 2007; Ditrych, 2013; Lund Petersen, 2008; Mythen & Walklate, 2008), infectious diseases (Kirk, 2020), climate change (Corry, 2012), or migration (Aradau, 2004; Neal, 2009; Van Munster, 2009).

This thesis adds to existing IR literature in two ways. First, by incorporating the concept of risk into the theoretical framework, it will contribute to the un(der)developed literature on risk and International Relations. Secondly, this thesis will produce original insights into the process of the securitisation of migration. By analysing the European Union as an unusual securitising actor, it will be illustrated how discursive securitisation functions on a supranational level. Since the European Union discourse on migration is much more subtle than, for example, the discourses of populist movements on a national level whose discourses rely on xenophobia and racism, (discursive) securitisation literature focussing on the EU is relatively scarce (as an example see Ceccorulli, 2019). Research that does exist is predominantly concerned with security practices rather than discourse (Andersson, 2017; Bigo, 2002; Neal, 2009; Rijpma & Vermeulen, 2015). Hence, by examining the securitisation of migration from a novel angle, this thesis manages to be relevant and interesting even though the general topic of the securitisation of migration has been researched extensively.

1.3 Disposition

This thesis is organised into five chapters, including the introduction. Chapter 2 will review relevant literature and develop the theoretical framework for the analysis. The literature review will be followed by the method part. This third chapter will take the theoretical framework of the literature as a starting point to then argue for the choice of method as well as data selection.

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In chapter 4, an analysis of selected speeches and statements will be conducted with the aim of answering the research question of this thesis. Chapter 5 will conclude the thesis by summarising the main findings of the analysis and by providing a final answer to the presiding question of how the European Union’s migration management can be understood seen within

the context of increasingly routinized practices of border management and population control since the 2015 refugee crisis.

2 Literature Review

As it has started to become clear in the introduction, International Relations (IR) scholars view the issue of migration predominantly as a discursively constructed threat (Huysmans, 2000; Van Munster, 2009). Therefore, one of the core themes of this literature review and the theoretical framework is the concept of securitisation, following the Copenhagen School (CoS) (Buzan et al.1998). This critical approach represents the most influential one within International Security Studies (ISS) that maintains that the materiality of threats is irrelevant (Buzan & Hansen, 2009). However, it will be argued that the CoS on its own is ill-equipped for explaining the specific example of European Union’s migration approach since the EU is gradually moving away from framing migration as an existential threat. Instead, EU discourse surrounding migration increasingly normalises the issue as relevant to European security concerns. In this context, representatives of the EU legitimise the need for constant preventive and precautionary measures against migration in form of risk management. Therefore, risk will be introduced as the second main theme of the following literature review. I will argue for a combination of the CoS approach and the concept of risk as defined by scholars working within the field of Critical Risk Studies (CRS). This theoretical framework will be able to compensate for the weakness of the CoS of overly relying on ‘high-points’ of security and being unresponsive towards changes within the international threat environment while maintaining the main analytical framework of the Copenhagen School. Furthermore, I will discuss the connection between migration as a security issue and identity. According to Buzan et al. (1998: 119-20), migration is part of the societal sector of security. This sector is mainly concerned with identity as a social construct. Therefore, it is important to discuss the implications of identity for the framework of this thesis, as well as connecting it the empirical research about the European Union. The literature review will conclude with a short summary of the main

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concepts that have been identified as being useful for the enquiry of this thesis and the general theoretical position.

2.1 Discursive Security: The Copenhagen School

When approaching migration as a security issue, it is first of all important to determine what kind of approach within International Security Studies is most suitable for understanding the phenomenon. Buzan and Hansen (2009: 34) distinguish between three epistemological conceptualisations of security, the objective, subjective and discursive one. Since there is a general consensus among IR scholars that there is no objective or material dimension to the perception of migration as a threat (Bourbeau, 2014: 193; Tsoukala, 2005), both the objective and the subjective conceptualisation can be excluded. The objective conceptualisation assumes the material presence or absence of threats and even the subjective conceptualisation maintains an objective point of reference (Buzan & Hansen, 2009: 34). Consequently, the epistemological approach best suited for analysing migration as a security issue is the discursive one which focuses on the intersubjective processes of security and is “agnostic as to the reality of threats” (Balzacq et al., 2016: 518-9). The most influential discursive conceptualisation of security is the Copenhagen School which is generally associated with IR constructivism and which was coined by Buzan et al. (1998). The CoS is concerned with examining the processes of security and with elucidating how a political issue gets securitised through a speech-act. The Copenhagen School contributed to the widening debate within ISS by moving security studies away from the traditional focus on national and military security. It includes a variety of sectors and issues into its framework of analysis including migration, the environment, health and terrorism (Buzan et al. 1998; Buzan & Hansen 2009; Peoples & Vaughan-Williams 2010).

Buzan et al. (1998: 25-6) define securitisation as a process that elevates an issue from the realm of politics to that of security which then allows for extraordinary measures to be introduced. The main components of such a securitising move consist of a securitising actor, a speech-act and a relevant recipient audience. For securitisation to be successful, the relevant audience needs to accept the issue at stake to be representing an existential threat requiring the adoption of extraordinary measures (Buzan et al. 1998: 26).

The CoS framework includes different sectors of security: The military sector, the environmental sector, the economic sector, the societal sector, and the political sector. Migration is defined as a part of the societal sector which is mainly associated with identity

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(Buzan et al., 1998: 119-20). I will discuss the specific implications this holds for this thesis in chapter 2.3 of this thesis.

2.1.1 Criticism Towards the Copenhagen School

Since the development of securitisation theory in the late 1990s, many scholars have challenged the Copenhagen School’s analytical framework and/or some of its core premises (Balzacq, 2005; Bigo, 2002; Bourbeau, 2014; McDonald, 2008; Patomäki, 2015; Stritzel, 2007).

Balzacq (2005) and McDonald (2008) associate the CoS with an internalist approach to security and criticise the theory’s emphasis on the performative role of language. Instead, Balzacq argues for a more externalist approach that he defines as a pragmatic speech-act (2005: 182). Such a speech-act is less focused on the performativity of language and considers external factors to be crucial for the success or failure of a speech-act. External conditions, such as the political or historical contexts influence the success of a securitising move as well as the type of recipient audience. Balzacq maintains that “language does not construct reality, at best it shapes our perception of it” (2005: 181). However, considering the argument made earlier that migration as a threat has no material reality, one should not disregard the constitutive role of language and discourse even if contextual factors may have a facilitating function.

The CoS has also been criticised for being overly state-centric and for remaining too close to traditional security paradigms when it comes to the referent objects of security (Booth 1991; Wyn Jones, 1999).

The Copenhagen School has also been criticised for not really having moved away from traditional security studies in that the state remains the main referent object of security within the framework of securitisation (Booth, 1991; McDonald, 2008; Stritzel, 2007; Wyn Jones, 1999). Emancipatory and normative approaches towards security have argued that similar to traditional security perspectives, the CoS does not allow for more critical analyses of security and the possibility of emancipation since it “constrict[s] the term [of security] to a particular privileged referent object” (Wyn Jones, 1999: 125). In this context, McDonald (2008: 564) has argued that the CoS is contributing to the reproduction of existing power relations, since a state-centric conceptualisation of security will focus mostly on the elitist discourse of political leaders. Therefore, scholars concerned with emancipation have suggested that “the securitisation framework is parasitic upon traditional (Realist) discourses of security” (McDonald, 2008: 578). However, even though the CoS framework predominantly focusses on states as the main referent object of security, this does not mean that states are prioritised at

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the expense of other collectives or individuals. Instead, it can be argued that the Copenhagen School, which is concerned with examining processes of security, mainly examines instances of state security since nation-states remain the dominant actors within international security. Securitisation theory does not attempt to ‘solve’ security problems. Instead, it focuses on the processes through which they became constituted as security issues in the first place (Aradau

et al., 2015: 6). In the context of migration, Bigo has argued that “[e]ffective challenges can

only be indirect, by analysing the conditions under which the authority of truth is given to a discourse that creates the immigrant as an ‘outsider, inside the State’” (2002: 66). Consequently, it can be maintained that securitisation theory is well-equipped for analysing processes of security and that it acknowledges the fact that states still are the dominant actors when it comes to articulating security policies and shaping threat perceptions. Besides, analyses within the CoS framework can provide the basis for more emancipatory approaches to challenge established configurations of security.

Another point of criticism towards the Copenhagen School can be found in its reliance on the language of emergency and the traditional notion of ‘high points’ of security. In this context, it is argued that the CoS does not take into account how routinized practices contribute to the securitisation of migration. Scholars affiliated with the Paris School of security studies have argued that the reliance on the language of exceptionalism is not able to account for the securitisation of migration in Europe, since it does not predominantly rely on emergency measures (Bigo, 2002; Buzan & Hansen, 2009; Peoples & Vaughan-Williams, 2010; Stritzel, 2007). Instead, the securitisation of migration can be understood as routinised practices, typically carried out by security professionals (Bigo, 2002). However, while security practices certainly contribute to the securitisation of migration, they need to get legitimised before getting established which arguably happens through discourse. Thus, the CoS and its focus on the performative role of language remains essential.

Finally, according to Buzan et al. (1998) a security issue would gradually move back into the realm of normal politics after emergency measures have been applied. However, this did not happen in the case of EU migration management (Van Munster, 2009: 93). Here we can see a weakness of the CoS since it is not able to account for the normalisation of security measures. Furthermore, it has been argued that migration often gets securitised through speech-acts below the threshold of the language of emergency and existential threat (Stritzel, 2007: 367). Considering the reliance of the CoS on existential threats and exceptionalism (Buzan et al. 19999: 27), it becomes clear that the theoretical framework needs to be extended to incorporate complementary concepts in order to comprehensively account for the securitisation

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of migration through the European Union and to answer the presiding question of this thesis. In order to do so, I will discuss Bourbeau’s notion of the logic of exception and the logic of routine (2014). This discussion will the build the connection between the framework of the Copenhagen School and the concept of risk.

2.1.2 Bridging the Gap: Between Exceptional Measures and Routinized Practices

As has been illustrated above, one of the Copenhagen School’s main weaknesses consists in its failure to account for discursive processes of security that are not framed in terms of existential threats. While Balzacq (2015) has argued that it is impossible to consolidate linguistic concepts of ‘high-points’ of security with concepts oriented towards routinized and normalised practices, Bourbeau (2014) has done exactly that through his concepts of the logic of exception and the logic of routine.

The Logic of exception represents the main elements of the CoS and its main elements are urgency, existential threats, and the need for immediate action (Bourbeau, 2014: 203). The logic of routine, instead, is closer to the Paris School and focuses on securitization through routinised practices (Bourbeau, 2014: 188). While those approaches may seem incompatible, Balzacq argues that both logics are in a constitutive relationship to each other and that the combination of the two will help researchers to “get a clearer, more comprehensive sense of the securitization process” (Bourbeau, 2014: 196). Therefore, in the context of the securitization of migration in the EU, it will be important to examine how security discourses normalise migration as an essential part of the EU’s internal security and thus legitimise routinised security practices; and vice versa, how routinised practices by security professionals are utilised within the discourse of EU representatives in order to construct migration as threat.

Finally, due to the subtle nature of the speech-act of EU officials which take place far below the threshold of existential threats and emergency measures, I argue that it is beneficial to integrate the concept of risk into the theoretical framework of this thesis. This will not only account for the normalisation of migration as a security issue within the EU, but also for a shift in the discourse from the need to react to concrete threats towards preventive and precautionary risk management (Van Munster, 2009: 93). The concept of risk as directed towards the future in contrast to the traditional conceptualisation of threat, which is concerned with the present and past, will also help to account for some of the absences in securitisation theory (Patomäki, 2015: 128).

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2.2 Risk as a Concept for International Security Studies

The concept of security, typically associated with the academic discipline of IR and ISS, has long developed independently from the concept of risk, which has its roots in insurance technology (Ewald, 1991; Lund Petersen 2011). Risk can generally be understood as a discourse which is oriented more towards the future than towards the past or present (Ericson & Haggerty, 1997: 87). Similar to the definition of threat of the CoS, it has been argued that there is no reality in risk and that it completely depends on how one interprets and analyses it, or, in other words, it depends on different rationalities (modes of thinking) (Campbell, 1998: 2; Ewald, 1991:199). In recent years, there have been a number scholars who have argued for the relevance of risk as a framework for analysis for IR, in order to account for a changed threat environment which leads to modern security explicitly being concerned with the future and with the avoidance of risks (Patomäki, 2015: 130). Within the field of IR the concept of risk has been applied to the analyses of issues such as terrorism (Aradau & Van Munster, 2007; Ditrych, 2013; Lund Petersen, 2008; Mythen & Walklate, 2008), infectious diseases (Kirk, 2020), climate change (Corry, 2012), or migration (Aradau, 2004; Neal, 2009; Van Munster, 2009). In the context of EU migration management, Van Munster has argued that “risk with its institutional and bureaucratic connotations of management seems more appropriate than the more dramatic notion of security” (2009: 6).

Seen within the context of ISS, risk can be seen as a part of the widening debate (Lund Petersen, 2011). Yet, it remains an undeveloped subdiscipline of ISS. The CoS can be seen as part of the widening debate in the 1990s to open up security studies to incorporate dangers other than the classical military/national security (Buzan & Hansen, 2009). Advocates of risk maintain that the threat environment that emerged in the context of globalisation is completely different and that security ISS and IR need to adapt to these changes by including new frameworks for analysis, including risk.

Traditionally, risk has been described as being calculable, predictable and objective. Therefore, it is assumed that rational behaviour can help to manage or to eliminate future risks (Ewald, 1991: 201-2; Lund Petersen, 2008: 177). This rationality of risk can be directly translated to EU migration management. Discourses of EU officials do not construct an existential threat to which emergency measures need to be applied, but rather frames migration as a risk which calls for intervention “before the situation reaches to the point of extremity in which exceptional measures are called for” (Van Munster, 2009: 40).

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While there are many different approaches to risk, such as Ulrich Beck’s famous and controversial thesis of a ‘world risk society’ (1999), in the following section I will only focus on the approach to risk which is relevant to further developing the argument of this thesis, namely the field of Critical Risk Studies (CRS) (Lund Petersen, 2011).

2.2.1 Critical Risk Studies and the Copenhagen School

Corry (2012) has argued for the need to develop a distinct framework of analysis for analysing risk at the same level as securitisation theory, while not conflating it with the Copenhagen School in order to maintain its analytical clarity. Wæver, one of the main contributors to the CoS agrees with this view by stating that “[s]securitisation is securitisation, and risk is risk” (2011: 474). However, since it can be argued that the development of risk studies represents a reaction to changes in the global threat environment, it does not make sense to keep the two apart. Complex, evolving situations may entail both discourses of security and discourses of risk. Adopting different analytical frameworks to account for a single phenomenon might weaken the validity of results and the analytical clarity of the CoS.

Lund Petersen (2011) identifies three different fields of risk studies relevant to IR and ISS:

Global Risk Management, Political Risk Studies, and Critical Risk Studies. Global Risk

Management closely related to Beck and mainly concerned with catastrophic, unpredictable events such as terrorism (Aradau & Van Munster, 2007). Political Risk Studies employ risk as an analytical tool which remains relatively close to its origins in insurance (Jarvis & Griffith, 2007). However, for my thesis the field of Critical Risk Studies is most relevant since it is the only approach maintaining that there is no reality outside of risk, that it is socially constructed (Lund Petersen, 2011: 707). CRS and its framework of risk governance represents a much broader and more comprehensive alternative to traditional concepts of security. By examining risk, CRS scholars are able to account for modern security issues such as the subtle and normalised securitisation of migration within the EU.

For the purpose of this thesis, the concept of risk as understood by Critical Risk Studies represents a useful addition to theoretical framework of the Copenhagen School. Its conceptualisation of risk fits into the framework of the CoS in regard to its epistemology (risk/threat as discursively constructed). Furthermore, it compensates for the CoS’s weakness of not being able to account for normalised security practices. In general, scholars working within the field of CRS attempt to show how certain meanings are established and do not necessarily follow an emancipatory or normative agenda (Lund Petersen, 2011: 701-2).

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Therefore, both the CoS and CRS are concerned with illustrating how processes of security (or risk) work. Hence, they can be easily combined into one theoretical framework.

Critical risk scholars argue that ISS is stuck between the binary dichotomies of security/politics and normality/exception (Aradau et al., 2008). This becomes clear also in the case of EU migration management, where CoS fails to account for normalised security practices. Incorporating the concept of risk allows for an adequate analysis of EU migration management, maintaining the general framework of the CoS but enhancing its accuracy and its relevance to current security issues. This theoretical framework will help me to put forward the argument of my thesis that EU migration management since the refugee crisis in 2015 is defined by a normalisation of migration as a security issue in the official discourse which is constitutive of as well as constituted by routinised practices of security and risk management.

Most scholars within CRS follow Foucault’s notion of (liberal) governmentality which means that it entails a liberal rationality according to which government is organised. Foucault has defined governmentality as

“[An] ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections, the calculations and tactics that allow the exercise of this very specific albeit complex form of power, which has as its target population, as its principle form of knowledge political economy, and as its essential technical means apparatuses of security” (1991: 102).

According to the logic of governmentality (in this case, a governmentality of risk), which has also been defined as the “conduct of conduct” (Dean, 2010: 17), the individual as subject of government gets replaced by a set of factors of risk (Castel, 1991: 281). According to those factors of risk, one can understand the management of migration. People are categorised due to different factors of risk which are not determined on an individual basis but on the basis of the belonging to a certain ‘group’ of the population. According to those risk factors, migration (or population) flows can then be managed, not with the aim of ‘creating order’ but of ‘guiding disorder’ (Van Munster, 2009: 9). This governmentality of risk entails a precautionary logic which aims at establishing factors of risk which can be addressed in order to reduce or ideally eliminate ‘bad’ migration flows. Furthermore, people are sorted into different groups, in the case of the EU for example into migrants in need of protection and those who are not in need of protection. This can be seen in line with a liberal logic of security which has as its objective the freedom of many and the maximisation of circulation which gets achieved by the exclusion/impairment of freedom of few and which is characterised measures such as

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surveillance and risk profiling (Bigo, 2002: 81; Bigo, 2017: 47; Ericson & Haggerty, 1997: 94; Little & Vaughan-Williams, 2017; Van Munster, 2009: 10).

However, while this conception of risk can certainly be useful for my analysis, Lund Petersen (2011: 702) has argued that this is not the only possible way of understanding risk as some CRS scholars tend to assume. In fact, Lund Petersen claims that this conception of risk is problematic since it is “non-responsive” to shifts because “the aim is not one of studying change in the current perceptions of security, but rather to explore the expansion of certain kinds of risk thinking“ (2011: 702). In the context of the theoretical framework of this thesis, her critique is highly relevant since a too narrow conception of the nature and the functioning of risk will create analytical bias when analysing processes of security. Concluding from the discussion of this literature review, one would expect the EU discourse to be constructed around a liberal governmentality of risk. However, it is important to remain open for different possibilities in order to ensure that an analysis of processes of security will result in accurate findings.

In addition to the understanding of risk as a liberal governmentality, one can also understand risk/it as following a different, more political, rationality. It can be conceptualised as an issue of Self and Other, of identity and belonging and is therefore directed towards protecting vulnerable values in society (Dean, 2010: 27, 46; Lund Petersen, 2011: 709). This conceptualisation is also relevant for this thesis, since it directly ties in with the CoS’s connection between migration as a security issue and identity, which will be the topic of the last section of this literature review.

2.3 Security and the Politics of Identity in European Migration Management

As briefly discussed before, the Copenhagen School connects migration directly to the issue of national or societal identity (Buzan et al., 1998). In this context, the referent object of security gets extended beyond the state and includes the identity of the host society (Ceyhan & Tsoukala, 2002: 22). Identity gets operationalised according to constructivist IR research as socially constructed through constellations of the Self and Other.

In the case of the EU it can be argued that “securitisation in both its discursive and technocratic dimensions bears upon the more general question of the political identity of the EU” (Van Munster, 2009: 7). Since the political identity of the EU is not very clear due to its supranational character, it needs to be clarified what can be understood as an EU identity or sense of belonging. A European sense of belonging can be created through reference to

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achievements of European integration such as the single market, the area of free movement, or through reference to shared values such as democracy, the rule of law, and the upholding of human right norms (Ceyhan & Tsoukala, 2002: 25; Van Munster, 2009: 2-3). Furthermore, migration gets connected to transnational crime and terrorism which represents a ‘straight-forward’ creation of an Other to the European Self.

Even though the societal level remains the main focus of securitisation of migration in the EU, scholars have argued for a so-called humanitarian-security nexus which includes the migrant as a referent object into the process of the securitisation of migration. By referring to the humanitarian situation and the human rights of migrants, EU officials justify illiberal measures aimed at all migrants or certain categories of migrants (Andersson, 2017; Bigo, 2002: 79; Little & Vaughan-Williams, 2017: 544).

2.5 Summary: Theoretical Position and Argument

The literature review has developed a comprehensive framework for the analysis of this thesis by combining the discursive approach to security of the Copenhagen School with the concept of risk as defined by the field of Critical Risk Studies (Lund Petersen, 2011). As has been argued, the inclusion of the concept of risk will compensate for the weakness of the CoS of not being able to account for processes of routinised security outside of the language of exceptionalism. Besides, it has been argued that the definition of the concept of risk must not be too narrow in order to avoid bias in the analysis of security processes. Furthermore, the literature review has put forward the argument of this thesis that EU migration management since the refugee crisis in 2015 is defined by a normalisation of migration as a security issue in the official discourse. This discourse is constitutive of as well as constituted by routinised practices of security and risk management.

The next chapter will argue for the method of discourse analysis and will justify the selection of data in order to answer the presiding question of this thesis of how the European Union’s

migration management can be understood seen within the context of increasingly routinized practices of border management and population control since the 2015 refugee crisis.

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3 Method

In order to answer the presiding question of this paper of how the European Union’s migration

management can be understood seen within the context of increasingly routinized practices of border management and population control since the 2015 refugee crisis, I have chosen to

employ the qualitative method of discourse analysis The discursive nature of the Copenhagen School which is at the core of the theoretical framework of this thesis implies a methodological approach situated within the epistemological realm of interpretivism (Halperin & Heath, 2017: 336). An interpretivist methodology resonates well with the theoretical framework developed in the literature review because, like the Copenhagen School, interpretivism is based on an intersubjectivity (Lamont, 2015: 20). Hence, causal explanations and hypothesis testing are rejected.

Scholarly work conducted within the theoretical framework of the Copenhagen School have mainly used the method of discourse analysis, due to the heavy focus of the theory on discursive constructions. While discourse analysis clearly remains the most frequently used method, a growing number of scholars have incorporated a broader range of approaches, including content analysis, process tracing and ethnographic research (Balzacq et al. 2016: 519; Robinson, 2017). Since critical scholarship generally conceptualises security as “a practice through which the ‘securityness’ of situations is created” (Aradau et al. 2015: 3), and since the Copenhagen School is focused on the linguistic processes rather than the practice-oriented ones, I have chosen discourse analysis as the method for my analysis (Aradau et al., 2015: 61).

3.1 Discourse Analysis

Discourse analysis represents a method with a strong focus on the performativity of language and is mostly used by social constructivist and poststructuralist scholars within the academic discipline of IR (Halperin & Heath, 2017; Lamont, 2015). Since I have argued for the relational connection between discourse and practices, and since critical security scholars generally argue for a “relational approach to discourse and materiality” (Aradau et al., 2015a: 61), the methodology of this thesis will not be based on a causal relationship between variables and I will subsequently not develop and test hypotheses. In line with speech act theory developed by Austin and Searle in the 1960s, discourse of EU officials will be analysed according to the principle that ‘words are deeds’ (Bourbeau 2014: 193; Halperin & Heath, 2017: 337). Discourse as a system of text, or an assemblage of statements constructs social reality, in the

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“results generated by discourse analysis highlight whether securitisation has happened or not and how it has taken shape” (Balzacq et al., 2016: 519).

3.2 The European Union as a Special Case of Securitisation

Scholars have argued that the securitisation of migration in the EU did not happen and cannot happen, since certain prerequisites of securitisation theory are not fulfilled (Neal, 2009). First of all, most EU agencies and representatives only have a very small specialist audience and do not reach the wider European public. Since the acceptance of a threat by the recipient audience is essential for a successful act of securitisation, Neal (2009: 336) has claimed that securitisation did not happen. However, Buzan et al. (1998) only speak about a relevant audience without further specification about its nature. Therefore, it can be argued that in the case of the securitisation of migration, a specialist audience is the recipient audience. Since I have argued that language constructions around European migration management legitimise practices of risk management, the relevant audience can be identified in security professionals from certain EU agencies as well as political elites of the member state, which will be essential to implement measures against migration and who will also have to finance EU agencies such as FRONTEX which are concerned with border management and population control.

Furthermore, Neal (2009: 337) has doubted that the EU would be able to produce a speech act following the definition of the Copenhagen School. Since the EU is composed by a complex structure of different agencies and has a technocratic character, it is a) difficult to produce one single and coherent EU discourse on migration; and b) speech-acts will remain below the threshold of exceptionalism (Stritzel, 2007: 367). Due to the technocratic nature of the EU as well as the need to find a common denominator in order to accommodate all member states, EU discourse will not resort to the xenophobic and racist discourse that populist parties around Europe employ and which represents quite obvious examples of securitisation. However, by incorporating the concept of risk into my framework of analysis, I have managed to circumvent the problem of exceptionalism inherent to the CoS. Therefore, the discourse analysed in the analysis part will entail less references to migration as an existential threat but rather construct migration as a security issue through rationalities of risk. And even though “risk management appears as a somewhat technical matter free from normative connotations, it is not neutral to say that immigration is a security problem” (Van Munster, 2009: 41). This has also become clear in the literature review where I have argued that risk is as agnostic as to the reality of threats as the traditional CoS conceptualisation of security.

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3.3 Data Selection

As has been discussed in the previous section, it can prove difficult to identify a coherent discourse on EU migration management due to the large number of agencies. However, I have identified EU officials who had essential positions within the EU during the period from 2015-2019 and who represent authoritative sources of discourse which is important for discourse analysis. The time frame from 2015 until 2019 was chosen due to two disruptive events in both years: The refugee crisis in 2015 and the end of the legislative term of the EU administration in 2019.

In order to be able to account for all dimensions of the official EU discourse, I have chosen to focus on speeches held by three EU officials: i) the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker as the organisation’s highest representative; ii) the EU Commissioner for

Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos who is responsible for the

internal dimension of European security and migration management; and iii) the High

Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica

Mogherini, in order to account for the external dimension of European migration management. A total of nine speeches will be analysed. Those speeches include Juncker’s ‘State of the Union’ addresses from 2015 until 2018 (there was no State of the Union address in 2019). Furthermore, three speeches by Avramopoulos on migration from the years 2015, 2018 and 2019 will be analysed as well as two speeches by Mogherini from 2017 and 2018.

Furthermore, I will analyse press releases published by the European Commission and the Council of the EU in the context of key developments regarding the issue of migration. The press releases examined are the following:

(i) Press release by the European Commission in 2015 following the presentation on the ten point action plan on migration;

(ii) Press release by the European Commission in 2019 evaluating the progress made under the European Agenda on Migration since 2015;

(iii) Press release by the Council of the EU in 2016 presenting Council conclusions on migration; and

(iv) Press release by the Council of the EU in 2016 following the final approval of the new European Border and Coast Guard.

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3.4 Delimitations

Qualitative data in general and discourse analysis in particular have a limited external validity. This can be explained by the fact that most discourses evolve around unique circumstances and due to the intersubjective relationship between researcher and object under study inherent to interpretivism (Lamont, 2015: 19). However, by relying on a large amount of data, a total of 13 statements from the broader EU discourse on migration, I have been able to enhance the internal validity of this study (Halperin & Heath, 2017: 149). By increasing the number of statements from a broader EU discourse on migration, it can be made sure that the results do in fact represent a broader discourse rather than being statements that are untypical or an exception to the normal discourse around the issue. Besides, I have made sure that the officials whose speeches will be analysed have an authoritative role within the EU and can therefore be considered as representing the whole organisation (Lamont, 2015: 92). Furthermore, even if the external validity will remain limited, I will be able to increase it to a certain extent by strictly sticking to the theoretical framework and concepts discussed in the literature review.

4 Analysis

In order to answer the presiding question of this thesis of how the European Union’s migration

management can be understood seen within the context of increasingly routinized practices of border management and population control since the 2015 refugee crisis, I will now conduct

a discourse analysis of selected statements by the Council of the EU (2016a, 2016b), the European Commission (2015, 2019), Commission President Juncker (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018), Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Avramopoulos (2015, 2018, 2019), and High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Mogherini (2017, 2018).

Generally, the EU discourse can be defined as being less reliant on the language of existential threats. As an example, all speeches and press releases examined frame migration as a ‘challenge’, only sometimes substituted by ‘phenomenon’. Even though migration gets mentioned in a direct connection to European security, it rarely gets directly termed as ‘threat’ or ‘danger’. This provides a good context in order to understand how the EU as a securitising actor operates below the threshold of emergency measures (Stritzel, 2007).

Connecting the following analysis to the theoretical framework developed in the literature review, I have identified five core themes according to which the analysis will be structured:

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i) the discursive construction of migration as a threat within the framework of the classical Copenhagen School framework;

ii) the role of identity in the construction of migration as a security issue; iii) the representation of migration as a future oriented security risk;

iv) Population management and border control according to a logic of a liberal governmentality of risk; and

v) the logic of a humanitarian-security nexus which legitimises and constructs as necessary measures against migration by turning the referent object into the ‘migrant’.

4.1 The Construction of Migration as a Security Threat

Examining the construction of migration as a threat from a traditional CoS perspective of referring to migration as a threat, the first thing that can be noticed in the EU discourse is the reference to metaphors that associate migration with a threat. The press releases by the European Council refer to migratory “pressures” at the EU external borders (2016b), the need to “stem the flows of migration” (2016a), and of a “vulnerability assessment” of EU member states (2016b) which constructs migration as potentially harmful to the EU. Furthermore, the European Commission (2015) speaks of “frontline” states which associates migration with war and armed conflict. Other metaphors which imply that migration is posing a threat can be found in the reference to migration as a “massive, global phenomenon” (Mogherini, 2017), which gives the impression of migration as something intimidating and difficult to handle.

Furthermore, within most speeches, migration and cross-border crime get represented and discursively constructed as two sides of the same coin, which constructs migration as a threat at the same level as for example drug trafficking (CoEU, 2016b; Mogherini, 2017). In her speech, Mogherini connects the G5 Sahel Joint Force to the “exact aim of fighting and preventing terrorism and radicalisation, but also smuggling and trafficking of all kinds, including the link between human smuggling and trafficking, arms trafficking, and drug trafficking” (2017). Furthermore, Juncker asserts that “tolerance cannot come at the price of our security” (2016). Here, he directly connects migration to the threat originating from international terrorism and hence, constitutes migration as dangerous. The association of migration crimes like trafficking and terrorism directly constructs migration as an existential threat. In another speech, Avramopoulos maintains that migration management “is [also] about denying terrorists the space and means to attack us” (2018). Other examples of how the

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European Union’s discourse on migration gets connected to crime can be found in Mogherini’s speech where she refers to the centrality of EU engagement with the Libyan authorities “particular on border management, law enforcement and in support of the criminal justice system” (2017).

Furthermore, the EU speaks in favour of a FRONTEX NATO cooperation (CoEU, 2016a). By implying that the intervention of a military alliance like NATO might be justified to combat irregular migration aids the construction of migration as a threat as it invokes images of war and exceptionalism.

Another aspect of how migration gets constructed as a security issue in the EU discourse is the reference to the numbers of migrants as being “far too high” without any specification (CoEU, 2016a). Furthermore, the discourse consists of statements like “the numbers are impressive. For some they are frightening” (Juncker, 2015). And even though the reference to an existential threat has become less present in current speeches, where the focus is put more on the routinised management of migration, some parts of the language of exceptionalism persist. As an example, it gets stated that the “situation remains volatile” (EC, 2015) or that “we need to be ready, always” (Avramopoulos, 2019).

Finally, migration is constituted as having a direct relationship to security. It gets referred to the necessity to “manage migration flows effectively and ensure a high level of security within the Union” (Avramopoulos, 2018). Furthermore, Avramopoulos refers to a “security and immigration crisis” (Avramopoulos, 2018). Through these discursive constructions, a relationship between migration and security gets constituted. Furthermore, Juncker advocates for “a Europe that preserves the European way of life” and “a Europe that defends at home and abroad” (Juncker, 2016). In this context, the EU discourse on migration once again gets connected to a language of emergency and threat.

As this section has demonstrated, some elements of a classical speech-act as defined by Buzan et al. (1998) are present in the official EU discourse on migration. However, the reference to migration as an imminent security threat is very limited and not as straight-forward as it often is in the discourse of political elites at a national level. Thus, focussing only on the CoS definition of a speech-act would leave aside a substantial part of the EU discourse on migration management. In order to produce comprehensive results, it is therefore essential to examine the EU discourse from a perspective of risk (chapter 4.3).

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4.2 The Role of Identity for the Construction of Migration as a Threat

According to Buzan et al. (1998), migration as a security issue gets associated with societal security. Like most issues within societal security, migration as a security issue is commonly portrayed as a perceived threat to identity (Buzan et al., 1998: 119). Since it can be argued that a common European identity is not very developed (Van Munster, 2009), the EU discourse is based on certain themes which are highlighting common traits and interests of the EU member states and can therefore be considered to constitute the EU’s identity.

Due to the lack of a strong European identity, the EU discourse on migration is focussed on significant common aspects of all member states. It can be argued that the most important common trait of all EU states are the external borders. In outlining the appropriate course of action towards migration, EU officials connect the connect the issues to a predicate language implying community and connectedness. The discourse refers repeatedly to “our borders” (CoEU, 2016a, Avramopoulos, 2019) and migration gets represented as a challenge that can only be successfully addressed “together as a union” (EC, 2015). Furthermore, the need to “act as Europeans” (Mogherini, 2017) gets emphasised. Hence, the EU is engaged in discursive identity construction by invoking a sense of community and by constructing the migrant as an Other in relation to which the EU can define its own identity.

Furthermore, by representing migration as a security problem that cannot be solved by member states’ individual actions, the EU’s role gets strengthened and an EU identity as a “security union” gets constructed (Avramopoulos, 2018). As Avramopoulos maintains: “[It is] only as a stronger and more united union that we can address all these […] challenges” (2018). This aspect of the EU discourse on migration is also present in Mogherini’s speech when she talks about the need for a “European vision on migration” (2018). In addition to that, Juncker states that “we need more union in our refugee policy” (2015).

Consequently, it can be argued that within the EU discourse on migration the migrant serves as an Other in relation to which the European self gets constructed and strengthened. Furthermore, in the context of the refugee crisis, the EU, in comparison to nation states, gets represented as superior by expressing concern over “racism and xenophobia, fuelled by populist movements across Europe” (Avramopoulos, 2015).

4.3 The Construction of Migration as a Security Risk

Another theme arising within the EU discourse on migration is that of migration as a permanent risk to the EU’s internal security which requires long-term risk management. The discourse is

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defined by references towards future migration challenges which require preventive measures such as the ability to carry out a “practical response in cases requiring urgent action” (CoEU, 2016b). Furthermore, the discourse refers to the required capability for “rapid and concerted action” (CoEU, 2016a) and to the immediate necessity of “addressing current and future migration challenges” (Avramopoulos, 2019; EC, 2019). Hence, the EU discourse indicates and legitimises an increasingly routinised risk management and the normalisation of migration as a security issue in the EU.

Migration as a security risk gets constructed within the EU discourse by reference to different issues. First of all, the dismantling of human traffickers and human smugglers is portrayed as a priority in all speeches. The European Commission talks about the need “to destroy vessels used by smugglers” (2015) and refers to the Atalanta operation which is already successfully operating in the Mediterranean Sea. Through reference to already existing and normalised types of risk management, actions taken against human smuggling, human trafficking and ultimately against migration, are legitimised. Here, it becomes clear how discourse and practices are constitutive of each other, as has been argued in earlier chapters of this thesis.

The reliance on risk in respect to migration management can also be observed in the discursive construction of the need for liaison officers in key countries (CoEU, 2016b). The employment of liaison officers represents a technique of precautionary risk management since migrants who will not be able to obtain a visa shall be prevented from leaving their country of origin in the first place (Andersson, 2017). Furthermore, Avramopoulos proposes “awareness campaigns in many countries of origin and transit […] to warn people about the risks of embarking on journeys to Europe” (2015). This illustrates how the EU migration management is no longer directed towards responding to imminent threats but towards governing future risks.

Another technique of long-term risk management can be found in the gradual extension of EU surveillance and control mechanisms, which have the goal of improving the ability of the EU in regard to “identification, registration, fingerprinting and security checks” (CoEU, 2016a). In this context groups of potentially risky migrants are constructed by the discourse. These ‘risky migrants’ need to get processed and surveilled, in order to guarantee EU internal security. Hereby the Council of the European Union refers to “key nationalities” who are represented as posing a particularly high security risk for the European Union (2016a).

Another aspect of the construction of migration as a long-term security risk is the expressed need to tackle the root causes of migration (EC, 2019; Mogherini, 2018) such as “poverty,

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climate change, lack of democratic spaces, [and] violations of human rights” (Mogherini, 2017). In this context it gets illustrated how people are classified as risky in terms of migration before they even leave their home countries.

In order to address this perceived risk of future migration into the EU, the European Commission has called upon EU member states to “make the EU’s migration policy truly future-proof, effective and resilient” in order to be “better prepared for any future migration challenge” (2019). Here one can see that the discourse is not fulfilling the criteria for a speech-act as defined by Buzan et al. (1998). Migration does not get represented as a security threat which requires extraordinary measures. Instead, the discourse constructs migration as a potential future threat, a risk for which the EU needs to be prepared. In this context, the EU discourse calls for and legitimises long-term preventive measures such as “increased resources and powers that will enable the [European Border and Coast Guard Agency] to provide constant and reliable support […] in protecting the EU’s external borders” (Avramopoulos, 2018). Furthermore, through statements about the need for being “equipped to face the future when it comes to migration challenges” (Avramopoulos, 2019) and “migration will stay on our radar” (Juncker, 2017), migration gets constructed as a threat in an uncertain future. In order to be able to be able to meet those risks in the future, measures need to be put in place today.

This section of the analysis has demonstrated that migration is no longer (merely) defined as an imminent security threat requiring extraordinary measures. Instead, the issue gets constructed as a persistent risk and as a future threat requiring constant measures of risk management in order to be able to govern an uncertain future.

4.4 Migration and a Liberal Governmentality of Risk

While chapter 4.3 has analysed a more general reliance of the official EU discourse on a language of risk and the need for measures to tackle future migration challenges, this chapter will focus on how the individual (migrant) gets replaced by a set of factors of risk and how the governance of migratory flows is discursively constructed by the EU. In this context, the concept of governmentality will be applied (see chapter 2.2.1).

Following the concept of risk as defined by Critical Risk Scholars and following Foucault’s notion of governmentality, it can be observed how the EU discourse constructs migrants not as individuals, but as part of a certain population with specific risk factors ascribed to it. The Council of the European Union calls on EU member states to “fully apply the Schengen border

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code and [to] refuse entry at external borders to all third-country nationals who do not satisfy the entry conditions” (2016a). Hence, it can be argued that the discourse constructs two groups of people and categorises immigrants into people satisfying the entry conditions and irregular migrants. Furthermore, throughout the EU discourse there is a strong emphasis on “protecting those in need by enabling legal migration channels” (EC, 2019). Here it is also important to analyse the absences that the discourse creates. By referring to migrants in need of protection, the discourse automatically creates another group, namely migrants who do not need protection. The referral to “migrants in need of protection” is present throughout the discourse (Avramopoulos, 2015; EC, 2015, 2019). While those statements only deal with unwelcome migrants in form of such absences, Mogherini’s speech is much clearer by overtly referring to “those who have no right to stay” (2017).

This categorisation of migrants gets further developed within the discourse by referring to the “necessity of legal immigration” (Juncker, 2017) and the need to create “legal pathways” into the EU (Juncker, 2018). Here again it can be argued that the discourse creates an (absent) category of irregular migration which needs to be contained in order to guarantee the possibility of legal immigration into the EU. In fact, Avramopoulos maintains that the EU must become “more efficient at managing our borders, whilst upholding and defending our values of openness and tolerance, because Europe will continue to offer safety to those in need of protection” (2015). Once again, the EU discourse constructs a connection between effective border management and the EU’s ability to offer protection for refugees.

Furthermore, migration flows get separated into positive and negative ones. In this context, the good flows shall be maximised through the exclusion of the negative ones. In the EU discourse, this can be observed in case of the Schengen area. In order to guarantee a maximal mobility for EU citizens (and some ‘positive’ migrants) within the Schengen area, EU officials discursively construct the necessity for surveillance and the prevention of immigration at the EU external borders (Avramopoulos, 2018; EC, 2015). Migrants get constructed as potentially risky by emphasising the need for the “fingerprinting [of] all migrants” (EC, 2015) or by stating that “those who arrive at our shores should be immediately and effectively identified but also processed” (Avramopoulos, 2018). This implies an underlying threat and a general suspicion towards migrants which is dependent solely on their origin or nationality.

This section has demonstrated how the EU discourse operates according to a liberal governmentality of risk which classifies people not according to individual characteristics, but according to general factors of risk ascribed to certain groups of populations. Furthermore, EU migration management can be interpreted as being directed towards maximising the movement

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(or circulation) of as many people as possible (EU citizens and welcomed migrants) at the expense of a few (irregular migrants). This logic of a liberal governmentality gets exemplified by Mogherini by the following statement: “[W]e need to replace the illegal economy of human trafficking and smuggling, the new slavery, with the regular system of opportunities and channels to safely reach Europe […] for those in need” (2017).

In general, the EU discourse is characterised not by expressing the need to suppress all migration but rather developing an “effective management of immigration flows” (CoEU, 2016b). This representation of migration management can also be found in Juncker’s (2015) speech in context of the 2015 refugee crisis. Additionally, Avramopoulos claims that “[t]he question will never be how to stop [migration], but how to better manage it” (2019). Risk gets constituted as something that cannot be eliminated but needs to be constantly managed. Hence, within the official discourse the EU legitimises its ambitions to “set up a humane, dignified and secure mechanism for governing human mobility” (Mogherini, 2018).

Concluding, this section of the analysis has demonstrated how a governmentality of risk is apparent in the official EU discourse, dividing populations into groups based on risk factors (such as nationality) with the aim of promoting the mobility of a maximum of people by excluding some marginalised, ’risky’ groups of migrants.

4.5 The Humanitarian-Security Nexus

This final section of the analysis will examine the so-called ‘humanitarian-security nexus’ which is present in both discourse and practices of the European Union (Little & Vaughan-Williams, 2017). Within the discourse of the EU, there is a reoccurring theme that turns migrants into the referent object for the securitisation of migration. In those instances, strict border controls and migration management get connected to the security and welfare of migrants. Hence, within the discourse, the referent object of security shifts from the state (or regional organisation) to the individual. By employing a discourse of human security, the EU’s anti-migration measures get more legitimacy since the EU can represent itself as saving migrants’ lives by having an effective migration management system in place.

Within the EU discourse, border security and saving lives is frequently mentioned within the same line of thought, making the two issues appear to be in a causal relationship to each other. The European Commission, for example, calls on EU member states to “better manage migration, strengthen the external borders, save lives, reduce the number of irregular arrivals

Migration Management in the European Union: Between Extraordinary Measures and Routinized Risk Management