Festung Europa: Securitization of Migration and Radicalization of European Societies

Abstract

Europe is undoubtedly changing into Festung Europa -Fortress Europe. While its external boundaries are daily traversed by hundreds of migrants and refugees, its heretofore invisible internal borders have begun to sprout barbed wires, barriers and armed patrols. This paper analyzes the problem of migration and the ongoing European migration crisis through the lens of societal insecurity, arguing that the trend toward radicalization of European societies and electoral politics is one the most volatile ramifications of securitized migration. The European migration crisis has led to a societal security dilemma resulting in a growing chasm between the political elites in member states of the European Union and their societies. The radicalization of those societies is visible in the rising popularity of anti-establishment (populist) parties, the push for direct democracy (demonstrations, manifestations, referenda), and the attractiveness of vigilante groups. Where the state responds to this trend, culture becomes a security policy and "immiskepticism" is the default approach. If it does not respond, society either looks for new political representatives or takes matters into its own hands, sometimes resorting to violence. While the former trend is more visible in the Eastern part of the European Union, the latter is more typical of its Western part.

A rather wild imagination: who is and who is not a migrant in the Czech media and society?

“…Rather, the crisis was largely felt in the meta sphere of public debates and media coverage. In each country in Central Europe the primary response focused heavily on securitization of the issue with considerable criticism directed against the proposals put forward by the EU and Germany and calls to reject them (Bartoszewicz, 2016 , 2019 ). In the Czech Republic, anti-establishment and populist parties (e.g., the Freedom and Direct Democracy Party) gained a new foothold, anti-immigration rhetoric became normalized in political debates and even mainstream politicians adopted very strong anti-migration positions.…”

El nexo migración-desarrollo en la Agenda 2030 para el desarrollo sostenible

“…The negative approach connects migration with security and has resulted through processes of securitization of migrations. The process of securitization of migrations has been explained by authors such as Huysmans (2000), Bigo (2002) and Bartoszewicz (2016), among others. This process implies on the part of a securitizing actor the framing of migration through speech acts (Buzan et al, 1998), as a threat to the security of a referent object, that is, of what should be protected.…”

Crisis de la globalización, el regionalismo y el orden liberal: el ascenso mundial del nacionalismo y la extrema derecha

“…También son narrativas securitarias frente al terrorismo y la inmigración, que contraponen al pueblo, la cultura y la identidad, así como la seguridad, frente al otro, construido como amenaza. Ello se nutre del giro reaccionario, tradicionalista y nativista antes descrito, que rechaza la diversidad social, y, en ocasiones, adopta expresiones abiertamente islamófobas y racistas (Bartoszewicz, 2016). En el caso de Brasil y otros países de América Latina, esta narrativa securitaria se refiere a los graves problemas de seguridad ciudadana, frente a los que se recurre, como se indicó, a visiones punitivistas con políticas de mano dura (Natanson, 2018).…”