SECURITY-MIGRATION NEXUS

CHAPTER THREE
 OVERVIEW

The chapter reviews existing literature to outlines

• how both discourse and practice on the securitization of migration have
evolved over the past years. E.g. A more systematic analysis of the
consequences of 9/11 for the unfolding migration-security nexus..
Context of the Migration-Security Nexus
• how international migration has turned into a security issue. securitization
theory…Specific reference is made to the post-Cold War period
Unintended Consequences of Securitizing Migration
• i.e., increased meta-politics which connects social problems such
unemployment and security threats to migration and immigration
Consequences for Immigrant Integration
 i.e., Cultural Pluralism
 The Historical-Structural Background

It should be said that analyzing the linkage between migration and security is a
complex issue, because both concepts are inherently subjective.
The term ‘security’ includes a range of goals so wide that different policies
and instruments can be interpreted as elements of security
During the Cold War period, the traditional vision of national security had
been uncontested, and it was at the end of 1980s that the content of
‘national security’ expanded to incorporate new concepts not previously
linked to traditional military threats, instruments or actions.
In 1992, the Summit Declaration of the United Nations Security Council
recognized that threats to international peace and security could come
from non-military sources of instability and could affect the economic,
social and environmental spheres.
 The Historical-Structural Background
During the 1970s and 1980s, discussions on the need to establish a
broad concept of security arose.
With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union a new,
non-military based definition of security came into being. Furthermore, it
became clear that national security, international security and also
individual security were interdependent.
The end of the Cold War brought new national security issues to the fore
and discussions on the impact of identities and migration flows soon arose.
Those were the terms of debate until 9/11, when new questions
about exceptional situations and responses, international obligations
and fundamental freedom and rights were raised and discussed under
the ‘new’ necessities of security.
 The Historical-Structural Background
Furthermore, in the post Cold War context, the collapse of the USSR implied the
dismantlement of the ‘Eastern block’. ‘The West’ has been left without its
traditional adversary, against whom it reasserts its sense of identity and
security.*
After 9/11 it seems that extremist Islamists became the “Significant Others”,
and Muslim migrants became suspects of internal and external ‘threat’.*
The 9/11 events and their aftermath marked the tightening of border controls and
the spreading of Islamophobic attitudes not only throughout the U.S., but also to
European countries.
The declaration of U.S. President G.W. Bush of a ‘global war on terror’ created
a general climate of uneasiness and fear among EU citizens, mainly focused on
the concept of ‘new dichotomies’, like the one counterposing Western and
Muslim citizens.*
 The Historical-Structural Background
Moreover, the 9/11 events generated some policy changes constricting civil
rights and liberties in the name of more security for all.*
In that sense, the securitization theory tries to deal with issues related to the
liberty-security debate.
This theoretical approach [securitization] describes a process whereby urgent
security issues’ or ‘threats’ are identified or ‘constructed’ in order to mobilize
opinion and constitute legitimacy and authority for dealing with that ‘threat’.
Both International migration and international terrorism involve the crossing
of state borders and the confronting of ‘we’ and ‘they’, of what is ‘ours’ and what is
‘out there’. A link between both appears easily, although they are absolutely
different phenomena.
Thus, international migration ultimately becomes a security matter, mainly, but
not only, for countries of destination.
 The Historical-Structural Background
Migration turns into a security matter for host countries in two ways.*
On the one hand, as an international security matter, it affects international
border crossing and border control policies. Regarding border-crossing
offences, trafficking networks and irregular flows are threats to be controlled.
On the other hand, as an internal security matter migrants are often seen as a
threat to the availability of jobs, social services or public order. Indeed, migration is
often represented as a challenge to the welfare state and a ‘danger’ to
society.
The link between security, terrorism, migration and borders make the process of
securitization of migration clear. [migration-security nexus]*
Finally, it has to be noted that the link between international migration and
security could be easily dramatized by public actors in order to increase the sense
of ‘threat’ in host societies.
 International Migration: a political melodrama or a
Genuine security threat?
The term securitization refers to a perception of an existent threat to the ability of a
nationally bound society to maintain and reproduce itself.
It [Securitization] has emerged in a new academic literature in the field of international
relations & international politics, which even before 9/11, has begun to highlight more
fundamental concerns about ‘new’ security issues. Such new security issues comprise
very different phenomena ranging from international terrorism, ethno-national strife to
environmental degradation, food and energy scarcities, drug trafficking, population
growth, illegal viz. unauthorized migration, and organized crime – to mention only the
most prominent ones.
Most noteworthy, not all of these issues are necessarily state-centered, as in the old
paradigm about “national security” (Buzan et al. 1998). It is thus not surprising that the
post-Cold War period has seen efforts to view international migration as an important
regional and geo-strategic dynamic with potentially crucial effects upon states, societies
and their security (Weiner 1995).
 Genuine security threat?,,,

In such a complex setup, the question cannot simply be how international
population movements contribute to create conflicts within and between
states. Instead, it is also important to ask:
 Why migration has increasingly become a matter of security?
Why has the migration-security nexus developed?
And what are the consequences for immigration and immigrant
integration?
There is ample evidence to look at the consequences.
 Genuine security threat?...
After all, at least in the discursive realm,
The responses to the events on 9/11 by politicians and journalists have reinforced the
migration-security nexus, dramatizing a publicly convenient link between international
migration and security.
Governments all over Western Europe and North America have not only strengthened
border viz. external controls but also internal controls of non-citizen immigrants.
In the country obviously most affected by 9/11, the USA, institutional responses have
been the most far-reaching.
• For example, the new U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which formally
opened for business in early 2003, consolidated some 170,000 government personnel
from 22 agencies – including the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). It is the
largest modification of the U.S. federal bureaucracy since the founding of the Pentagon
more than 50 years ago during World War Two, and suggests that security threats are
now increasingly seen also as internal ones.
 Genuine security threat?...
As such, International migration has served as a convenient reference point for unspecific
fears. The depiction of international migration as a security threat in the West has unwillingly
contributed to what the American political scientist Samuel Huntington has termed the “clash
of civilizations” (Huntington 1995).
Securitizing migration reinforces the very stereotypes about cultural fears and clashes that
politicians publicly deny and abstain.
While politics has often connected international migration to security issues over the past 150
years, the end of the Cold War has been the most recent stimulus which favored the spread
of objectless fear.
Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, there were bombings in Madrid on March 11,
2004, and in London on July 7, 2005, but only reinforced already- existing fears regarding
the links between migration and terrorism in Europe. Earlier incidents, such as the 1995
bombings of the Paris metro system by Algeria's Armed Islamic Group and attacks in
various Western European states in the 1990s by the Kurdistan Workers' Party, had
already raised concerns regarding the relationship between migration and security.
 Genuine security threat?...
This historical threshold [since the end of the cold war] not only meant the
disappearance of a powerful external threat to security of the West but also
the loss of an important source of cohesion between the diverse groups which
constitute the Western world. This transformation and the fall of some
authoritarian regimes opened up a space for marginalized identities in Eastern
Europe, Central and even Southeast Asia to more freely and sometimes quite
aggressively assert suppressed national and ethnic identities.
In this changing inter- and transnational context, even sovereign states have
begun to view security as the collective management of sub- or transnational
threats and the policing of borders and the internal realm, rather than just the
defense of territory against external attack.
 Genuine security threat?...
To draw up an interim balance concerning the post cold war period, the
emergence of the migration-security nexus cannot be explained exclusively by
actual threats to state and human security, as threats to the physical integrity
of persons in immigration societies or endangering the institutional integrity of
states receiving immigration.
We thus need to take a closer look at the political psychological mechanisms
of threat construction.
The political uses of 9/11 have exacerbated the already existing discursive
linkages of threat, migration and the clashes of cultures.
 Political psychological mechanisms of threat construction.
migration-security nexus under the circumstances before 9/11….[indirect ways
To start with, 9/11 and the dangers apparent are not simply made up. This was
a murderous event.
We know from research on intergroup relations, intolerance, elite decision-
making, and reactions to terrorism before 9/11 that the responses by
governments and publics to threats have been going mainly in one direction.
i.e., Diverse studies have found that external threat results in a broad
tendency to heighten in-group solidarity, vilify the source of threat, limit
government actions that might assist members of the threatening group, and
support belligerent solutions directed at the threatening individuals or group.
It is needless to say that these reactions can be readily observed in responses
to 9/11.
 Political psychological mechanisms of threat construction.
But we need to dig deeper
9/11 seems to have reinforced the trend towards securitizing migration and
immigration – it did not create it from scratch.
Immigration – not only when connected to terrorism – has usually resulted in
an increase in perceived threats.
Even in less dramatic instances not connected to terrorism but to material
threats and the import of conflicts from countries of origin into countries of
settlement of immigrants, the security narrative demands that fear and
objectless fear – Angst– have to be controlled.
In the end, the migration-security nexus under the circumstances before 9/11
also dealt with cultural values affected that are linked to ontological security,
and thus existential threats.*
 Political psychological mechanisms of threat construction.
Clearly, on the surface 9/11 suggested that international migration is
inextricably linked to terrorism, not simply in the indirect ways just mentioned.
9/11 was not about international migrants posing threats to “our” jobs,
incomes, housing or culture. It was a direct attack and a threat to death.
However, the links between international migration and security threats are
inconclusive even after 9/11.
Migration and security only superficially share the fact that border crossings
are involved. Moreover, not all flows of persons across the borders of
sovereign states constitute migration. Tourists and business travelers account
for more border crossings than labor migrants or refugees (IOM 2001).*
 Political psychological mechanisms of threat construction.
In particular, the link between migration and increases in other phenomena, such as drug
trafficking and crime, is vastly overstated.
 Potentially, large immigration flows may enhance the opportunities and provide low-cost
means such as couriers to distribute drugs.
 Also, immigrant communities such as secluded religious sects could make it easier for
would-be terrorists to find anonymity.
 And in exceptional circumstances of large immigration flows some native workers may be
adversely affected by immigrants in terms of jobs and wages.
 But it is a long stretch from there to argue that even a partial solution to certain country’s
drug, crime, unemployment and physical security problems would be significantly affected
by acting on immigration flows.
 Moreover, even stricter border controls do not constitute a suitable means to combat
terrorism. Immigration and visa control policies are far less likely to catch a determined
terrorist than they are to control unauthorized immigration.
 Unintended Consequences of Securitizing Migration –
Reinforcing Meta-Politics

 The border control initiatives of national states in Europe and North America
before 9/11 were politically successful policy failures that succeeded in terms of
their symbolic and image effects even while sometimes or even largely failing in
terms of their deterrent effects.
Since September 11 internal and external control of migrants has increased. In
particular, measures which try to handle the migrant as an illegal border crosser
make him or her more visible as an alien. For example, due to ever-stricter border
controls unauthorized viz. irregular migration gains more visibility. The very
collection of statistics may legitimize stricter border controls and could further
contribute to the perception of the migrant as illegitimate and potentially criminal,
although politicians take great care to accuse the traffickers and depict the
migrants as victims. All of this has an ironic side to it because border control is one
of the few remaining fields in which major immigration states have shown that their
autonomy has not been hampered by growing globalization of the flow of people.
 Unintended Consequences of Securitizing Migration –
Reinforcing Meta-Politics

 Yet, stepping up migration control visibly, governments will have to show that their
increased control efforts show visible results.* For example, the number of illegal
border crossers apprehended may need to go up. And governments have to
uphold migration as a potential security threat.
Otherwise, it would be hard to justify increased resources devoted to the control of
internal and external borders. This creates incentives for meta-politics; following
a lead by Harold Lasswell who had coined the term “meta-issue” (cf. Faist 1994)
Meta-politics connects social problems and security concerns with fears around
international migration. Immigration can be referred to by politicians in explaining
many social, economic and security problems – such as unemployment, housing
shortages, crime – without having to give concrete evidence, not the least
because the effects of immigration are exceedingly hard to establish empirically
with a sufficient degree of certainty.*
 Unintended Consequences of Securitizing Migration –
Reinforcing Meta-Politics

 This is not to say that threats to security in immigration countries are without any
real-world foundation.
However, through meta-politics, low-level threats usually gain out-of-proportion
significance.
Meta-politics also means that political decision-making engages in symbolic efforts
instead of offering substantive policy solutions. Of course, all politics has a symbolic
content. Otherwise, political actors could not aggregate and articulate interests and
mobilize supporters. However, meta-politics unsettles the always-precarious balance
between the material and symbolic content of politics in connecting substantive
issues such as unemployment and security to symbols which signify threats in
factually incorrect ways.
One implication of meta-politics is the ever-renewed juxtaposition and dualism of
“us” (the Americans, the Germans, etc.) versus “them” (the immigrants, the Muslims,
etc.) which is both deeply regressive and pervasive in a globalizing society.
 Unintended Consequences of Securitizing Migration –
Reinforcing Meta-Politics

 Meta-politics may also obscure the fact that an onslaught on civil rights has taken
place which not only affects non-citizens such as aliens and permanent residents viz.
denizens but also citizens. Legislation passed in major western liberal democracies
in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 provides ample evidence for this claim.
In the USA, Congress passed a bill in October 2001 which increased government’s
ability to supervise all residents. The UK followed swiftly and moved even further in
2003. In Germany, in December 2001, new legislation increased not only funds for
the police force but also their powers of investigating and even shutting down
suspicious bodies such as religious organizations which are not conforming to
constitutional norms. The French legislation passed in November 2001 provided
more means for police and security forces to invade daily life, such as a new rule
connected to quiet behavior in entrance halls to large apartment buildings and the
punishment of people who do not ‘regularly’ purchase a valid ticket for public
transportation.
 Implications for Immigrant Integration–Cultural
Pluralism
We should also be careful about the impact of 9/11 on wider issues of immigrant
integration, such as tolerance towards cultural pluralism. Muslims all over Europe and
the USA have suffered increased hostility and physical attacks, especially in the first
months after 9/11. For example, in the stronghold of European multiculturalism, the
United Kingdom alone, more than 300 assaults on Muslims were reported in the first
three months after the terrorist attacks (Eurobarometer 2001). Similar observations
can be made for other countries such as Germany, France, and the Netherlands. We
would thus expect that public support for state accommodation of Muslims’ religious
practices would have decreased after 9/11.
As said before, in some countries the expansion of fear and distrust weakened social
cohesion and foreign migrants, especially Muslim migrants, became suspects of
internal ‘threat’. This perceived threat to Western values and communities results
in difficulties in integration and, consequently, in a crisis of multiculturalism.*
 References

• O. Wæver, ‘Securitization and Desecuritization’ in: R.D. Lipschutz (ed.),

On Security. New York: Columbia University Press 1995, pp. 46-86.