SECURITIZATION OF IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM: A Critical Look at Security Structure in Europe

Abstract: Recent events suggest that cultural and economic differences between ?natives? and ?foreigners? in Europe tend to produce violence. This is because of the presentation of immigrants and refugees as a security problem in Europe. This thesis looks at the subject of immigration and asylum as securitized by recourse to xenophobic and stereotype-based political discourses and social practices of actors both at state and European Union level. The analysis will be done by deconstructing the discourses of political actors in Britain, France, and the EU so as to problematize the process of securitization of immigration and asylum. It is argued that the issue is placed onto the European security social structure, which is (re)constructed in an exclusionary way characterized by dichotomies between self and other. Critical Security Studies? (CSS) principles form the normative foundation of this analysis. The broader aim of this study is to problematize and criticize the existing structures and relations in this issue area, raise questions about taken for granted concepts, and posit that change is possible if discourses and social practices are concurrently transformed.