The Politicisation and Problem Representation of Search and Rescue Efforts on the Central Mediterranean Sea

Abstract: Search and rescue (SAR) on the Central Mediterranean Sea (CMS) has become a central policy concern for the European Union, especially its coastal Member States during last two decades as it feeds into policy areas on migration and border control. Since the first non-governmental rescue mission in 2004, the Central Mediterranean waters have turned into a political arena that has on-and-off been deliberated among European politicians, humanitarian organisation and scholars. In this MA thesis, I have set forth to understand how the politicisation processes of humanitarian search and rescue efforts on the CMS have been a part of the policy discourse and problem representation in the border control and surveillance operation, Triton. By operationalising the concept of politicisation, I have been able to detect how these processes play out in the CMS through process tracing. In conclusion, I discuss in which ways politicisation of SAR has been influencing a certain problem representation of the CMS and changing the socially constructed knowledge and discourse hereof.