Political Science

Securitization is a concept that is closely related with the Copenhagen school which uses a constructivist approach to international security. It involves the change of an issue by an actor to a security matter. The main political sectors where securitization can take place include military, political, economic, society, and environment. Migration has become the leading controversial political issue in Europe because it has been linked to various issues like terrorism, criminality, and civil strife. Another controversial political issue is asylum which can be described as a place that offers protection and safety to vulnerable individuals in the society. The vulnerable individuals can be criminals, debtors, or even political refugees.

Because of the link with the issues of security concern, migration and asylum have been transformed into important topics of contemporary security politics in the real world of practices and in the scholarly literature. Relating the issue to the securitization theory of the Copenhagen school, numerous scholars have argued that migration and asylum issues have been turned into security issues by the society in the European Union. However, the claims have not been backed by any detailed practical research (Huysmans 2000).

The objective of this paper is to bring some insight into the topics of asylum and migration which have gained security concern in the European Union. Migration has been an issue and has resulted into heated political debates especial after the abolition of labor migration which was done by the majority of European countries in the 1970s. Migration as was stated earlier is associated with a wide range of problems like criminality, breaking of laws and disorderliness, unemployment, misuse of social benefits, diseases, cultural and religious threats, civil strife, and political instability. Migration has also been termed as a security threat by some political leaders and the media. Migrants and asylum seekers were linked to terrorism in the United Kingdom just before the general election of 2005. The then conservative leader Michael Howard stated that Britain is faced with terrorist threat because of lack of information on the people entering or leaving the country (Samers 2004).

Owing to the importance of the issue of immigration, it has been listed as one of the main items in the policy making agenda in many European Union member countries. EU member countries have not downplayed the importance of migration and asylum and most of them have reformed their asylum and migration policies, both in the substantial and in the institutional dimensions. They have only left some modest exception like migration quota system which is used by few countries. Most of the policy initiatives are directed towards reduction migration flows into EU, and also the number of people seeking refuge (Huysmans 2000).

Among the measures which were taken to discourage or even prevent people from migrating to EU countries include a wide range of laws reducing access to their territory. Such measures include visa policies and carrier sanctions. The migrants and asylum seekers who are staying in these countries have been accorded limited entitlements. Limitations are put on family reunification, access to labor market, and access to social benefits. The legislative changes have been coupled with increased funding devoted to migration controls in most member states. Huge amounts of money have been invested in complicated technologies with the aim of increasing efficiency in the control of migration. France and Italy have expanded their military and semi military bodies who are manning the borders to prevent migration (Ober 2005).

Because of migration and asylum, EU member countries have steadily increased their collaboration. The treaty of Maastricht which was signed in 1993 granted the EU some restricted competence on dealing with justice and home affairs. The treaty included asylum, migration and external borders, security issues like drugs, international fraud, civil and criminal and judicial cooperation, customs and police co-operation. With the signing of treaty of Amsterdam treaty which was implemented in 1999, member countries recognized justice and home affairs as the main priority of the unions policies. The member states adopted a five year plan which was commonly referred to as Tampere Programme and this was geared towards the development of a common policy on migration and asylum. Several measures were put in place including setting minimum standards in relation to various aspects of asylum system. There was also an increase in the operation collaboration between member states to reinforce border controls and to fight illegal immigration (Walt 1998).

Migration and asylum issues have maintained the top position in political agenda. It has also led to creation of programs aimed at controlling migration. Increased developments on the control of asylum and migration have attracted many observers among them being non governmental organizations, journalists and scholars. The numerous observers have claimed that asylum and migration have become a security threat in the EU and have resorted to using Copenhagen schools securitization theory. The idea that migration and asylum issues have been transformed into security issues in the EU has gained popularity in the current academic literature (Huysmans 2000).

Securitization of migration and asylum in the EU has gained popularity and has managed to penetrate the general accounts of EU asylum and migration policy. This is a clear indication that the fact has become a commonly held view in the literature. This has also been observed in the office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees which has claimed that migration and asylum issues have been made security issues in the EU. With the increased popularity of migration as a security issue in the literature, there is need for scrutiny of securitization theory in details (Samers, 2004)

According to the securitization theory, security is a speech act. Security issues do not exist solely, but it results from construction by actors which are known as securitizing actors through speech acts. Securitization is considered as an inter subjective process given the role of audience of the speech act. This simply means that an issue becomes a security matter when the listeners accept it as so. For a speech to convert an issue to a security concern, its plot must follow the language of security. The person giving the speech must be holding a leadership post in the community and heshe should have powers to refer to some specific objects which are considered as a security threat. If the actor is effective in gathering support around the security subject, then he qualifies to operate in another mode (Samers, 2004)

In relation to the traditional understanding of security, security is about survival. This is in accordance with the definition of security that an attempt to make an issue a security subject is to present it as posing an existential threat to referent object of security. According to Copenhagen school, mentioning security, the actor of security gains a particular development into a particular area, making himher have a right to use anything possible to block it. As a result, security is defined as placing existential issues in politics to raise them beyond politics. When studying security, scholars are supposed to focus on the process in which an issue becomes socially transformed and identified as security threat instead of assessing the existence of real threats. The structure of securitization is concentrated on understanding which actors can speak security successfully, how the society views them and their role, and finally the results of the speech (Ober 2005).

The securitization theory of Copenhagen school has achieved an important position in security studies and has also resulted into important theoretical debates, although for some few years, the contributions of this theory have been based on theoretical and normative questions. Recently, there were attempts to try and apply the securitization structure on practical issues. This calls for apology because the findings achieved by these empirical studies could have been used to further develop and refine securitization theory (Williams 2003).

Illegal migration into EU countries has been motivated by the common belief that the workforce in these countries is aging and therefore there is need for extra labor force to sustain economic growth. Illegal migration was also fuelled by stable economic growth in Europe together with strict migration rules. The countries surrounding Europe had unstable economic growth and this could not provide enough employments for their population. Increased migration into EU member countries posed a great security threat and this facilitated the formation of a common policy to help control the situation. EU stopped migration into its member countries in 1970 and this led to influx of illegal immigrants and asylum (Huysmans 2000).

The issue of migration was transformed into a security issue by the political leaders in individual countries and Europe as a whole. The media places a significant role in creating a link between migration and security threat. Increased rates of migration were viewed as a threat to internal markets and lives of the citizens since migration was linked to terrorism.  It also posed a threat to pubic health, social situation and economic system. This led to the strengthening of border surveillance. EU later lifted the ban on migration in 1990 and this made it even easier for illegal immigrants to gain access to these countries and this increased the fear of insecurity (Ober 2005).

Migration and asylum are both considered as political issues. The main actors who participated in the transformation of these topics into securitization were the political leaders and the media. They succeed in associating migration and asylum to terrorism which is a security threat. Other actors in securitization of migration and asylum included most institutions in EU countries. The indicator of potential danger of terrorism was the September 11th attack in America. The EU members invested huge sums of money in increasing border surveillance. There was also adoption of high technology gadgets which were used to track asylums. If migration and asylum were truly security issues, EU would have invested heavily in combating the practice. It can therefore be concluded that EU securitized asylum and migration in speech but failed to take proper action.