| Address: | Swedish National Defence College Department of Security and Strategic Studies P.O. Box 278 05 115 93 Stockholm Sweden |
| E-Mail: | monica.svantesson@fhs.se |
| Telephone: | +46 (0)8 553 427 19 |
The research project studies the political process of constructing threats, by analyzing the EU’s approach to unauthorized (“illegal”) immigration. Several scholars have highlighted that a range of Western societies, including the EU, today has a tendency to view immigration through a security lens. Research thus far has moreover asked both why this development has occurred, and what actors that tended to be influential in the process leading up to it. While these are certainly important questions, they may however give the impression that threat constructs are static, in the sense that once a construct is present, it just remains. But politics of course are always continuously moving. The endurance of a threat construct cannot be taken for granted, especially if certain conditions in the context change. This project therefore analyzes how the already present construct of unauthorized immigration as a security threat is affected when actors from different EU policy fields enhance cooperation. Some actors are used to security perspectives, while others not. Does the threat construct remain? Why or why not?
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