I fäders spår – för framtids segrar? Diskurs, identitet och säkerhetisering i samband med EU:s polisiära operationer riktade mot irreguljär migration

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study has been to investigate whether there has been a discursive change in the European Parliament concerning the migration politics of the EU. The discourse analysis applied is based on a combination of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s discourse theory – focusing on identity building and discursive struggle – and Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis, regarding its focus on change and reproduction. The study also draws upon a poststructuralist securitization theory, built on Jef Huysmans’ politics of insecurity and Slavoj Žižek’s politics of fear. The discursive change has been put in relation to the change in the social domain, where the EU’s migration politics has taken on a more stringent and confrontational character in recent years, exemplified by the development of seven joint police operations initiated by the Council of the European Union. The results show that the discourses regarding migration politics have gone in the opposite direction to the stringent development in the social domain, in the sense that articulations have become milder and more cohesive. As an example, migrants’ identities have gone from being interpellated as adventurers with illegitimate intentions to exploited victims who need solidarity and protection. The securitization articulations have also gone from being part of the hegemonic discourses to a peripheral position in the discursive field. In the concluding chapter, the meaning of these results are discussed from the different ontological angles of discourse theory and critical discourse analysis, showing that both disciplines lack important features in the ways in which they portray the relationship between discourse and social practice.