För säkerhets skull en diskursanalys av debatten om den spanska medborgarsäkerhetslagen

Sammanfattning: In 2013 the conservative ruling party of Spain, Partido Popular, launched a draft to a new Citizen Security Law that after a year of critical debate was rammed by the congress. The opponents claim that the laws are undermining democratic rights such as freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. Partido Popular defends the laws with reference to security and safety while opponents claim that the underlying purpose is rather to criminalize new social protests that have emerged as a reply to the profound socioeconomic consequences of the Euro crisis. Theese social protests themselves adress problems of uncertainity, social insecurity and unsafety. The aim of this thesis is to use a combination of discourse theory and critical discourse analysis to examine the discursive conflict of the concepts security and safety within this debate. The study shows that there are three different competing discourses, one adressing democratic rights, one adressing crime and violence and one adressing welfare issues. It also shows that although Partido Popular makes little references to incidents of violence in social protests the concept violent people is central in their discourse making it possible to claim that the law is defending the rights of non violent citizens.