This is a sub-project of the project 'Europe under threat' which addresses six empirical cases of non-conventional insecurity in Europe, including migration. The sub-project 'Migration-based threat' elaborates upon the project Europe and the developing world: Confronting migration pressure.
The aim of this sub-project is to refine and re-examine the notion of migration-related threats to security and analyze the changing constellation of such threats in Europe. The nature of perceived migration-based threats to security has changed from concern with the presence of population groups with loyalties to foregn states, to alarm over the State’s inability to control the influx of undocumented migrants, to renewed anxieties about the transnational practices and loyalties of settled immigrants. The growing presence of particularly vulnerable migrant groups, coupled with the recent interest in human security also raises new security concerns. The picture today is a complex one that calls for a critical re-examination of the migration-security nexus. This sub-project will address this need at the conceptual level, and combine it with empirical examination of recent events and debates in Europe. The empirical analysis will focus on external border control issues and the related security concerns - including both the safeguarding of territorial integrity and the protection of migrants who expose themselves to danger in order to circumvent control mechanisms. The theoretical and conceptual part of the sub-project will be based on a survey of both academic literature (secondary sources) and media and policy documents (primary sources). The empirical analyses will be based on the same primary sources, supplemented with statistical data on migrant interceptions and fatalities at external borders.
