Migration and security in Switzerland: Evolution and present status of its link in politics and law
| Responsable du projet | Christin Achermann |
| Collaborateur |
Robin Stunzi
Clément De Senarclens Barbara Von Rütte |
| Résumé |
Since the end of the 20th century, the nexus between security issues
and migration has become more prominent in major countries of
immigration, both among policy-makers and researchers. In the
literature, this linkage is referred to as the ‘securitization of
migration’ or ‘the migration-security nexus’. While this trend was
reinforced in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in the
United States and the subsequent bombings in Madrid and London,
scholars agree that the connection between these two fields is not
new. Departing from the observation that, at present, security
plays a major role in regulating migration, the main objective of
this research project is to explore the migration-security nexus in
Switzerland from the beginning of the 20th century until the
present. In security studies, the notion of security has been
defined as being characterized by three constitutive elements: the
existence of a threat (1) that endangers a referent object (2) and
thus creates a necessity for emergency measures (3) to guarantee
security. ‘Securitization’ refers to the process of addressing an
issue within a security framework, i.e. defining it as an
existential threat to the political order and thereby making all
other issues secondary. Thus, security is not used as a sign which
refers to an already existing object, but the enunciation itself
produces and modifies reality into a secu-rity issue. In this
sense, the question to be asked is not whether migration actually
does pose a threat to the host society, but how migration is turned
into a security issue. In Switzerland, contrary to other countries,
there has been no study which explicitly deals with the link
between migration and security. The proposed study is to be
situated in the tradition of critical security studies which argue
for a reflexive concept of security and are interested in the
process of its construction and transformation as well as in
securitizing processes. However, the proposed research project is
char-acterized by some particularities: Our understanding of the
securitization process is not limited to the discourse itself, but
involves political, legal and administrative practices - especially
the creation of laws or the implementation of pro-cedures - and the
broader socio-political context in which these discourses and
practices take place. Furthermore, we will take into account a
broad range of referent objects and not limit ourselves to the
political order. Finally, by not tak-ing for granted the existence
of the securitization of migration in Switzerland, our approach is
qualitative-inductive and aims at investigating empirically the
micro-aspects of this discursive and practical linkage. The main
research questions are as follows: When used in the context of
migration politics and law, what precise un-derstanding of security
do different actors defend in different contexts? Are there
processes of securitization of mi-gration in the discourse and
practice of Swiss politics, administration and law? If so, how do
they work and what implications do they have? What are the
particularities of the Swiss case compared to other countries? How
have the notions of security and securitizing processes evolved
throughout the 20th, and at the transition to the 21st, century?
What differences or parallels are there in different thematic areas
of migration politics and law? In order to answer these questions,
we will focus on legal, political and administrative discourse and
practice. The main data to be used in this respect are texts
(reports, records of parliamentary debates, etc.) produced by the
federal parliament and administration during the legislative
process. Furthermore, federal legal bases concerning migration and
security, as well as case law in the implementation of legal
grounds will be analysed. Finally, a number of expert interviews
will be carried out with members of administrations, parliament and
courts concerning securitizing processes and the notion of security
in the migration context. In order to limit the potentially vast
material - temporal, legal and thematic restrictions will be
defined at the outset of the study. A study of migration and
security in Switzerland is warranted not only due to the above
mentioned gap in research, but also because it is of a general
societal interest: As securitizing processes imply the symbolic,
legal and practiced exclu-sion of people who are considered to be a
threat to society, a deeper understanding of the meanings of
security and threat, of what lies behind such framing processes, of
what implications and even side-effects it may have, as well as a
critical view of the evolution of this link over time seem
important. |
| Mots-clés |
Migration, Security, Switzerland, Securitization, Migration law, Integration, Exclusion, Asylum, Criminalization |
| Type de projet | Recherche fondamentale |
| Domaine de recherche | Sociologie |
| Source de financement | FNS - Encouragement de projets (Div. I-III) |
| Etat | Terminé |
| Début de projet | 1-5-2011 |
| Fin du projet | 30-4-2013 |
| Budget alloué | 229'090.00 |
| Autre information |
http://p3.snf.ch/projects-134849# |
| Contact | Christin Achermann |