.4 The politics of (in)security: The Migration, national Security and securitization nexus
Migration emerged as a security issue in a context marked both by the geopolitical dislocation associated with the end of the Cold War and also by wider social and political shifts associated with ‘globalization’. Current debates surrounding migration and security reflect changes both in the nature of migration, as well as in the nature of thinking about migration.
While it was previously considered to be a socio-economic phenomenon belonging to the fields of social economic history, historical sociology and anthropology, migration is now pivotal in the debates surrounding global politics, in particular security issues. This is not to say that security studies in IR comes late to the studies of these issues, rather, it’s rediscovery and deepening of issues of migration whose relation and relevance to security studies cannot be ignored. Migration, however, remains one of the terrains in security studies that is particularly open, with great potential, to be a productive meeting ground for various disciplinary analyses, given its inherently multidisciplinary dimensions. Thus, a nexus between migration and national/regional security, and the concept of securitization of migration, which can be considered as a common effect of both migration and national security issues in the recent years in the field of security studies, cannot be ignored. A common factor that can be identified as shaping and influencing the nature and the policies which have to do with these three issues in the contemporary society has become the state of insecurity that migration brings in many societies. As seen earlier, issues are normally securitized when an audience feels insecure, and therefore endorses the actions and the speech act of a securitizing actor. National security policies are formulated around the interest of the nation, e.i. what policy makers think the people feel insecure about, in responds to deal with insecurity in a particular area or many areas, been economic, social life, health etc. Thus, if immigration brings insecurity and uncertainty, this cannot be tackled outside the field of security and securitization. Migration constitutes an undeniable cause of insecurity in society today, depending on the form it assumes. The recent and ongoing migration, linked to terrorism, as supposed by many, in the Western world, Europe in particular, has made migration and immigrant a major source of insecurity.
The end of superpower rivalry in the middle of the 1980s does not seem to have made the Western world a safer place. The importance giving to security issues by national and regional political agendas, the fear of apparently multiple and unforeseen global risks, the novel character of known threats, the recent waves of immigration, the attacks of terrorism, and the politics of fear and insecurity instigated by the mass media and political classes are strong indicators. Despite the end of the Cold War and the level of technological advancements, security matters and their management still have much influence in the society, in the minds of both policy makers and common citizens. The emergence of societies haunted by known and unknown dangers, ranging from the very concrete threat posed by environmental degradation to the virtual and cyber menaces wrought by technological changes is also as a result of the fast pace and radical character of widespread transformations that affect various spheres of life, notably globalization, regional integration, and continued modernization.63 The resulting scenario is one of a society in the midst of an overwhelming 'swathe of change'? which, for its complexity, cannot properly be managed, and much less controlled.6465 The current difficulty, or rather incapacity to comprehend the causes and to envision the consequences of these transformations generates doubts and fear of what may follow next. We are in what Beck describes as “risk society”. an expression, 68, meant to describe the late-modernity's obsession with the identification and management of potential dangers, in a state of affaire where “being at risk is the way of being and ruling in the world of modernity and being at global risk is the human condition…”.69
Though these risks only may only constitute anticipations of possible scenarios, devoid of substance, and therefore not real unlike traditional security threats such as the concrete nuclear and military power of the Soviet Union, however, this uncertainty about the future is enough to disseminate a widespread politics of insecurity and fear. This state of insecurity generates the fear of the unknown able to influence national policies. Consequently, national security policies seem to have no more planned long term normative structures, rather, they are becoming ad hoc emergency measures based on fear, threats and insecurity. Issues which required normal political procedures some few years ago are now securitized and dealt with extraordinary political measures, making many migrants and citizens also to live in fear and insecurity. The truth about why people migrate in this globalized era, and the laws and measures on how they are welcome by receiving countries are more than ever induced by insecurity based on security threats. The cause and effect correlation between migration, national security policies, securitization and socio-political insecurity has become stronger giving the ongoing influx of immigrant in one hand and the threats of terrorism in the other.
In other to give a clear picture of this, and also to link it to the next subsection, a brief overview on the issues of the principal causes, effects and impact of human movements in this era of globalization, particularly in Europe, would be necessary.
In talking of human movements in the globalized era, it can be recall that from the years of the reconstruction, the European continent became an attractive destination for immigration from many parts of the world. This transformed the European immigration phenomenon. From this moment, in the interpretation of the phenomenon of migration, it emerged the idea of “push factors”, namely the expulsion factors, or causes of migration from countries of origin to the poles of economically attractive, liberal and rich countries, leaving behind the migration characterized by structured recruitment policies and strict economic expansion strategies, controlled by governments and migration agencies of the pre-reconstruction era. Though this meant a decrement of government control and strategized recruitments for national economic benefits, it however gave way to the development of restrictive policies of migration management in many countries. The hegemony of these restrictive policies from this stage has contributed greatly to the stimulation of illegal immigration and the use of means other than those defined by the regular migration policies of the destination countries, often with false claims of political asylum. This global change of the migration phenomenon has also produced a strong impact on least developed countries, through the widespread and the “consumption” of western lifestyle, contributing to the globalization of migration and encouraging further immigration due to migration chain networks.
The current global migration, no longer tied to agreements between States for the sending of labor and forced recruitment, although this migration trend is still visible, can therefore also be seen as a result of a combination of two factors, a crossbreeding of expulsive factors from countries of origin and pull factors towards specific countries. This makes migration in the twentieth and twenty first century a personal life experience of each migrant, extraordinary and dangerous most times. The idea to emigrate for economic purposes, is normally a long-meditated one, very often with families, who encourage the migrant to embark on the journey in search of a better livelihood, in other also to help the family with the earnings they hope to make abroad.
As many scholars in the field agree, in case of economic migration, the decision to emigrate in most cases becomes almost decisive when they occur at the same time these five conditions and perception of insecurity:
1. The perception that the socio-economic and political situation of their family or personal life in their own country does not meet their expectations. This confrontation and comparism is done based on what is heard and seen, supported by lifestyles and society models imported from the developed world, the West.
2. Not being able to achieve a long term improvement in their situation, economic, socially or politically. The frustration of not seeing an improvement leads to take alternative routes, even at the cost of their properties. Many are in fact the testimonies of those who sell their shops, companies and lands to fund their journey, some also drop out of school and career.
3. The belief that migration is the only way for socio-economic and political improvement, and the easiest way to accomplish their desires and ambitions. Thus, the emigrant starts to embraced the values and lifestyle of the destination country even before departure, a form of an anticipatory socialization.
Being able to see the practical possibilities to emigrate, that is, the financial support needed for the trip, disfunctional national migration policies and loosed boarder control of their country, and of course, a possible contact with smugglers and illegal migration “connection men”, as they are call.
4. The belief that the inconvenience caused by emigration will always be lower than the benefits derived from the same. This belief is one of the major factors of migration attraction to the Western world.
All these beliefs and perceptions of insecurity stem from stories of friends or relatives who return from abroad, and the western influence from the mass media, and this chain reaction pushes new people to undertake the same path. Nevertheless, it’s undeniable that there are also objective motivations like hunger, wars and natural disaster, socio-political instability, religious, racial and tribal persecution, which contribute to international migration and refugee crises. However, insecure socio-economic perceptions are always those that prevail, especially migration form sub-Saharan Africa. What makes international human movements of this century much more global and complex is undoubtedly the fact that it involves every nation and culture, with different destinations. Another important contributing factor is the increased and ongoing technological transformations with an open globalized way of sharing information which makes human movements faster, easier, and with high dangers of management for receiving countries. This migration phase that the Western world in general is experiencing currently is therefore also a fruit of a long process of this “post-global” transformations.
Its undeniable that the rate at which globalization has taking migration to in the recent years has a great effect on the socio-political economic and migration policy structure of receiving countries, having to deal with the crises and dangers involve with little or no attention from the international community on how national migration policies can be constrained by international human rights regimes. It’s clear that such constraints as do exist are less stringent and effective than those in the world of trade and finance. There are also debates about the impact of immigration or economic migrants on the redistributive capacities of states, nevertheless, students of globalization have largely ignored the impact of globalization and migration on the politics of redistribution, remarkably paying little attention to one of the most relevant effects this human dimension of movements, which involves millions of people around the globe. This reflects the fact that perhaps migration has not been part of the international process of economic liberalization in recent decades, though the waves of global economic integration do seem to be linked historically with mass movements of people. Whereas multilateral agreements have facilitated trade and capital flows around the world, the movement of people remains regulated by national laws, deliberately left beyond the ambit of trade agreements with policies which continue to reflect the
resilience of nation states and domestic politics (Joppke 1999).1 Moreover, national legislations have not become more open in the last 20 years. If anything has happen to migration policies, politics has driven these policies in the opposite direction. With international terrorism and human trafficker taking advantage of the flux of migration, and issues of securitization and national security becoming overwhelmingly unsustainable, much attention internationally would be required. Insecurity, caused by the effects of migration is now becoming the source of national and regional (in)security policies, and the cause of the ongoing danger national policy makers and politicians face of falling into the trap of securitizing any issue as a “threat”, if not an existential one.
Scholars of critical security studies have opened up a range of challenging questions that are important for the analysis of the migration (in)security nexus: to what extent can migration be considered as security issue in the strategic sense that IR and traditional security studies analysts intends security? what are the real insecurities migration raises today, and what constitute the impact and effects of framing migration in terms of security? These questions radically give a different conceptions on security (and insecurity), on whether security should be conceive as a less value to aspire to in relation to human mobility and political analysis. The issue has also brought the questions as to whether or not, and how, an issue should be securitized. In this regard, one more important question is whether it is possible to do human mobility and security studies without contributing to the process of securitization. This has led to significant debates surrounding the desecuritisation of the issue of migration, posing critical challenge with which the reification of migration as a security ‘threat’ can be moderated, becoming also the ideal context to place these questions of the security migration nexus within an agenda that researches the political nature of human mobility. This approach gives way to security practices, among other relating issues, as something that impacts, shapes, and constrains human mobility, rather than becoming the central focus of the analysis of human mobility. Security, in relation to migration can therefore be conceived as having various meanings and as constituting social and political techniques of governance that effectively shape human mobility. For example, in framing the migration of women from many parts of the world as a result of human trafficking, and therefore victims of criminal activities, places their migration firmly in a criminalized context which reinforces exclusionary security practices in that area and underplays the impact of economic developments, personal ambitions and family relations, creating a different social issue in their country of destination. This also brings back the normative nature of writing and speaking security, where security knowledge easily slips into a securitizing knowledge. Through the use of words by divers social agents, policies and the creating of nexus between different issues like illegal immigrantion, economic immigrants as drainers, crime and immigrants, integration of immigrants and social cohesion, development of crime statistics which differentiates between immigrants and the native population, or presenting security as a choice between individual and national security, brings security knowledge to also sustain the idea that migration is a question of (in)security, which tends to also radicalize exclusions and legitimate securitization and violence on many levels.
Various distinct political analyses of social processes that are constitutive of the migration security nexus have been developed by the scholars of critical security studies. Such analyses focus on examining various migrant sites, agencies and areas which migrants pass through, such as airports, embassies and customs. In terms of agencies, critical analysts look at the increasing role of security professionals, including private agencies, in the regulation of movement of migrants, they also examine various security technologies employed in the regulation of migration, such as visas, asylum procedures and surveillances, giving a particular attention to the precise nature and effects of using such security instruments, knowledge and discourses in the area of migration, as well as the dangers and difficulties that institutions sustaining these processes have to deal with. In addition, these analyses throw more light on the political effects of profiling and surveillance techniques of mobile people like finger printing, data storage and mining, camps, visas, passports, etc. and the importance of other issues, and groups and organizations involved in human trafficking, illegal migration and terrorism which also serves as an incentive to the re-articulation of borders and identity. Many strategic and human security approaches taking the EU thus enforces the nexus between immigration and security, and also the danger of what critical scholars upholds as securitization of migration and free movement. Another to establish the and prove the important migration security nexus is through a sociological and political approach, by analyzing the divers effects of political and media framings of migration issues and the correspondent public responds, perceptions and opinion configurations on the issue, a phenomenon currently on the rise, especially in Europe.