Governing Migration through COVID-19? Dutch Political and Media Discourse in Times of a Pandemic

Maartje Van Der Woude,Nanou Van Iersel

doi:10.3390/socsci10100379

Abstract

This article explores the political and media discourse in The Netherlands around COVID-19 and migration. In so doing, it asks to what extent the dynamics of ‘governing COVID-19 through migration’ are visible in this discourse. By asking this question, the article builds upon the theoretical frameworks of ‘governing through crime’ and ‘governing through migration control’. Both theoretical frameworks place a strong emphasis on the role of discourse in framing certain social phenomena as a threat, concern or risk. By carrying out a discourse analysis on Dutch political and media debates around COVID-19 and migration in the period 1 January 2020–1 November 2021, the article illustrates that despite the linking of migration and crime not only being very visible but also seemingly normalized in this discourse, the links made between COVID-19 and migration were much more nuanced. Furthermore, although COVID-19 and migration were discussed together, the discourse does not show any evidence of governing COVID-19 through migration by using the pandemic to push for very restrictive migration laws targeting only ‘vagabonds’ while still allowing the mobility of ‘tourists’).

Highlights

In the acknowledgement of his seminal work “Governing Through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear” Jonathan Simon (2007) observes how ‘crime and crime control have become one of the fundamental challenges to democratic governance that the developed world faces’
We have sought to examine whether the rhetoric of governing through migration is prevalent in discourse, and whether COVID-19 plays a role in this rhetoric
We will start by discussing the role of COVID-19, after which we will turn to some more general observations on the ways migration and migrants are represented in media and political discourse

Summary

Introduction

In the acknowledgement of his seminal work “Governing Through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear” Jonathan Simon (2007) observes how ‘crime and crime control have become one of the fundamental challenges to democratic governance that the developed world faces’. In his thesis Simon illustrates how crime has become the dominant frame through which a broad variety of social problems are presented, and seen. As he illustrates in ‘Governing through Crime’, this framing of, for instance, teen pregnancy as a possible future crime problem (as single mothers will most likely raise delinquent children), leads to the criminalization of behaviors that should not fall under the realm of the criminal law. We want to analyse whether the political and media discourse in The Netherlands is using COVID-19 in such a way that it might be setting up the introduction of repressive migration and border control measures like the ‘fine-grained’ system that Bosworth and Guild (2008) talked about

Objectives

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Conclusion