The ‘migrant other’ as a security threat: the ‘migration crisis’ and the securitising move of the Polish ruling party in response to the EU relocation scheme

Abstract

ABSTRACT The so-called ‘migration crisis’ facing the EU between 2015 and 2017 divided EU Member States and caused a rise in populist and racist discourses. Countries like Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic refused to participate in the EU relocation scheme. This paper explores what enabled this opposition to the EU. It analyses the securitising move of the Polish Law and Justice Party (PiS) in constructing migrants as a security threat. It studies the adopted discourse and the effectiveness of the securitisation process, applying the Copenhagen School Approach to securitisation theory. Through an in-depth discourse analysis of a wide range of texts, we argue that the PiS discourse enabled the securitisation of migration and the subsequent decision to refuse the EU relocation scheme.