The new Labour and Conservative-led governments' articulation of immigration control policies in Britain : securitization, governmentality and risk, 1997-2017

Abstract

This thesis analyses the political discourse on immigration control in Britain between 1997 and 2017 and examines why and how the articulations of policies displayed patterns of rupture and continuity between the Conservative-led and the New Labour governments. In particular, it highlights the significance of the critical engagement with both the structure and organization of the articulations within and across texts and their variability and contingency over time. The thesis adopts a multi-perspective framework: Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985, 1987) discourse analysis underpins all the analytical work in this thesis, supplemented by models of securitization, risk and governmentality. The analysis of political discourses reveals that the Conservative-led governments’ articulations displayed patterns of rupture rather than continuity with those of the preceding New Labour governments. The empirical data reveals that while the articulated discourses were used in a variety of ways simultaneously, the articulation by the first and second New Labour governments was generally exemplified by the evolution of a discourse of opportunity, informed by an opportunity-linked risk logic which clearly and consistently embodied values and beliefs consistent with liberal orientations. The discourse of problematization which was articulated by the third New Labour government hovered between opportunity and threat and brought them together as two dependencies that offered a reconfigured discourse which modified the two discourses as opposite forces through strategic readjustment of the heterogeneous elements. The Conservative-led governments articulated a discourse of threat which was often used to frame quite specific fears as a way to generate constructed meanings in which threat-linked logic informed the articulations. The findings highlight the variability and contingency of the articulations in which the discourses evolved, became intertwined and replaced one another. Moreover, the thesis interrogates the claim that threat and problematization-linked logics represent the unique rationalities of these articulations and puts forward an alternative conceptualization of an advanced understanding of risk.