Description
In recent years, the rise of right wing and populist parties can be observed not only across Europe but also in the United States. The success of Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage, Sebastian Kurz, Matteo Salvini are all examples of this trend. They are all clear in their claim that immigration is one of the main security threats to their countries. This trend can also be seen in Poland, where immigration was invoked in both parliamentary (2015) and local (2018) elections by the currently ruling party Law and Justice (PiS). Given the relatively small number of migrants in Poland, this concern seems unfounded. This paper is concerned with the processes by which the threat from migration has caught the public’s attention in a country with one of the smallest immigrant populations in Europe.
The aim of this paper is to analyse the securitisation moves of the Law and Justice Party that have constructed migrants as a security threat. It seeks to analyse the success of the securitisation process in Poland and to explore the extent to which extraordinary measures have been adopted in response to the ‘threat’ from migration in Poland. For this purpose, the Copenhagen School Approach will be used, where securitisation is understood as a speech act. The study will use critical discourse analysis of selected political ads, party’s comments on Twitter and public speeches given by party members.
