Description
Refugees have been increasingly securitised in Europe, i.e. they have been presented as a security threat – as a terrorist threat. With a wave of Daeash terror attacks in Europe after Paris, Brussels, Berlin, and Manchester, this issue has become a hot topic. Indeed, it has become more and more accepted that refugees have been securitized, i.e. presented as a security threat, notably through their constructed link to Daesh terrorism. This paper takes the securitization prism as a starting point, building on the notion that the terrorism association served as an amplifier in the process of securitization, a theoretical school initially developed by the Copenhagen School. However, refugees have become more than a security threat assumed by an increasingly anxious population. In fact, refugees and Europe itself have become a grievance factor for radical far-right groups. Thus, two seemingly separate processes – the rise oft he far right and the securitization of refugees and migrants – are in fact intimately linked and feed into each other. How are they linked? This paper analyses hybrid security conflicts, including hate speech towards migrants and refuges and the far-right rise in Europe. The new cyber age has brought a number of old societal conflicts to the forefront again – new old societal conflicts that are derived in old geopolitical rivalries, most notably conducted by revanchists powers, such as Russia.
