The Politics of Insecurity

Fear, Migration and Asylum in the EU

Jef Huysmans

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134234462
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Rüstungskontrolle

The act of violence of 9/11 changed the global security agenda, catapulting terrorism to the top of the agenda. Weapons of mass destruction grabbed public interest and controlling the free movement of people became a national security priority.

In this volume, Jef Huysmans critically engages with theoretical developments in international relations and security studies to develop a conceptual framework for studying security. He argues that security policies and responses do not appear out of the blue, but are part of a continuous and gradual process, pre-structured by previous developments. He examines this process of securitization and explores how an issue, on the basis of the distribution and administration of fear, becomes a security policy. Huysmans then applies this theory to provide a detailed analysis of migration, asylum and refuge in the European Union.

This theoretically sophisticated, yet accessible volume, makes an important contribution to the study of security, migration and European politics.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Series editor’s preface
• Preface
• 1 Politics of insecurity, technology and the political
• 2 Security framing: The question of the meaning of security
• 3 Displacing the spectre of the state in security studies: From referent objects to techniques of government
• 4 Securitizing migration: Freedom from existential threats and the constitution of insecure communities
• 5 European integration and societal insecurity
• 6 Freedom and security in the EU: A Foucaultian view on spill-over
• 7 Migration, securitization and the question of political community in the EU
• 8 De-securitizing migration: Security knowledge and concepts of the political
• 9 Conclusion: The politics of framing insecurity
• Notes
• Bibliography