Open AccessSecuritisation of the Refugee Issue in Germany: The Far Right Challenge to Government Policies
Author(s) -
Shireen Mushtaq,
Dua Hamid,
Javeria Sheikh
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
malaysian journal of international relations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2600-8181
pISSN - 2289-5043
DOI - 10.22452/mjir.vol9no1.1
Subject(s) - refugee , political science , refugee crisis , german , social democratic party , political economy , democracy , politics , civil society , european union , spanish civil war , government (linguistics) , public administration , displaced person , sociology , law , international trade , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology , history , business
The refugee crisis in Germany began as the Syrian Civil war soared into a large-scale conflict. Germany adopted the Open Door Policy and allowed over a million Syrian refugees to enter. This paper focuses on the implication of this refugee crisis on German national politics. In this paper, Barry Buzan and Ole Weaver’s theory of securitisation and de-securitisation is used, they describe Securitisation as an extreme version of politicisation and de-securitisation is the process of normalising the issue. Through a case study, we assess the role of securitising actors and desecuritising actors in Germany. The securitising actors include mainly Alternative for Germany (AfD), Pegida movement, Christian Social Union (CSU), whereby they focus on securitising the refugee and migrant issue by treating it as an existential threat to Germany. As a counter narrative the desecuritising actors include the ruling party and their coalition such as the Christian Democratic Union, the Social Democratic Party, the Green Party, and the Left Party which focus on desecuritising the issue. The paper concludes, the process of securitisation has been more effective as compared to the process of desecuritisation in German national politics.