| dc.description.abstract | The issues of immigration and of European integration have been increasingly politicised over the last thirty-forty years. These developments are not only seen as coinciding in terms of timing, but as part of an emerging globalisation cleavage (e.g., Hooghe & Marks, 2018). Particularly after the 2004 enlargement of the EU to Central Eastern Europe and with the ‘refugee crisis’ around 2015, there has been an increased tendency of seeing the issues as connected. This connection has substantial consequences both for the broader European political landscape and for European integration. As citizens’ attitudes on migration and European integration increasingly align (e.g., Stockemer et al, 2018), the connection creates a change in the political demand. This demand is both reflected and contributed to by political actors mobilising on both issues, giving rise to challenger parties (e.g., De Vries & Hobolt, 2020). Furthermore, this connection has been seen as central for important votes on European integration, with the Brexit referendum as the most critical example (e.g., Hobolt, 2016). Meanwhile, this connection is not relevant in all electoral contexts, and the mobilisation of the connection also seems to be lopsided, predominantly being expressed through a linkage between anti-immigration attitudes and Euroscepticism. The connection also seems to be mobilised primarily in relation to immigration, within and from outside the EU, but not reflecting other aspects of EU migration policy, such as emigration.
Against this backdrop, this dissertation asks to what extent and how migration and European integration are discursively linked in the context of EU referendums. It sets out that the connection between these two issues is not given, but something that is discursively constructed. Bringing together different literatures, it develops a typology of discursive issue-linkages and theorises how we might expect these to play out. Through four case studies, it examines how actors have linked or attempted to decouple the issues in public debates: the Irish referendums on the Lisbon Treaty (2008 & 2009), the Danish referendum on the Justice and Home Affairs opt-out (2015), the UK referendum on EU membership (2016) and the negotiations of Brexit (2017-2020). It does so through a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis of political claims in a broad range of newspapers, including both broadsheets and tabloids.
The study finds that there is considerable variation both in the salience of the linkage in public debates and the form such issue-linkages take. It shows how claims linking anti-immigration and Eurosceptic attitudes were the most dominant in the referendums where migration was the most salient, but it also demonstrates how this way of linking the issues is not without alternatives: It is not given that such linkages are particularly present in the debates. This is also not the only way in which the linkage is made and mobilised. The cases also show how actors might actively try to decouple the linkage but suggest that this is difficult to achieve. Furthermore, the study shows how the linkage is made both with regards to intra-EU and non-EU migration, but often conflating these types of migration, and it confirms the focus on immigration as the most important sub-issue of migration linked to European integration. Finally, the four cases indicate that central to both the extent and how the linkages are made, is the presence of radical right parties and existing national frames.
The dissertation has important implications for both researchers and the broader community. Through its conceptualisation of discursive issue-linkages, it creates a framework which not only enables us to better understand the connection of migration and European integration but that might also be used as a point of departure to explore how other policy issues are linked to European integration. The study also demonstrates how the concept of discursive issue-linkages might be used to better understand the politicisation of European integration, as an interplay between policy and polity contestation. With regards to the connection of migration and European integration, the study suggests that it is difficult to actively disconnect a linkage of anti-immigration and Eurosceptic positions, implying that it might be a better strategy to either avoid the issue or offer alternative ways of linking them for actors who do not benefit from this kind of linkage. It also illustrates how it is important to keep in mind that this connection of migration and European integration is not homogenous across countries and contexts when interpreting the outcomes of referendums and elections. | en_US |
