Securitization or Securing Rights? Exploring the Conceptual Foundations of Policies towards Minorities and Migrants in Europe

by Gwendolyn Sasse. 2005. In Journal of Common Market Studies 43 (4): 673–93

Key words: ethnic minorities, migrants, securitization, minority rights, EU, OSCE
Summary by Margaux Dandrifosse – IBEI

Micro-summary: The EU and OSCE have increasingly emphasized the promotion of rights for both minorities and migrants as a policy response to the securitization of those groups.

Summary: In this article, the author investigates how securitization interacts with rights promotion in the framework of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and European Union (EU)’s policies towards migrants and minorities. The analysis focuses mainly on the post-1989 cases of Central and Eastern Europe. Bridging the literature on minorities and migration, this article highlights the largely overlooked conceptual and policy connections between migrants and national minorities. It is claimed that the EU and OSCE’s concerns and policies towards minorities and migrants are increasingly linked and similar.

Those policies should be conceptualised as based on a security-rights nexus. This concept emphasizes the connection between security and rights-based approaches towards both migrants and minorities. Both groups are seen through a similar security perspective (securitized) as representing a potential threat to a country’s internal stability, and posing specific security risks such as terrorism, migration, and crimes. It is argued that the best suited policy response to those security concerns has increasingly been, in the OSCE and the EU, the promotion of rights for minorities and migrants. Accordingly, the security-rights nexus, as apparent in OSCE and EU’s policies, advocates the promotion of rights for minorities both in the host country and in countries of origin to address domestic security concerns over both migrants and national minorities.

This rights-based solution to securitization is articulated by both the EU and the OSCE through the increasingly prominent, but defined as somewhat problematic by the author, concept of integration. The policy of integration towards both migrants and national minorities, while reflecting a soft form of control, emphasizes the extension of rights to tackle security issues arising from the marginalization of those groups.

Follow-up: This article has significantly impacted the scholarship on minorities and migrants by shedding light on a new security-related dimension of EU policy towards minority groups, namely, integration through the promotion of rights. The author has published a number of related articles including “A Research Agenda for the Study of Migrants and Migration in Europe” (2005), “The politics of EU conditionality: the norm of minority protection during and beyond EU accession” (2008), and more recent articles focusing mainly on identity in war-contexts in Ukraine. Relevance for the SECUREU Project: The security-right nexus points out a contradiction which may be relevant to understand how the securitization of ethnicity has influenced the rise of xenophobia in Europe. In this light, xenophobia may be seen as a reaction of the public to the inconsistency and unfairness perceived in the extension of rights to groups framed as security threats. Furthermore, it would be interesting to examine how the refugee crisis has changed the security-right nexus trend in EU policy and individual member states. For instance, the case of France, which has engaged in a growing repression of the rights of religious minorities, poses a challenge to the security-right nexus. namely, integration through the promotion of rights. The author has published a number of related articles including “A Research Agenda for the Study of Migrants and Migration in Europe” (2005), “The politics of EU conditionality: the norm of minority protection during and beyond EU accession” (2008), and more recent articles focusing mainly on identity in war-contexts in Ukraine.

Relevance for the SECUREU Project: The security-right nexus points out a contradiction which may be relevant to understand how the securitization of ethnicity has influenced the rise of xenophobia in Europe. In this light, xenophobia may be seen as a reaction of the public to the inconsistency and unfairness perceived in the extension of rights to groups framed as security threats. Furthermore, it would be interesting to examine how the refugee crisis has changed the security-right nexus trend in EU policy and individual member states. For instance, the case of France, which has engaged in a growing repression of the rights of religious minorities, poses a challenge to the security-right nexus.