Migration policies and security in Germany and the EU-border control dilemmas in the 21st century

Abstract

This thesis takes up the intimate link between migration realities and the necessity to ensure security on the territory of nation states. Unluckily, migration has the same effect as international terrorism, i.e. blurring the borders between an external and international security dimension. Therefore migration management is often understood as migration control. But the security dimension of migration gets sometimes too predominant, neglecting human rights of individual migrants. National policies are influenced by a wide range of actors within the society, who contribute to focusing the debate more on the integration rather than the control dimension, even if the majority of public opinion has anti-immigrant positions. Germany will provide the case study for analysing the national level. An economics, laws and politics triangle provides the basic analytical framework. The emergence of a securitised migration approach on the EU-level is linked to the willingness of member states to cooperate on this sensitive issue. Other cooperation processes occur outside the EU framework, but it is generally not less focused on security and control. Illegal migration is particularly outlined here, even if it is extremely difficult to get statistical data for scientific foundation. Criminal networks are also often...