Borders, Fences, and Limits—Protecting Austria From Refugees: Metadiscursive Negotiation of Meaning in the Current Refugee Crisis

Abstract

The so-called refugee crisis presents a field of discursive struggle over meanings in politics. In Austria, mediatized politics in 2015 and 2016 was dominated by metadiscursive negotiation of terminology related to building a border fence and setting a maximum limit on refugees. Both issues raised serious ideological and legal concerns and were thus largely euphemized; as responses to ever-increasing pressure from the political right, however, they were also intended as signals to voters. This article presents a discourse-historical study of the normalization of restrictive policies in the theoretical framework of border and body politics, otherness, and mediatization.

Comparing the Politicisation of EU Integration during the Euro and Schengen Crises

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Toward Successful Integration of Climate Immigrants: Lessons Learned from the Good Practice of the City of Vienna

“…Even mainstream parties aligned themselves more and more with this populist position. However, the Municipal Government, a coalition of the Socialist (SPÖ) and Green parties as well as Austria's then-President (also SPÖ) stood out in this counter discourse [23].…”

Transforming Marginalised Politics into Mainstream Agenda—“Shameless Normalisation”

“…Die neue ÖVP übernimmt nachweislich wesentliche Forderungen der FPÖ in Bezug auf Migrations-und Flüchtlingspolitik und propagiert demensprechend eine äußerst restriktive Einwanderungspolitik (Rheindorf und Wodak 2017), das Schließen der Grenzen (sogar nach Italien und Südtirol) und der Mittelmeerroute. Schamlos wurden und werden sowohl von der FPÖ wie auch der neuen ÖVP viele Gerüchte, Strohmannargumente und Falschmeldungen über Migranten und Flüchtlinge verbreitet, die allesamt zu einem einzigen Bedrohungsszenario verschmelzen, bestehend aus einer fantasierten "Invasion" sogenannter "illegaler Migranten" (Ötsch und Horaczek 2017).…”