Context, Audience and Reframing of a Failed Case of (De)securitisation of Migration in the Czech Republic

Despite the fact, that the Czech Republic has not been a country of high immigration or asylum applications during the recent so-called ’migration crisis’, international migration and related issues have become powerful instruments in a ’business’ of Czech political actors. As I argue elsewhere, in the Czech political discourse could be identified three securitizing narrative frames in comparison to one only vaguely distinguishable de-securitizing narrative frame. In other words, the course of possible de-securitization processes has been marginal and over-ridden by parallelly developing course of securitization processes (Austin and Beaulieu-Brossard, 2017) in the political stream (cf. Kingdon 1984/2014). This situation is not an unique in the context of Central-East Europe, but it begs a deeper analysis in terms of context related to conditions of (de)-securitization, the audience, which receives, authorizes and co-produces security discourse and practices, but also with regard to the possibilities for re-articulation (Hansen 2012) or ’reframing’ the migration securitizing narratives. Based on discourse-historical analysis of narrative ’frames’, connection of Copenhagen school’s exceptional and ’Paris school’ routinized’ logics of securitisation, the idea of applying Kingdon’s (1984/2014) three streams model to the conceptualization of audience in the study of (de)securitisation (Léonard and Kaunert, 2011) and the idea, that audience is a key not in both securitisation and de-securitization, the proposed paper has three aims. First, to help to understand the case of failed de-securitization in the Czech Republic in the years 2014-2019 with regard to the strategies used in three securitizing narrative frames and one desecuritizing narrative frame in the political and societal context and second, to analyse the logics of actors-audience interplay in the political stream. Third – based on the assumption, that securitization has to be managed politically in the first place (Aradau 2004, 389) – to propose particular strategies of reframing or rearticulation (Hansen 2002) of desecuritizing narratives. References: Aradau, Claudia (2004): ’Security and democratizing scene: desecuritization and emancipation.’ Journal of International Relations and Development 7(4): 388-413 Austin, John Luke and Phillipe Beaulieu-Brossard (2017): ’(De)securitisation dilemmas: Theorising the simultaneous enaction of securitisation and desecuritisation.’ Review of International Studies 44(2), 301-323. Hansen, Lene (2012): ’Reconstructing desecuritisation: the normative-political in the Copenhagen School and directions for how to apply it’, Review of International Studies 38(3), 525-546. Kingdon, John W. (1984/2014): Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.