The Securitization of the Syrian Refugee Crisis Through Political Party Discourses

Recep Gulmez ()
Additional contact information
Recep Gulmez: Erzincan Binali Yildirim University

Journal of International Migration and Integration, 2019, vol. 20, issue 3, No 14, 887-906

Abstract: Abstract The present study investigates major Turkish political party discourses about the Syrian refugees in Turkey based on parties’ manifestoes and pamphlets. The refugee problem increased nationalist feelings in Turkey specifically when the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, explained that the Syrians could be naturalized. To analyse this situation, we draw on theories on securitization and xenophobia. Political party discourses were analysed by Nvivo 11 software program. The results suggest that while the Justice and Development Party (AKP) uses historical–cultural and Islamic discourses, the CHP has an economic discourse. The MHP, the Turkish nationalist party, and the HDP, the Kurdish nationalist party, both deploy nationalist discourses. Members of the CHP claim that the Syrians are the source of major crimes and unemployment. The AKP adopts an Ensar–Muhacir (guest–host) discourse because of its Islamic approach to the refugees. Political parties in Turkey securitize the Syrian refugee crisis through their political discourses, which result in the rise of xenophobia in Turkey. The study suggests that political parties lead to the rise in anti-refugee attitude.

Keywords: Political party discourse; Securitization; Turkey; Syrian refugee crisis; Xenophobia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12134-018-0637-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:joimai:v:20:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1007_s12134-018-0637-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer ... tudies/journal/12134

DOI: 10.1007/s12134-018-0637-2

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Migration and Integration is currently edited by Lori Wilkinson

More articles in Journal of International Migration and Integration from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().