The Case of the UK

3.2.1 The Period of Analysis

3.3 The ‘Obvious Method’ to Study Security: Outlining the Discourse Analysis 3.3.1 Source Selection

3.3.1.1 The Political Elites 3.3.1.2 The Religious Elites

3.3.2 Us vs. Them: Defining De/Securitizing Discourses

3.3.3 Analytical Framework: Structuring the Discourse Analysis 3.3.3.1 The Four Axes Model

3.3.3.2 The Identitarian Axis 3.3.3.3 The Economic Axis 3.3.3.4 The Securitarian Axis 3.3.3.5 The Political Axis

3.3.3.6 Not Us and Them but ‘We’: Huysmans’ Desecuritizing Strategies 3.3.4 Nuts and Bolts: The Analytical Process

3.4 Copy That? Connecting Elite Discourse with the Audience 3.4.1 The Data

3.4.2 The Independent and Dependent Variables 3.4.3 The Control Variables

3.4.4 The Models

3.4.4.1 Models Exploring Political Elite Discourse 3.4.4.2 Models Exploring Religious Elite Discourse 3.5 Conclusion

3.1 Introduction

When instructing analysts in the study of security the Copenhagen School (CS) state the following:

The obvious method is discourse analysis, since we are interested in when and how something is established by whom as a security threat.

The defining criterion of security is textual: a specific rhetorical structure that has to be located in discourse (Buzan et al., 1998: 176).

Yet, as outlined in the previous chapter, discourse analysis alone is insufficient. Discourse analysis is equipped to explore the various attempts of actors to rhetorically de/construct security issues. However, it is not overly well equipped to analyse the second half of the security process, whether the audience accept or reject the actor’s attempts. In reference to the broad immigration attitudes literature (and the scientific study of religion), the

weakness is reversed: the attitudes of the audience are analysed in the absence of a key attitudinal driver – elite discourse.

Having justified the need to adopt a mixed methods approach in the previous chapter, this chapter sets out how the methodology and analytical framework are

operationalised, although again the theory and methodology underpinning this thesis are inherently linked and overlap considerably. The chapter is constructed of several integrated parts. The first section outlines the cases of analysis. Here, the rationale underpinning the selection of the UK as a case as well as the decision to focus on the four largest UK-wide parties and the two largest faith groups (Anglicanism and Catholicism) will be discussed.

The second part sketches the strategy of discourse analysis adopted in the thesis. This includes the analytical technique, discussion of the sources analysed and the analytical framework operationalised to structure the analysis. The third section lays the foundation for the quantitative portion of the thesis. Alongside an overview of the survey data that is utilised, drawing upon the broad immigration attitudes literature the rationale underpinning the construction of the statistical models will be illustrated. Last, a short conclusion will summarise the synthesis of both the qualitative and quantitative methods.

3.2 The Case of the UK

The principal aim of the thesis is to deepen our understanding of the security-migration nexus in two ways: first, by exploring the content of under-explored (as in the case of UK political actors) or previously ignored (as in the case of UK religious actors) elite migration discourses; and second, to ‘bring the audience back in’ to securitization theory by connecting elite cues (de/securitizing moves) to immigration attitudes. This has clear implications for the CS’s theory of security, as outlined in detail in the previous chapter. The level of detail regarding discourse analysis of political and religious elite actors of several parties and faiths makes a large-N or multiple case-study approach unfeasible for a project of this size. Despite this, Yin (2009: 47) argues that a single, critical case is well-equipped to ‘confirm, challenge or extend the theory’. With

confirmation/extension of securitization theory at its heart, the UK has been selected as a critical case (Yin, 2009)²⁷.

27 Whilst the label ‘critical case’ is deemed most appropriate from the typology of case-types provided by Yin (2009) (as the thesis is explicitly designed to extend securitization theory by trying to ‘test’ the

theoretical assumption that elite securitizing moves impact upon relevant audiences), the boundaries between types of cases are not rigid and can overlap. Thus whilst the second research question fits Yin’s definition (by explicitly testing theory), the first research question focusing on the discursive de/construction of migration as a threat may fit the description of a typical case, where the UK is similar to many West European liberal democracies. However, regardless of what label is applied, the UK case is deemed ‘intrinsically’ valuable (see Bryman, 2008; Stake, 2005) in that it 1) helps deepen our understanding of the security-migration nexus in the UK, at a time when understanding the nuances of UK migration politics is arguably more pressing than ever and 2) it enables the empirical exploration of the relationship between elite discourse and public opinion, helping to reintroduce the audience into securitization research, and providing a theoretical and methodological blueprint for further research in Security Studies and the study of public (immigration) attitudes more broadly.

With the first research question relating to UK discourse, why the UK is selected as the ‘case’ may seem self-evident. However, it is necessary to justify why the first research question focuses on the UK in the first place. The UK presents itself as an obvious

candidate to select due to the degree to which migration has continually been at the centre of British politics – in both a historic and contemporary sense – as outlined in the

Introduction. To briefly recap on more recent years, migration has been a highly salient issue in the UK. Over the last decade the UK public has consistently placed migration first or second in a list of ‘the most important issues facing Britain today’ (Ipsos Mori, 2014).

This increase in salience has been accompanied by unprecedented increases in annual net migration. During the period of analysis net migration reached an annual average of

250,000. Comparing this to figures in 1997 (48,000) and the 1970s and 180s (below 50,000 and years of negative net migration) (Migration watch, 2017) captures the significance of this last decade.

Furthermore, this period has also featured a growth in far-Right anti-immigration politics. This is first evidenced by the electoral success of the BNP and UKIP in particular, the latter of whom were pivotal in securing the holding of a referendum on Britain’s

membership of the EU. (Again, immigration (20%) was cited as the second most important issue in driving referendum voting intentions, marginally behind the economy (21%) (NatCen, 2016)). The success of anti-immigration politics however is also captured beyond

‘material’ success. At the level of discourse, Centrist/Centre-Left parties have struggled to cope with the political terrain and have moved to adopt Right-wing migration

rhetoric/framing (see Bale, 2014; Hampshire, 2005) – a phenomena argued by Bale (2014) that this is not unique to parties in the UK. In this context, exploring the migration

discourses in the UK from of the dominant set of elite actors (political elites) and a currently neglected but potentially important set of elite actors (religious elites) is highly valuable in extending our understanding of the security-migration nexus in the UK.

The second focus of the thesis (namely the second research question) relates to the relationship between elite discourse and the attitudes of ‘their’ audiences. Due to the context of UK migration politics outlined above making the exploration of elite discourse much needed, it follows that the UK makes an interesting case to explore this relationship.

The rationale of a case study approach is to enable a thorough appreciation of context (see Bryman, 2008; Stake, 2005). Again, the level of detail required to establish ‘context’ (in this case elite migration messaging across several parties and faiths) make a single case the most appropriate choice. The case study design of this thesis however paves the way for

similar studies focussing on other states (and the parties/faiths most relevant). Case studies are frequently (and legitimately) criticised for their inability to provide generalisability. For example, imagine this thesis found that Catholics who attend church frequently and are subsequently exposed to securitizing messages then report more negative immigration attitudes compared to those who attend infrequently or not at all and are therefore not being exposed to the same negative messaging. This does not mean that this exact relationship will hold in all circumstances where Catholics are frequently exposed to securitizing discourses. Context matters. And indeed, as argued above, as a case, the UK is intrinsically valuable in helping to unpack the construction of immigration attitudes and the security-migration nexus in the UK. However, it is argued in this thesis that it is possible to construe a degree of theoretical generalisability. More precisely, even though the exact nature of effects between elite cues and public opinion will differ from context to context, the theoretical premise (backed by the empirical findings of the UK case) that elite cues of both traditional and non-traditional security actors can – and are perhaps likely when there is strong identity alignment – impact on the attitudes of ‘their’ audiences does generalise and is instructive beyond this single case.

3.2.1 The Period of Analysis

The analysis begins in 2005 and ends shortly after the conclusion of the 2015 General Election. The decision to begin the analysis in 2005 rests on the significance of the 2005 General Election campaign. To reiterate, the 2005 election saw the Conservative opposition politicise immigration, placing the issue at the centre of their election campaign.

It was during and after this campaign that Labour’s rhetorical commitment to

multiculturalism and a liberal immigration policy (although the asylum policy adopted was consistently draconian, see Hampshire, 2005; Schain, 2008) began to wane and retreat (Schain, 2008: 142-3). Ending the analysis shortly after the conclusion of the 2015 General Election enabled sources to be drawn from the election campaign – a period in which a party’s position on issues is carefully outlined. In relation to the statistical analysis there is a slight limitation of data. The data source used (the ESS) has not yet released (and was not close to releasing at the time of analysis in 2015/16) data for Round 8, 2016. The last survey round available was conducted throughout 2014. This means that elite messages from the last few months of the analytical period (Jan-May 2015) are not able to be explicitly ‘connected’ to public attitudes. However, this is not deemed problematic due to the consistency of elite positioning – this will be made clear in Chapters 4 and 5.

3.3 The ‘Obvious Method’ to Study Security: Outlining the Design of the