1

İbrahim Anıl ÇELİKBAŞ May 2, 2023116605017IR 501

Research Question:

How does the rise of far right in the West and immigrants’ impact on Europe since 2008

Economic Crisis?

The specific topic that a social scientist studies may have a personal and idiosyncratic origin1 and

these personal experiences and values often provide the motivation to become a social scientist

and, later, to choose a particular research question2.Therefore, they may constitute the “real”

reasons for engaging in a particular research project3.Therewithal, I would like to study very

much on that major. Currently, far right parties are arising in the West, as a result of this process,

some sort of problems will be occurred for Turkish people who are inhabited in the European

states as a minority. Therefore, increasing trend will lead to create new problems between eastern

states and the western states. In this regard, Turkey will be the party of this discussion so, as a

Turkish citizen, I would like to understand the dimensions of this process. Secondly, a research

project should pose a question that is important in the real world4. The topic should be

consequential for political, social, or economic life, for understanding and predicting events that

might be harmful or beneficial5 and it needs to be an event or a problem and related to any kind

of real world of politics that shape people’s lives6.

1 King, Gary, Robert O. Keohane and Sidney Verba. 1994. “Chapter One: The Science in Social Science”. In Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, p.14.

2King, Keohane, Verba. In Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research, p.14-153King, Keohane, Verba. In Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research, p.154King, Keohane, Verba. In Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research, p.155King, Keohane, Verba. In Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research, p.156King, Gary, Robert O. Keohane and Sidney Verba. 1994. “Chapter One: The Science in Social Science”. In Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, p.15.

2

İbrahim Anıl ÇELİKBAŞ May 2, 2023116605017IR 501

Throughout history, radical right parties have been influential and altered the world order

drastically e.i. the National Socialist German Workers' Party. In particular, post 9/11 attack, right

parties both Europe and the US have been rising by developing discourse against foreigners

which are especially Muslim society who live in the West.

The right-wing parties in general have had a qualification covering three factors in Europe and

have risen with these characteristics:

1-Modernising the ideologies and initiatives by purifying fascism and racism from the

extremes of democracy enmity;

2-Try to create new opportunities in the field of politics by protecting the nation's

ideological loyalty;

3- Development of a profile that separates political actors from the others as a politically.

In France, the National Front leader Marine Le-Pen's party is trying to get rid of extreme right-

wing imagery and get support from different segments of the population is a is the result of the

convergence of these factors. Nonetheless, anti-foreign rhetoric continues at this party.7

Reference points of far right parties in Europe post 9/11 as followings;

1-The problems of socio-economic crises, unemployment and insecurity in multicultural

societies lead to social delinquencies that cause extreme tendencies. So, the issue that should not

be overlooked is that there is no simple causal relationship between these problems and extreme

right tendencies.

7Mercan, Sezgin; “Avrupa’da Aşırı Sağın Yükselişini Anlamak”, 21.Yüzyıl Türkiye Enstitüsü (Last Accessed: November 26, 2016)<http://www.21yyte.org/tr/arastirma/avrupa-birligi-arastirmalari-merkezi/2012/01/24/6465/avrupada-asiri-sagin-yukselisini-anlamak#_ftnref11>

3

İbrahim Anıl ÇELİKBAŞ May 2, 2023116605017IR 501

2-Far right parties based on xenophobia and exclusionism as ideologically.8

Regarding discourse which was mentioned above is getting stronger in each state in Europe step

by step. Immigration and rising unemployment issues are undoubtedly the biggest secret of the

success of far right parties: the right-wing parties started to rise by following discourse;

"immigrants are the most substantial reason of the country's problems." Europe, struggling with

the economic crisis, which seeks to ban on entry of new immigrants into the countries or narrow

down the number of immigrants within the countries9As an IR student, I would like to predict and

make sense the latest developments towards immigrants who live in the West. After Syrian Civil

War, a large amount of people found asylum in Europe, which has led to rising conservatism

against refuges & others.

Thirdly, a research project should make a specific contribution to an identifiable scholarly

literature by increasing our collective ability to construct verified scientific explanations of some

aspect of the world.10It is required for us to put some scientific theories and methods available to

solve intellectual puzzles through describing these phenomena’s in a systematic manner and to

make valid causal or descriptive inferences.11

In this context, I would like to give you some information on how to search the basic literature

review for my topic before what sort of scientific contribution that will make. As a first step, in

order to understand perception of European states toward immigrants, we should define the

8 Mercan, Sezgin; “Avrupa’da Aşırı Sağın Yükselişini Anlamak”, 21.Yüzyıl Türkiye Enstitüsü (Last Accessed: November 26, 2016)<http://www.21yyte.org/tr/arastirma/avrupa-birligi-arastirmalari-merkezi/2012/01/24/6465/avrupada-asiri-sagin-yukselisini-anlamak#_ftnref11>9 Pak, Ayça, “Avrupa’da Yükselen Aşırı Sağ.”, TUİÇ Akademi, (Last Accessed: November 26, 2016)<http://www.tuicakademi.org/avrupa-da-yukselen-asiri-sag/>10King, Gary, Robert O. Keohane and Sidney Verba. 1994. “Chapter One: The Science in Social Science”. In Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, p.1511King, Keohane, Verba. In Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research, p.16

4

İbrahim Anıl ÇELİKBAŞ May 2, 2023116605017IR 501

security, which is often a concept that is used extensively in international relations studies,

without being clearly conceptualized. With the words of Buzan, security is a concept that is open

to debate and quite ambiguous, just like the concepts of love, freedom and power, and so there

are many theoretical discussions and unsolved arguments on the meaning.12 The Copenhagen

School mentioned that a state can be involved in more than one problem at the same time.

Because the security needs of the countries vary. Increasing threats perception, especially with

globalization, have led governments to cooperate each other. Within the security context, the

most rational solution for the border conflict problem; is creation of a security complex once.

After entering the security complex; each state becomes a part of the structure that provides

common security for all. It is not only the state maximizing its own national security; it is the

interests of whole of the common platform are becoming substantial. Security policies pursued in

the real world are a mixture of national and international security strategies. It is therefore

possible to speak of an integrative sense of security. As a matter of fact, many countries

recognize that national security strategies depend on international security strategy. (Buzan 1991)

The Copenhagen school agrees with the realist viewers in this point which is international system

is ruleless and irregular, security complexes created against the factors that threaten the regional

security are substantial in terms of peace building and peacekeeping. The security complex

approach is useful for explaining security issues in post-Cold War era.13

12 Baysal, Barış, “Kopenhag Okulu ve Güvenlikleştirme Teorisi.” Security Strategies, p64 <http://harpak.dergipark.gov.tr/download/article-file/84601>(Last Accessed: November 26, 2016)13Ok, Çiğdem, “Uluslararası İlişkilerde Güvenlik Teorileri Bölgesel Güvenlik Bağlamında ASEAN Deneyimi Analizi.”http://www.tuicakademi.org/uluslararasi-iliskilerde-guvenlik-teorileri-bolgesel-guvenlik-baglaminda-asean-deneyimi-analizi/(Last Accessed: November 26, 2016)

5

İbrahim Anıl ÇELİKBAŞ May 2, 2023116605017IR 501

When we turn back to question of how I can make a scientific contribution to the literature. In

accordance with the security perception of European States toward immigrants, actually

European liberal values and the motto of “united in diversity” is not working well recently, it can

be said that a clash environment would occur between European native population and refuges.

My goal is to provide a clear perspective about securitization and why European population

prone to far right parties. In doing so, is it possible to protect of the European values, after all.

As a last step, we will discuss about conceptualization and operationalization. At that stage, we

should define what specific concepts that our research contains, and identify some indicators and

dimensions about these concepts. Finally, we should make a basic operationalization which

includes operations that we will do to observe concepts (Babbie 2007, 124-133).

As above explanations, research will involve the concepts “securitization”, “immigrant”,

“xenophobia” and as a main concept “conservatism”.

The concept of “Securitization” is generally associated with the Copenhagen school of security

studies, which is generally taken to include Ole Wæver, Barry Buzan, and a range of other, more

loosely associated, researchers. Originally devised by Ole Wæver, the concept of securitization

provided a fresh take on the increasingly tiresome debate between those who claimed that threats

are objective (i.e., what really constitutes a threat to international security) on the one hand, and

those that maintained that security is subjective (what is perceived to be a threat) on the other. In

an attempt to sidestep or bypass this debate, the Copenhagen school suggests that security should

instead be seen as a speech act, where the central issue is not if threats are real or not, but the

ways in which a certain issue (troop movements, migration, or environmental degradation) can be

socially constructed as a threat. The idea of speech acts has a long tradition in philosophy and

refers to the idea that by saying something, something is done. So, just as the naming of a ship is

6

İbrahim Anıl ÇELİKBAŞ May 2, 2023116605017IR 501

a speech act that brings something into effect, the uttering of “security” can be viewed as an act

by which all kind of issues (military, political, economic, and environmental) can become staged

as a threat. However, not all talk about security qualifies as securitization in the sense understood

by Ole Wæver and his Copenhagen colleagues. A securitizing speech act needs to follow a

specific rhetorical structure, derived from war and its historical connotations of survival, urgency,

threat, and defense. This leads the Copenhagen school to define securitization as a speech act that

has to fulfill three rhetorical criteria. It is a discursive process by means of which an actor (1)

claims that a referent object is existentially threatened, (2) demands the right to take

extraordinary countermeasures to deal with that the threat, and (3) convinces an audience that

rule-breaking behavior to counter the threat is justified. In short, by labeling something as

“security,” an issue is dramatized as an issue of supreme priority. One can therefore think of

securitization as the process through which nonpoliticized (issues are not talked about) or

politicized (issues are publicly debated) issues are elevated to security issues that need to be dealt

with urgency, and that legitimate the bypassing of public debate and democratic procedures. The

Copenhagen school originally studies the dynamics of security across five different, nonexclusive

sectors—military, political, societal, economic, and environmental—although later analyses of

securitization have sought to expand the number of sectors. Because securitization enables

emergency measures outside democratic control, the Copenhagen school generally opts for

desecuritization, rather than securitization, as the preferable mode of problem solving.14

14Munster, Rens van, “Securitization”, (Last Accessed: November 26, 2016)http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199743292/obo-9780199743292-0091.xml

7

İbrahim Anıl ÇELİKBAŞ May 2, 2023116605017IR 501

The concept of“Immigration”is a function of market forces (demand-pull and supply-push) and

kinship networks, which reduce the transactions costs of moving from one society to another.

These economic and sociological forces are the necessary conditions for migration to occur, but

the sufficient conditions are legal and political.15

The other concept is "Xenophobia" is composed of the words "xenos" which means “foreign” in

Greek and "phobos" in the sense of fear. The word was arisen due to the fact that dominant

culture would be influenced by any other culture which could be led to change it drastically. The

xenophobia is toward Muslim groups which are expressed as "Islamophobia". Economic crisis

that has been experienced since 2008 in Europe, immigrant opposition has been increasing

dramatically because of the rising unemployment and economic problems.16

The last concept of “Conservatism ” is a philosophical thought and a political attitude, believes

that the present political, social and economic order must be valued and protected as much as

possible. The framework of conservatism can be religious or cultural. Conservative politics show

differences in every period which is depending on the circumstances of the period, also it is

practical and utilitarian. The concept of conservatism was used by Chateaubriand in the post-

1815 period to describe politically the "right" wing. 17

15 Hollifield, James F, “Why do states risk migration?” p.2(Last Accessed: November 26, 2016)http://paperroom.ipsa.org/papers/paper_25254.pdf

16Öner, Selcen, “Avrupa’da Yükselen Aşırı Sağ, Yeni Ötekiler ve Türkiye’nin AB Üyeliği”, Cilt 13, No:1, Year 2014 p.16517Pak, Ayça, “Avrupa’da Yükselen Aşırı Sağ.”, TUİÇ Akademi, (Last Accessed: November 26, 2016)<http://www.tuicakademi.org/avrupa-da-yukselen-asiri-sag/>

8

İbrahim Anıl ÇELİKBAŞ May 2, 2023116605017IR 501

Nonetheless, in addition to those concepts I am going to use the following words as indicators in

order to operationalize these words Nationalism which refers to conservatism as an indicator.

Civilization will be used as an indicator for securitization. Values and traditions reflect to

Xenophobiaas as indicators. Immigrants’ indicators will be the political disputes.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

KING, Gary, Robert O. Keohane and Sidney Verba. 1994. “Chapter One: The Science in Social Science”. In Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. New Jersey: Princeton University Press,

MERCAN, Sezgin; “Avrupa’da Aşırı Sağın Yükselişini Anlamak”, 21.Yüzyıl Türkiye Enstitüsü (Last Accessed: November 26, 2016)http://www.21yyte.org/tr/arastirma/avrupa-birligi-arastirmalari merkezi/2012/01/24/6465/avrupada asiri-sagin-yukselisini-anlamak#_ftnref11.

PAK, Ayça, “Avrupa’da Yükselen Aşırı Sağ.”, TUİÇ Akademi, (Last Accessed: November 26, 2016) http://www.tuicakademi.org/avrupa-da-yukselen-asiri-sag/

Baysal, Barış, “Kopenhag Okulu ve Güvenlikleştirme Teorisi.” Security Strategies, p64 http://harpak.dergipark.gov.tr/download/article-file/84601 (Last Accessed: November 26, 2016)

OK, Çiğdem, “Uluslararası İlişkilerde Güvenlik Teorileri Bölgesel Güvenlik Bağlamında ASEAN Deneyimi Analizi.” http://www.tuicakademi.org/uluslararasi-iliskilerde-guvenlik-teorileri-bolgesel-guvenlik-baglaminda-asean-deneyimi-analizi/ (Last Accessed: November 26, 2016)

MUNSTER, Rens Van, “Securitization”, (Last Accessed: November 26, 2016) http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199743292/obo-9780199743292-0091.xml

Hollifield, James F, “Why do states risk migration?” p.2(Last Accessed: November 26, 2016) http://paperroom.ipsa.org/papers/paper_25254.pdf

ÖNER, Selcen, “Avrupa’da Yükselen Aşırı Sağ, Yeni Ötekiler ve Türkiye’nin AB Üyeliği”, Cilt 13, No:1, Year 2014 p.165