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The Politics Of Security: Syrian Refugees In The Middle East And Western Europe, Sefa Secen

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Under what conditions do governments view and respond to the arrival of refugees primarily as a security threat? Comparatively analyzing the securitization of Syrian refugees in two pairs of countries, Turkey and Lebanon and Germany and France, this dissertation proposes a domestic political context-based theory and typology of securitization. Based on a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the media data including mainstream national newspaper articles, political speeches, and policy documents, this research differentiates between different levels of securitization. It finds that moderate securitization was present in Lebanon during the early years of the refugee crisis (2013–2014) and coincided with …