Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58Transformation Through Training • Issue No: 9 • December 2016 • 33 local communities in terms of how people perceive and deal with immigration and specifically with its irregular form. Many of them believe that migration is a large problem as it poses a direct threat to public order and security as well as to the national sovereignty and dominance. Others support the idea that migration is a first class opportunity for evolution and progress since the continuous movement of people creates an ideal multicultural mosaic which promotes internationality and intergovernmental relations at all levels and therefore, immigration is less problematic than it seemed to be. Finally, there are also those assume that immigration is nothing more than a necessary evil – a natural development caused by the way our global economic system is structured since there will always be a financial gap between the rich North and the poor South. As it stands today, there is no differentiation in term of motives between someone who decides to leave their country and become a migrant either in a regular or irregular form. This basically happens due to the increasing restrictions on movements applied by the receiving countries. And, the more migrants want to move, the fewer legal opportunities they will have to do so, which resulted in an even higher irregularity. Besides, another prominent characteristic of today’s migration is also its temporary nature. Contrary to what appeared to be a common practice in the past, modern migrants finally tend to return to their place of origin years after years.12 b. National Security and Migration in Theory From theoretical and practical perspective, security refers to absence of threats, in the most general sense of the term.13 With regards to security – many academics are of the opinion that the fields of migration and security are complex and interrelated and should be examined from two different directions: this of security studies and that of migration studies. However, this suggests a high risk in terms of interpretation since the concepts of security and migration can be used within different rationales. For instance in the domain of security, one’s security maybe another’s insecurity and, within the migration spectrum what one sees depends on how one looks at it.14 To put it in a different way, within security studies, security can be approached either from the traditional point of view where the state is the referent object that needs to be protected or it can be approached in a broaden way outside of the state-centric frame. On the other hand, within migration studies, “migration can refer relatively narrowly to economic migration, or it can be approached more broadly to incorporate forced migration thus, bringing refugee studies and labor migration studies into a broader field of research”.15 Indeed, the migration – security nexus is particularly complex and diverse as both terms are quite subjective and as Choucri argues in Stivactis’ International Migration and the Politics of Identity and Security “…they are dependent on who is defining the terms and who benefits by defining the terms in a given way.”16 Nevertheless, majority of scholars coming from migration and security domains tend to accept national and human security as the common ground in terms of conceptualizing security as a value to be achieved.17 In the next paragraphs the migration – security nexus will be further analyzed from security studies’perspective. Generally speaking, security studies focus on the study of the threat, use and control of military force and consequently they privilege the position of the state as the only authority which can legitimately exercise violence.18 Still, contemporary security studies approach security through the lens of two different theoretical schools. The first one, the Critical Security Studies (CSS) approach does not offer a one-piece theoretical framework: it rather indicates a desire. Basically, CSS refers to a common belief supported by a group of heterogeneous scholars against the discomfort created by the traditional approach of security focusing only on the state as the primary object to be secured. In this view, the CSS want to change the way security was studied by considering security as more than just military security and by questioning the referent object of security through the application of post- positivist perspectives such as critical theory and post structuralism.19 Furthermore to this approach, CSS representatives’ introduce the “logic of anarchy” as a key factor which coincides with the concept of the state as the two sides of the same problem. From this perspective, the state in most cases cannot cope with security problems in a successful way and therefore, it actually becomes a factor that reproduces social insecurity by eternalizing the same security problems. On the other hand, that practically means that the state has also the power to decide who or what should be considered as a security threat. Following this logical sequence, one can argue that the state insufficiency to achieve its security objectives could also serve as a factor that guarantees its long term legitimacy and sustainability. Indeed, the CSS supporters’ underline the fact that behind the security concept there is an obvious “political convenience” hiding. If so, then the conclusion is that a state, through its political system, can manipulate a security threat – actual or intentionally overestimated, in order to preserve its power and maintain control over its people.20 Consequently, from CSS perspective, sovereignty is a social fact thus, when it comes to irregular migratory influxes it is obvious that they cannot be perceived as something less than a threat to national security, given their nature and characteristics, in combination with the possibility of a smoldering “political convenience.” Yet, the most prominent theory derives from the Copenhagen School of security studies, also known as “securitization studies”,21 which offers an epistemological approach of the contemporary security environment through a postmodern neorealist perspective. This approach does not fully reject the traditional military thinking about security but, it places security into a much broader analytical framework. In other words, the Copenhagen School theory does not only focus on military security, but it identifies additional four broad categories