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'Refugees' as a Misnomer: The Parochial Politics and Official Discourse of the Visegrad Four
- Source :
- Politics and Governance, Migration and Refugee Flows: New Insights, Politics and Governance, Vol 9, Iss 4, Pp 174-184 (2021)
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- Cogitatio, 2021.
-
Abstract
- Attitudes towards migrants and refugees are created and reflected at the level of public policies, as well as in local communities which cultivate traditional approaches and a specific worldview. The refugee crisis in Europe in the mid-2010s showed how public opinion translated into voting behaviour and became a source of strength for nationalist anti-immigrant movements and parties across the continent. East-Central Europe was no exception, regardless of the absence of a long-term, massive inflow of refugees. Nevertheless, the migration crisis created a new political narrative which exploited deeply rooted resentments, complexes, and fears. This article aims to analyse the official policy responses to the refugee crisis in the four East-Central European countries: Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, which together constitute the so-called Visegrad Four. It puts the emphasis on the discriminatory practice of misnaming the refugees, which became deeply anchored in the political discourse of these countries. Based on a qualitative content analysis supplemented by the findings of public opinion polls, the argument developed in the article is that reluctant and defensive attitudes towards the refugees have been determined by the revival of parochialism as a radical reaction to the challenges of global trends and supra-local processes. The theoretical framing of the refugee problem is built on politicization, in connection with the concept of parochialism, seen from political and social perspectives, and the meaning of the use of the misnomer as a policy instrument. The article concludes that the migration crisis petrified traditional cleavages at the supra-local level, reinforcing simultaneously the sense of parochial altruism and hostility towards “the other.”
- Subjects :
- Public Administration
Sociology and Political Science
rhetoric
migration
Public opinion
Parochialism
xenophobia
Opinion poll
refugee
Political science
Ausländerfeindlichkeit
Visegrad Four
anti-refugee discourse
misnomer
parochialism
public discourse
Czech Republic
anti‐refugee discourse
Sozialwissenschaften, Soziologie
Polen
refugees
Ostmitteleuropa
flight
visegrad four
ddc:300
Ungarn
Flucht
Slowakei
Slovakia
Politikwissenschaft
Refugee
Misnomer
Public policy
East Central Europe
Political science (General)
Politics
Rhetorik
politicization
Political Process, Elections, Political Sociology, Political Culture
Migration, Sociology of Migration
Social sciences, sociology, anthropology
Diskurs
politische Willensbildung, politische Soziologie, politische Kultur
Hungary
business.industry
Tschechische Republik
Diskriminierung
Framing (social sciences)
Flüchtling
Political economy
ddc:320
discourse
Poland
business
JA1-92
Politisierung
discrimination
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 21832463
- Volume :
- 9
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Politics and Governance
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....07d24e627e86a6eaef4c087bf45877d0