Sandra Lavenex

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Bordering Discourses Regarding Migration and Mobility in Europe

Project Summary

This research project traces the evolution of migration and mobility control measures and their discursive justification in Europe as the global crisis provoked by the COVID-19 pandemic is unfolding. Drawing on previous research on bordering discourses in Europe, we identify the perturbing impact of an external shock, the Covid-19 pandemic, on established discursive practices in national parliaments and among policy-makers regarding migration, mobility, and border controls in Europe. Overall, we look at how authoritative actors in the European multilevel governance system communicate their recommendations about mobility restrictions during the first year of the pandemic. 

To do so, we focus on three aspects: first, the identification and gradation of migration and mobility measures implemented by countries longitudinally and cross-sectionally. Second, the aggregation of narratives about migration and mobility into discourse coalitions; and, finally, the effects of coalition forming on institutional practices of bordering at the domestic and supranational level.

Scientific Poster 2022 (PDF)

Key Findings:

• We find strong message consistency in the network, showing that actors justify their positions by technocratic, less polarizing health arguments; this, however, varies across time and actors: public health actors are more consistent throughout, and the network consistency is stronger at the onset of the pandemic.
• We also find a lack of connectivity between actors, which leads to message redundancy; crisis communication about mobility restrictions during the pandemic is thus found to suffer from a lack of coordination, driven by low levels of inter-actors’ connectivity.
• We conclude that this could lead to issues of inconsistency, information void or overburdening of information, which are connected to the spreading of misinformation and disinformation.

Project-related scientific publications Select publication   Bélanger, Marie-Eve and Sandra Lavenex Justifying mobility restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic: a test in multilevel governance 2023   Bélanger, Marie-Eve and Sandra Lavenex Communicating Mobility Restrictions During the COVID-19 Crisis on Twitter: The Legitimacy Challenge 2021