Choosing words carefully

Abstract

This research seeks to shed light on the way framing contests developed during the European migration crisis of 2015. In order to do that, it analyses articles, statements and speeches delivered by nongovernmental organisations (NGO’s), newspapers, the European Commission and European government leaders in order to reconstruct how they sought to influence the dominant narrative surrounding the identity of the migrants and refugees, the perceived solutions within Europe and the solutions that required a deal with a third country. It finds that the NGO’s and the European Commission were trying to change the European immigration policy to be more focused around humanitarian values, but that this frame was defeated by a demand for a prevention-oriented immigration policy because the dominant frame of status quo actors proved resilient to change and because the frames of the change advocates were incoherent and at times mutually conflicting.