The purpose of this essay is to explain the reasoning behind the European unions activation of the mass protection directive in 2022, how well these motivations apply to the migration crisis in 2015, and whether the theories poststructuralism, Marxist critical theory, and postcolonialism believe the differences legitimize the decision not to activate the directive in 2015. The method used is a discourse analysis based on operationalisation of the activation of the directive and the main ideas of each theory. The result indicates that the situation during 2015 did lack a few of the aspects taken into account in 2022. However, all three theories argue that these aspects could be evaluated and seen from different perspectives, and therefore did not necessarily legitimize the inaction of the EU in 2015.

Why was the United States caught completely unprepared for the Central American refugee crisis during the summer of 2014? Although thousands of unaccompanied children from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador streamed across the southwest U.S. border in unprecedented numbers, the systemic problems plaguing the region stem back decades, and recent data clearly shows a trend of increasing yearly migration flows to the United States from these countries. Even in the face of the crisis, the U.S. government’s response was targeted more towards mitigating the symptoms of the crisis while insufficiently addressing its underlying causes. This is largely due to U.S. domestic policy, which undermines and conflicts with sound foreign policy. By focusing attention and resources on domestically popular foreign aid programs—primarily security initiatives and drug interdiction—rather than on programs to address the underlying, systemic causes of the crisis, like rampant corruption, lack of rule of law, and extreme poverty, U.S. policy-makers worked against their own best interests. As a result, the number of migrants crossing the U.S. southwestern border is once again rising rapidly. U.S. domestic and foreign policy must be reconciled to ensure that now and in the future, the root causes of migration crises are dealt with once and for all.

This study looks at the discursive threat constructions of political elites in Hungary during a time span corresponding to the European Migration Crisis. Securitization theory is used in conjunction with a Critical Discourse Analysis to analyse the communicated threat perceptions that led to the extraordinary security measure of building fences. Analysis finds that there was a clear grammar of security in all discourses – on both the state and the regional level - in identifying migration as a possible threat. Characteristics of the discourses varied between the state agents in different contexts in terms of wording, the referent objects they focused on and the utterance of speech acts. The study demonstrates that securitization did successfully happen, but argues that it was likely the result of securitization not happening on a regional level prior. In the study, the European Migration Crisis, the migration-security nexus, and the Copenhagen School’s earlier work: Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda in Europe are also explored. The latter work is incorporated in the analysis by testing its correspondence with the communicated threat constructions in Hungary. The study finds strong correlations between the theorized, emerging security landscape and the communicated threat perceptions.

Swedish nation branding has been studied with the main purpose to contribute to the research field of integrating the nation branding concept into IR. The study conducts a detailed description of Swedish branding strategies and its government’s statements of the migration policy change, during the peak of the migration crisis of 2015 through the theoretical framework of constructivism and soft power. This has been examined with the aim of describing the evolution of the strategy and the government’s statements during the migration crisis in order to clarify how a crisis can affect future branding strategies. The findings show that in a changing international arena, there is a significant need for nations’ branding strategies to be realistic and competitive in order to be able to obtain soft power.

This thesis is devoted to the Treaty of Lisbon. Within the theoretical part, the Treaty of Lisbon is presented together with the circumstances of the admission. It also analyzes its application to the current migration crisis and on the basis of which recommends an ex-post recovery.

Thesis focuses on quantitative and qualitative analysis of incoming migrants and their human capital. Through this analysis and economic calculations, final fiscal deficit is revealed. Research is conducted by analyzing publicly available statistical data and submitting surveys to ministries and nonprofit organizations. On these data, model is bulit involving broad scope of variables for accurate quantification of any implications of the migration crisis. Main contribution of this thesis is building a model with unique basis of data providing domestic fiscal implications of a European migration crisis.

Drawing on the research object of migration, mostly focused on the inclusion of asylum seekers in the European Union (EU hereinafter), this Master thesis aims at measuring the attractiveness/unattractiveness of EU countries on welcoming asylum seekers in. The method used, is then, the comparison of Portugal and Spain, two similar countries, but with quite different outcomes. Furthermore, this work suggests that external factors are on the scope of forced migration, so issues as choice on the destination country, migrant networks, previous knowledge and the integration policies make a country attractive or not. The final results bring to light the interesting findings that asylum seekers coming legally to Portugal would rather live illegal anywhere else. Moreover, even though Spain appears as a relatively more "successful" country on attracting asylum applications, it also shares the same push factors as Portugal.

During the last decade, the European Union has had to overcome several types of crises, for example, the economic crisis, the Eurozone crisis, the migration crisis, and Brexit. Currently, the EU is facing the Covid-19 pandemic. It is well known that there is a strong relationship between the multifaceted crises and the EU’s responses to them and increased Euroscepticism in the EU countries as a result. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the reasons why such crises result in increasing Euroscepticism. More specifically, the study explores the mechanisms that can be identified as causes for Euroscepticism. To test the hypothesis that the crises’ responses made by the EU created an opportunity for Eurosceptic actors to thrive, a process-analysis of the responses was conducted. Three legislative acts as main responses to the economic crisis and the migration crisis were chosen, to analyze a mechanism between the crises and increased Euroscepticism in the EU member states. The responses were then combined with data on the EU citizens’ trust for the EU to identify if the EU’s responses to these crises have been a major cause for increased Eurosceptic tendencies. The results show that even though some of the EU’s responses to the crises resulted in increased Euroscepticism, EU citizens do not seem to lose their trust in the EU or their institutions in the long run.

This thesis intends to establish whether and to what degree possible explanations for the Visegrad Group´s response to the 2015-2016 migration crisis can be provided by Postfunctionalism and Intergovernmentalism. The purpose of this study is not to explicitly test the two theories but to use them as tools to better understand the case under analysis, by applying a non-competitive approach. Based on the elaboration of 21 official statements released by the Visegrad Group between 2015-2016, findings show that both theories could (partially) confirmed my initial hypotheses. I conclude that security matters (as Intergovernmentalist suggests) consisted in the lion´s share in the statements, while economy matters (as also suggested by Intergovernmentalism) did not. When it comes to identity matters (as Postfunctionalism suggests), I conclude that those were used in connection to security matters, with the aim of forging a common European response to the crisis and to justify the partisan reaction of the Visegrad Group.

The region of Central Europe, and particularly the countries that form the Visegrad group, has seen a rise in anti-EU sentiment and EuroskepticismEuroscepticism[B1] . The Czech Republic is considered one of the most suitable examples of this phenomenon across Europe. However, this state is not status quo. During the times of various global crises, the level of Euroscepticism fluctuates. Due to this reason, the thesis analyzes two crises, which are This thesis focuses on a particular case of the Czech Republic, where two distinct crises—the immigration inflow in 2015 and the Russian invasion in 2022, and their divergent public reactions. The Czech society was more anti-EU oriented during the migration crisis, whereas later when Russia invaded Ukraine, they felt closer to the European Union. I approach this phenomenon from the media perspective and its public media discourse by researching existing literature, analyzing media content, and collecting questionnaires filled out by experts. The media are two online most-read news platforms Novinky and iDnes, which also both existed before the first crisis. The interrogated professionals are working for the European Union in the Czech environment, so they are very well-orientated in the Czech media talking about the European Union.  Results from all three sources —led to divergent public reactions, with the former feeling more Euroskeptic and the latter feeling closer to the European Union. This peculiarity was examined through the eyes of two online news media and the EU officials employed in the Czech setting. The findings indicate that the public media discourse is diversely Europeanized throughout different crises, or in other words, influenced by the European environment and membership in the EU. Thiswhich results in the European institutions being blamed or praisedexalted for coming up with solutions. The European Union officials in questionnaires respondents complement this statement by claiming that these stories are having an impact on Czech society. This observation implies that the reaction to external crises is based on various factors such as the government's position, common enemy, fear of the unknown, or more readable negative news.  For these reasons, the Czech future attitude towards the European Union is unpredictable. At the same time, the thesis highlights several observations important for regional development, which are similar discourses in cities of different sizes, more optimistic attitudes with a higher number of news, and the danger of simplifying opinion groups into anti-European and pro-European only. There is a significant impact that this observed connection will have on the future development of the region.