As a global phenomenon, the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 has impacted the socio-economic and political life like no other event of the recent past. With over 600,000 fatalities in its member-states, an unprecedented economic recession and damage to the Single Market, the European Union has been hit unexpectedly hard by COVID-19. Through the lens of Securitisation, and more precisely, Collective Securitisation, this thesis has the purpose to examine how the EU and its institutions have responded to the threat that is the spread of SARS-CoV-2, asking ‘Has SARS-CoV-2 been successfully securitised in the European Union?’. By applying a qualitative content analysis to speeches of the European Commission published between January and May 2020 as well as to a European Parliament Plenary debate following the speech of Commission President von der Leyen on April 16th, 2020, the thesis establishes that securitising moves have taken place in the examined timeframe and that they have been accepted by the European Parliament. In accordance with the Copenhagen School framework of Securitisation and Sperling and Webber’s Collective Securitisation model, the thesis concludes that COVID-19 was therefore successfully securitised.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:mau-44446 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Waldeck, Benjamin |
| Publisher | Malmö universitet, Institutionen för globala politiska studier (GPS) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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