I would like to thank my family, friends and supervisors for all the effort they have contributed to this thesis. This thesis examines the ethical construct of the European Commission's (EC) socio-political responses regarding the Syrian refugee phenomenon by implementing an inductive qualitative strategy.
Historical perspective
In addition, the refugee phenomenon has shown the EU's weakness in managing the mass movement of refugees. It does so through its own account of the refugee situation, identity and social cohesion.
Significance, goals, and personal interest
This research project aims to bridge the gap of theory and implementation by assessing the specific ethical theories of partialism and impartiality (Gibney 2004) with a case study of the EC. In addition, this thesis intends to test, refine and advance ethical theory building by providing a greater understanding of the 2015 refugee phenomenon as well as the political institution of the EC.
Purpose, strategy, and structure
These papers reveal little or no significant variation in how these individual EC actors construct their ethical framework. I find that the binary approach of partialism and impartiality does not sufficiently portray the EC's ethical positions; instead, I offer an alternative framework for evaluation.
Presuppositions, targeted audience, and scope
This conclusion is further strengthened by some emerging themes revealed by the data, notably the religious identity of refugees and the local state politics of populism. While the politics and ethics of refugees can be examined from a number of different perspectives, the scope of this research is based solely on evaluating the political speeches of the participants.
Research strategy and epistemological approach
Constructionism is therefore an approach for evaluating the constructed realities of the commissioners who in turn influence the EU. Using this approach, I hope to capture how the Commissioners constructed their political positions by analyzing their speeches and how this inadvertently influences their moral, ethical positions or vice versa.
Research design
The EC is one of the central supranational institutions originating from, but independent of, governments from the European Union. Together with the other main institutions, it develops the EU's overall strategy and political direction" (European Commission-a).
Data collection and sampling
Their policies and decision-making drive the EU's political agenda. The selected documents are taken from the European Commission's official website and are a direct response to the refugee crisis phenomenon.
Questions regarding quality of research, biases, and ethics
The social researcher must be aware of biases and the influences they bring to the research project. Being aware of the prejudice that religion is a strong identity marker in my life has led me to take a careful approach to issues related to refugees who also claim a strong religious identity.
Analysis
Data management
There are five steps in the process of data management that I implemented in the thematic analysis process. The next step in the process was to construct an initial framework to create a list of relevant topics for coding.
Data interpretation
What was regularly mentioned in the data and thus the emerging codes was the issue of solidarity and faith. However, as I established categories of central analytic themes by comparing similarities and differences, I began to see how all the data related to each other.
Presuppositions
As the role of the state has evolved and changed over time, one thing has remained consistent, the pursuit of relationships that maximize its self-interest as well as the interests of its members. Citizens believe in the government as the representation of the people makes the state the best agent of political authority.
Partialism
Populism
This area of the imagination is representative of the positive features of what 'the people' imagine as everyday life. Because this makes “the people” of the core area the center of civil society, those on the margins are excluded.
Ethno-nationalism
In an attempt to use religious symbols and imagery in secular society, populists have separated its meaning from belief, rather it is used as a set of codes to mark the community (Marzouki and McDonnell in Marzouki, McDonnell and Roy 2016, p.2) . In addition, religion is used in an attempt to re-establish a set of symbols and traditions that constitute a lost or threatened indigenous, religious, national identity, which is based on a set of a set of easily identifiable codes.
Impartiality
- State Sovereignty
- The case for open borders
- Group and identity formation
- Impartialism and modern citizenship
Carens (2013) makes a strong case for impartiality when he presents three reasons for it: casual connection, humanitarian concern and the normative presuppositions of the state system. Borders play a crucial role in both the state and its citizens, as well as a good reason for impartiality to make a plea for open borders.
Humanitarianism
It seems as if President Juncker tried to emphasize the political aspect of the EC. This portrayal also offers strong parallels with the supranational agency of the EC and state approach.
Politics and the refuge phenomenon
Human rights
He will continue to emphasize this during his speech through various references to human rights and the social phenomenon facing Europe, the "refugee crisis." It seems as if Timmermans counteracts the dehumanization of people by bringing the reality of refugees to the fore as people in need. This is referred to when he says, "we must learn from our history." The context for refugee seeking based on human dignity is shaped by the experience of the Second World War.
Moral duty
Identity
The refugee crisis has been one of the main factors contributing to the recent rise of populism and xenophobia in our societies. Because it confirms all the fears that people have about our inability to provide services to the community as needed, as institutions.
Community bonds and social cohesion
It is common for the EC to refer to the values of EU citizens as a form of community bonds and social cohesion. Here, as in many other cases featured in the speeches, EC values are used in conjunction with belonging to the European community.
Citizenship
This is most evident when considering EU citizenship and perhaps one of the main reasons why commissioners use the term value when using it as a community marker. While EU citizenship is supranational rather than national, it is designed to have minimalist requirements.
Borders
- Internal borders and freedom of movement
- External borders
- Security
- Protecting a way of life
- Guarding territory
- Migration control- restoring order
In this context, as is the norm for many EC speeches, the protection of borders is not only provided by the states, but also by the EU. One of the most important ways of dealing with the issue of migration control as well as security is border management for the EC.
Responses from the European Commission
Comprehensive approach
He then goes on to state that the EC is responding to citizens' concerns while taking a comprehensive approach. I have discussed at length how citizens play a primary role in the ideologies of partisanship, and as we have seen, citizens' concerns are also at the top of the EC's agenda.
Solidarity
Solidarity is often associated with taking a comprehensive approach to migration from the EC. The following chapter elaborates on these issues from the perspective of the researcher, where I discuss which ethical positions the EC has adopted and what they reveal.
Political atmosphere
In the second part I critically evaluate both the literature and the ethical positioning of the EC. The data reflected the EC's human rights ethical framework as the basis for their legal and ethical obligations to refugees.
Contending ideologies
Populism
Third, the politics of the refugee phenomenon focuses on major ideological themes that both threaten and strengthen the EU's institutional legitimacy and survival. The EU project is mainly characterized as a federation of member states, which is expressed in supranationalism and the benefits it brings.
Impartialism- normative ethical standards
There seems to be an ambiguous relationship in the EC's partial ethical framework between populism and the humanitarian approach which seems to echo communitarianism. Speech by Commissioner Avramopoulos on citizenship in the European Committee on Culture and Education.
Determining the EC’s ethical positing
Impartial construct
In addition, the EC appeals to the duty and commitment of their communities to uphold their moral and legal obligation to assist refugees, which is based on the liberal social construct of equality of rights, justice and benevolence. In the EC's efforts to combat populist rhetoric and establish a sense of control over the perceived crisis, they are pushing their agenda for a supranational approach based on an impartial understanding of social cohesion and community ties rooted in democratic values and civil unions are found, continued.
Partial construct
The principles of humanitarianism
Evaluating the EC’s ethical stance
Thus, by describing the EC's ethical position, in the following section, I intend to judge their position. He also suggests that the humanitarian position would be acceptable to both neutrals and partisans.
An alternative interpretation-Explaining the EC’s ethical stance
- Liberalism
- Politics and ethics
- The internal struggles of liberalism
- Liberalism and the problem of universalism and particularism… 93
The limitation of universal ethics in liberalism can also facilitate a better understanding of the partial divide between populism and EC. With a greater understanding of these issues, it becomes clear that the EC's ethical stance is expressed through their political expression of liberalism.
Possible solutions
Implications
I do this by first identifying the institutional priorities that can be drawn from the data when analyzing the ethics and politics of the EC. Thus, rather than neutrality, the conclusion of liberal ideology should be the impartial inclusiveness of religious beliefs, allowing for an optimal range of conceptions of the good and not presupposing that religious opinions and voices should heed secular reasoning (Modood 1998).
Recommendations
This may be partly due to the role that religion has played in the creation, constitution and continuity of liberal democracies (Parekh 2000, p.146). I conclude with the anthropological understanding that the complicated relationship between religion and culture can provide a shift in the worldviews of liberal and religious actors since then.
Summary
The populist images construct a struggle between the imagined “people” (Marzouki, McDonnell, and Roy 2016), consisting of the silent majority of the working class; who are seen as saviors from the invading “dangerous other” who seek to infiltrate their “idealized heartland” and transform it with their antithetical cultural-religious worldviews enabled by the representative politics of the liberal elite (Taggart 2000). Moreover, this better explains the antithesis of the EC's international liberal agenda and the nationalist efforts of populism, while at the same time giving reason to the EC's ethical framework based on the liberal principles of human dignity.
Contributions, limitations, and further research
Pridobljeno s https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners avramopoulos/announcements/speech-commissioner-avramopoulos-athens-democracy-forum_en. Pridobljeno s https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners avramopoulos/announcements/remarks-commissioner-avramopoulos-european- developments-days-migration-and-refugees_en.