Qui Bono? The winners and losers of securitising migration

It has become commonplace to argue that migration in most host states is socially constructed primarily as a security threat, a process known as ‘securitisation’. Political elites and security professionals are identified as the main agents that promote this particular framing of the issue. While securitisation is often implicitly considered as a goal-orientated process, paradoxically few studies have explored its actual consequences on policy and the securitising actors themselves. Adopting a consequentialist ethics approach, this article assesses the implications of the securitisation of migration in Greece, drawing on face-to-face interviews with security professionals, discourse analysis and other primary data. It demonstrates that securitisation harms the interests not only of migrants but also, counter-intuitively, of the state and the elites that supported it in the first place. This leaves only parties of the far right as the main winners of the security frame that has characterised Greece's stance on immigration since the early 1990s, and that continues to pose obstacles to its development of a coherent immigration policy with a long-term view