The Discursive Construction of Solidarity: Analysing Public Claims in Europe’s Migration Crisis
| Date | 01 February 2020 |
| Author | Stefan Wallaschek |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321719831585 |
| Published date | 01 February 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321719831585
Political Studies
2020, Vol. 68(1) 74 –92
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321719831585
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The Discursive Construction
of Solidarity: Analysing
Public Claims in Europe’s
Migration Crisis
Stefan Wallaschek
Abstract
This article proposes a new approach to solidarity. Previous research has focused on macro-
structural and micro-behavioural aspects of solidarity, overlooking that solidarity is discursively
constructed by actors on the meso-level. The meso approach to solidarity consists of two key
dimensions: meaning and scale. The meaning of solidarity characterises its content. The scale
of solidarity indicates who is encompassed by solidarity. This approach is applied by analysing
meanings and scales of solidarity in the German media discourse on Europe’s migration crisis
from 2010 to 2015. The discourse network analysis is deployed to study the co-occurrence of
meanings and scales of solidarity. The results indicate that political and cultural solidarity are the
most dominant meanings and they are mostly linked to the intergovernmental and transnational
scale of solidarity. The number of claims to political solidarity on the intergovernmental level
of the European Union increases in 2015, signalling the greater relevance of creating a solidary
institutional mechanism in the migration crisis. The article contributes to recent discussions on
solidarity as well as the public framing of Europe’s migration crisis.
Keywords
discourse network analysis, discursive construction of solidarity, Europe’s migration crisis,
Germany, solidarity
Accepted: 25 January 2019
Solidarity is a central concept in political and social theory. It has also featured promi-
nently in recent discussions on the multiple crises of the European Union (EU) as well
as in debates about the social cohesion of contemporary societies. It is a crucial idea in
social-democratic and conservative party manifestos (Stjernø, [2005] 2009), and in trade
union activities (Gajewska, 2009), while social movements engage in solidarity actions
as part of their protest mobilisations (Della Porta, 2018). Research on welfare states
Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS), University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany
Corresponding author:
Stefan Wallaschek, Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS), University of Bremen,
Mary-Somerville Strasse 9, 28359 Bremen, Germany.
Email: wallaschek@bigsss.uni-bremen.de
831585PSX0010.1177/0032321719831585Political StudiesWallaschek
research-article2019
Article
Wallaschek 75
examines the institutional and behavioural aspects of (social) solidarity (Arts and
Gelissen, 2001; Baldwin, 1990). In times of crises, the question of the weakness or
strength of solidarity among individuals and groups gains increased scholarly attention
(Ciornei and Recchi, 2017; Lahusen and Grasso, 2018).
However, previous research on solidarity has two conceptual shortcomings. First, it
does not consider the various meanings of solidarity. In this regard, existing studies
mainly investigate solidarity with respect to redistributive politics and thus refer to the
meaning of social solidarity. Yet, if we understand solidarity as a contested concept
(Gallie, 1956), meaning that its proper understanding is debated by actors without arriv-
ing at a shared understanding of the term, then the discursive, meaning-making process of
solidarity in itself should be a key focal point. Second, the scale of solidarity – that is,
defining who is included in the claims for solidarity – plays an ambiguous role in the lit-
erature. The issue of scale is either not reflected by research on welfare states, which
largely pursue a methodological nationalism, or it is semantically invoked by investigat-
ing European or transnational solidarity without indicating the underlying meaning of
solidarity actions and attitudes.
Accordingly, this study will suggest a new research approach to solidarity that is situ-
ated on the meso-level and based on the two dimensions of meaning and scale. Taken
together, the dimensions of meaning and scale underpin various concepts of solidarity. I
conceptualise the meaning of solidarity as its content. Meanwhile, the scale of solidarity
is understood to be the extent of its reach and emphasises the boundedness of solidarity
as it is expressed in specific social contexts. Hence, both dimensions form the new meso-
discursive approach to solidarity, which I call the discursive construction of solidarity.
With the latter phrase, I refer to the framing of the concept of solidarity in public debates.1
Solidarity has to be constructed and appealed to in order to legitimise political actions and
mobilise public opinion.
The approach is engaged empirically by analysing the meanings and scales of solidar-
ity in the public discourse on Europe’s migration crisis in an explorative manner. To this
end, I examine the meanings of solidarity that are deployed and the scales to which soli-
darity claims are linked, before identifying which of the meanings and scales of solidarity
are most prominent in the discourse. In particular, I analyse German daily newspapers
from 2010 to 2015. Germany was at the centre of the European migration crisis in 2015,
creating a high degree of public awareness of the issue. Furthermore, Germany strongly
shapes the European migration and refugee policies with its national norms and regula-
tions (Zaun, 2016). The migration crisis has challenged the political-institutional order,
normative guidelines and the social integration of the EU (Geddes, 2018; Wallaschek,
2018b). Previous research on the crisis has demonstrated how member states disagree
about how best to resolve the migration crisis, how the EU lacks supranational authority
to establish a mandatory relocation mechanism and how security frames prevailed during
the crisis in 2015 (Greussing and Boomgaarden, 2017; Zaun, 2018). Although previous
studies have acknowledged the lack of solidarity, they have yet to consider how this cor-
responds to the claiming of solidarity within public discourse. Moreover, by looking at
the state of public debate both before and during the crisis, we can trace the trajectory and
changes in the crisis discourse with a view to explaining why the EU solidarity mecha-
nism to relocate refugees among EU member states was so strongly contested at the end.
The study utilises the discourse network methodology which has demonstrated the co-
constitutive construction process of actor appearances and meaning formation in public
discourses (Leifeld, 2016; Leifeld and Haunss, 2012). Analysing the relation between the
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