ABSTRACT
The European migration crisis is a crisis which, in popular as well as political discourse, is arguably addressed as a real crisis not only for the refugees living precarious lives, but also for political institutions and the receiving states. Indeed, the notion of what kind of crisis it “really” amounts to is highly contested. Moreover, the crisis is used for political purposes in the “everyday” struggle of electoral politics. In addition, it should be of interest to broaden the palette of research on the migration crisis to include reflections on the European Union (EU) as a form of political order, as a polity. Political orders are territorial communities marked by their politics of inclusion and exclusion. Managing migration is at the core of such politics. Policy proposals and bureaucratic measures geared to steer individuals, migration, and borders are thus interesting to study, not only from a sectorial vantage-point, but also as an example of what kind of political order is emerging in post-crises Europe.
