NORMBROTT ELLER ÖVERGREPP? Konkurrerande diskurser om pushbacks i Grekland inom EU och civilsamhället

Sammanfattning

This thesis examines how pushbacks at the European Union’s external borders are representedand legitimised in reports produced by NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) and EUinstitutions, with a focus in the Greek border between 2020 and 2025. Pushbacks are definedas the forcible return of migrants across borders without asylum assessment. Using qualitativediscourse analysis grounded in Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory, the study comparesNGO reports from Human Rights Watch and the Greek Council for Refugees with documentspublished by the European Parliamentary Research Service and Frontex. The analysisexplores how concepts such as ’security’, ’legality’ and ’human rights’ are articulated andassigned competing meanings. The findings show that NGOs construct pushbacks assystematic, violent, and unlawful practices tied to state denial and impunity, while EUdocuments frame them mainly as issues of legality, rule-of-law compliance and governance.These contrasting discourses produce different subject positions: migrants appear either asvulnerable rights-holders or as objects of administrative management, while state authoritiesand EU border agencies are positioned as perpetrators or institutions seeking to protect theirlegitimacy. Overall, the study demonstrates that pushbacks operate as a contested signifierwithin a wider struggle between security-oriented and rights-based interpretations of EUborder governance.