Performing Control: Crisis Narratives, Rebordering, and Ontological Security in Austria

Sammanfattning

This thesis examines the normalization of internal border controls (IBCs) in Austria between 2015 and 2024 through the framework of Ontological Security Studies (OSS). Drawing on four empirical datasets, IBC notification letters, parliamentary debates, Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) official statements, and media discourse, the analysis traces how migration-related crisis narratives and rebordering practices mutually constitute one another across three distinct periods. The thesis argues that IBCs function as performative ontological security practices through which the Austrian state reasserts sovereignty, stabilizes narratives of order, and manages conditions of ontological insecurity generated by large-scale migration. A co-constitutive model is articulated to explain how crisis narratives and IBCs recursively reproduce one another, gradually normalizing what was originally an exceptional governance mechanism. The findings show how migration-related crisis narratives and rebordering practices become mutually reinforcing over time, contributing to the normalization of IBCs as routine governance practices within the Schengen Area.