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

Abstract

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