This Working Paper analyses how different narratives on migration shape and are deployed in political debate and policy-making in the United Kingdom. It investigates how political actors process salient narratives on migration that emerge in the public and political domain and how they inform policy.
The impact of narratives on policy-making at the national level: the case of France
This Working Paper examines the way in which narratives on migration circulate in France across communicative and coordinative spheres. It explores whether narratives are embraced, adapted, ignored, or rejected between the media, Parliament, and administrations.
The impact of narratives on policy-making at the national level: the case of Italy
This Working Paper analyses how recurrent elements of certain migration narratives circulate in the communicative (media and political arenas) and in the coordinative spheres (the one of policy making) at different levels in the Italian political system, focusing on three specific events.
The impact of narratives on policy-making at the national level: the case of Spain
This Working Paper analyses the interplay of migration narratives as they traverse the media, politics, and policy-making arenas in Spain. More specifically, it examines how narratives on migration, circulate within the mass media and the political debate and subsequently influence policy-making processes.
The impact of narratives on policy-making at the national level: the case of Germany
This Working Paper investigates the evolving landscape of migration narratives in Germany. It delves into whether and how media narratives are embraced, adapted, ignored or rejected in political debates and policy-making.
The impact of narratives on policy-making at the national level: the case of Hungary
This Working Paper analyses the main narratives of migration in Hungary and describes the structure into which the processes of producing and circulating them characterizes the contemporary Hungarian communicative and political segments.
Migration narratives in political debate and policy-making
This concept note develops a conceptual and methodological framework for the analysis of how different narratives shape, and are deployed in, political debate and policy-making. It sets out the features and functions of narratives in public political debate and policy-making; analyses how actors respond to different narratives; and develops a method for empirically identifying these strategies.
Dwindling narratives
Will the Italian right continue a pragmatic mitigation of its initially uncompromising anti-migrationist and sovereignist narrative? Or will it persist in an ambiguous mix of threat frames and utilitarian arguments speaking to the wallet of the electorate? This op-ed by Ferruccio Pastore reflects on the structural constraints faced by Giorgia Meloni’s sovereignist migration narrative after she took power in October 2022.
Melilla, One More Step
The deaths at the Melilla border fence on 24 June 2022 are one more step, now because of the brutality of the images and the terms of justification afterwards. Building on previous narratives, they claim that traffickers are the real culprits, and migration is a threat to national security. Beyond all the words, what the facts reveal is that, to ensure fewer arrivals, Europe is willing to pay any price.
Conceptualising migration narratives
BRIDGES defines narratives as those attempts by actors to develop and convey plausible accounts and interpretations of a phenomenon, event or series of events, person or a group of persons. Narratives are not only simple descriptions. By definition, narratives are characterised by a certain degree of stability and consistency over time and/or across space.
The emergence, uses and impacts of narratives on migration
This Working Paper provides an overview of social science literature on narratives, with a particular focus on narratives on migration (MiNa), tracing the emergence of the concept in a range of social sciences, including sociology, political science, psychology and media studies.
