The Discursive Construction of Solidarity: Analysing Public Claims in Europe’s Migration Crisis

Abstract

This article proposes a new approach to solidarity. Previous research has focused on macro-structural and micro-behavioural aspects of solidarity, overlooking that solidarity is discursively constructed by actors on the meso-level. The meso approach to solidarity consists of two key dimensions: meaning and scale. The meaning of solidarity characterises its content. The scale of solidarity indicates who is encompassed by solidarity. This approach is applied by analysing meanings and scales of solidarity in the German media discourse on Europe’s migration crisis from 2010 to 2015. The discourse network analysis is deployed to study the co-occurrence of meanings and scales of solidarity. The results indicate that political and cultural solidarity are the most dominant meanings and they are mostly linked to the intergovernmental and transnational scale of solidarity. The number of claims to political solidarity on the intergovernmental level of the European Union increases in 2015, signalling the greater relevance of creating a solidary institutional mechanism in the migration crisis. The article contributes to recent discussions on solidarity as well as the public framing of Europe’s migration crisis.