Ethics, politics and migration: Public debates on the free movement of Romanians and Bulgarians in the UK, 2006–2013

Balch, Alex ORCID: 0000-0002-0371-4629 and Balabanova, Ekaterina (2016) Ethics, politics and migration: Public debates on the free movement of Romanians and Bulgarians in the UK, 2006–2013 Politics, 36 (1). pp. 19-35. ISSN 0263-3957, 1467-9256

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Abstract

Public debates on immigration have become the subject of much concern, particularly in the UK. This article applies an ethical lens to assess changes in public debates over intra-EU migration in six UK national newspapers during 2006 and 2013. It finds an almost complete dominance of communitarian justifications, mainly based on welfare chauvinism, but a notable increase in security-related arguments and a decrease in economic nationalist ideas. Alternative cosmopolitan arguments about immigration go from rare to virtually absent. The discussion links these shifts to a failure of the UK centre-left to overcome historic difficulties in presenting a coherent narrative on immigration policy.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	UK, ethics, immigration, media security
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	22 Jan 2015 16:50
Last Modified:	01 Mar 2026 10:18
DOI:	10.1111/1467-9256.12082
Related Websites:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/2005602
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