Constructing Society and Its Margins. Austrian Deportation Policy-Making in 1990 and 2005

Abstract

In this article, I examine two episodes of policy-making in the field of deportation policy, in 1990 and 2005, in the context of prevailing social, economic, and border policy dynamics in Austria. In both cases, the emergence of a specific deportable subject served larger issues. In 1990 the construct of the ‘economic refugee’ shifted the focus towards migration management. In 2005 the notion of asylum abuse distracted from the government’s competitive and polarizing political approach.