"Bodies of Control: A Critical Analysis of State Violence and Migration Governance in Greece"
Author
Panagiotopoulou, Zacharoula
Term
4. semester
Education
Publication year
2026
Submitted on
2026-05-28
Abstract
This thesis examines how migration governance in Greece has been systematically transformed and argues that state violence has become an institutionalized element of neoliberal governance. It uses a layered theoretical framework – Foucault’s biopolitics (how states regulate life and bodies), Mbembe’s necropolitics (how states decide whose lives can be sacrificed), Arendt’s bureaucratic domination (power exercised through rules and administration), and Marxist structural violence (harm produced by social and economic structures) – to analyze how legal and administrative mechanisms are used to categorize, control, and exclude refugees. Using post-structuralist discourse analysis (Laclau and Mouffe), which studies how political decisions are shaped by language and narratives, the thesis investigates major policy shifts, including the Asylum Code (Law 4939/2022) and the "Safe Third Country" doctrine. These developments illustrate how Greece has functioned as a kind of "laboratory" for European migration management, where the protection of human dignity is deliberately subordinated to border security and national sovereignty. The thesis shows that exclusion does not only occur through explicit rejection, but also through a reinterpretation of the law that turns asylum into a geographically contingent and conditional status, dependent on where a person is located and which countries are classified as "safe".
Dette speciale undersøger, hvordan styringen af migration i Grækenland har ændret sig systematisk, og argumenterer for, at statens vold er blevet en indbygget del af en neoliberal form for styring. Med udgangspunkt i et sammensat teoretisk rammeværk – Foucaults biopolitik (hvordan staten regulerer liv og kroppe), Mbembes nekropolitik (hvordan staten afgør, hvem der kan ofres), Arendts bureaukratiske dominans (magt udøvet gennem regler og administrative systemer) og marxistisk strukturel vold (skade skabt af sociale og økonomiske strukturer) – analyserer specialet, hvordan love og administrative procedurer bruges til at klassificere, kontrollere og udelukke flygtninge. Ved hjælp af poststrukturalistisk diskursanalyse (Laclau og Mouffe), som undersøger, hvordan politiske beslutninger formes gennem sprog og fortællinger, ser specialet nærmere på centrale politiske ændringer, herunder Asylkoden (Lov 4939/2022) og doktrinen om "sikkert tredjeland". Disse politikker viser, hvordan Grækenland fungerer som et slags "laboratorium" for europæisk migrationsforvaltning, hvor beskyttelsen af menneskelig værdighed systematisk underordnes hensynet til grænsekontrol og national suverænitet. Specialet viser, at udelukkelse ikke kun sker gennem direkte afvisning, men gennem en nyfortolkning af lovgivningen, der gør asyl til en geografisk betinget og usikker status, afhængig af hvor en person befinder sig og hvilke lande, der anses som "sikre".
[This abstract has been rewritten with the help of AI based on the project's original abstract]
Keywords