Anti-Migrants Moral Panic and Hegemonic Decision Making

The proposed project is seeking to broaden research on moral panics through a development of insights about the hegemonic decision-making as articulated in Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory. The present scholarship on moral panics shows that the origin al model was formulated in a homogenous moral culture of the 1960s and therefore constrained the analysis on active role of the folk devils. Later formulations asserted that model should pay more attention to the interactions between moral panics entrepre neurs and folk devils who try to fight back. This approach lies at the heart of the most recent research on moral panics which is focused on how different moral ideas struggle for attention and domination in a social landscape that tolerates such a compet ition. Therefore it becomes a necessity to examine how social actors compete for constituting different cognitive structures in multicultural societies and eventually how hegemony over interpretative frameworks of morality and social harm is achieved. In Norway an empirical research will be conducted to reveal: firstly, how the migrants have mobilised cultural resources to dampen the legitimacy of the anti-migrants discourses, and how racially-tolerant institutions have perpetuated policies in immigration and management of social harmony. Secondly, while there have been produced many studies on the role of interest groups in stirring anti-migrants moral panics very little is known how they recruit participants. Thus this project will attempt to examine ho w anti-migrant interest groups recruit participants, that is, how they construct panic discourse, which creates points of resonance with the public. As a result of this project a publication will be produced and submitted to an academic journal. The purpo se of this research is also meant to cement the relationship with scholars from the University of Bergen (IMER) and to extend this collaboration further through the EU's 7th Framework Programme.