Nordic Exceptionalism? How Scandinavian Border and Coast Guards Rationalize Their Participation in Frontex Operations

Introduction

In 2020, the European Border and Coast Guard agency (Frontex) became embroiled in the largest pushback accusations against the agency to date, when investigative journalists revealed systematic pushbacks carried out by the Greek coast guard in the Aegean Sea under the auspices of Frontex’s Operation Poseidon (Christides et al. 2021; Waters, Freudenthal & Williams 2020). The allegations sparked intense media attention and critique by civil society actors, who have pointed to mounting evidence of Frontex’s disrespect of fundamental rights since the agency’s first operations off the West African coast in 2005 (BVMN 2020; HRW 2011). The claims that Frontex turned a blind eye to pushbacks – a practice deemed illegal by international and EU law, where refugees and migrants are barred from applying for asylum (Moreno-Lax 2017; Shachar 2020) – in its operational area led to a cascade of events. This included an internal investigation by Frontex’s Management Board, a fact-finding investigation by the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), scrutiny by the European Commission’s Directorate-General (DG) of Migration and Home Affairs, as well as an investigation by the European anti-fraud office (OLAF), who acted on an insider tip (European Parliament 2021b; Frontex 2021). Frontex’s Executive Director denied the allegations until OLAF found evidence of senior level knowledge and cover-up of the pushbacks, whereupon he resigned since the agency’s mandate had “silently but effectively been changed” (Barigazzi & Lynch 2022; Christides & Lüdke 2022).

These events tie in with a large body of literature which asserts that migration has become both criminalized and securitized in the EU over the last three decades, and that Frontex, as the operational agency in charge of protecting the external borders, has played a large part in this (Campesi 2022; Léonard & Kaunert 2020; Perkowski, Stierl & Burridge 2023). Less attention, however, has been given to how border and coast guards seconded to Frontex operations themselves understand their participation in them and negotiate this critique. Previous literature has focused on the discrepancy between Frontex’s humanitarian discourse and its securitizing practices on the ground (Aas & Gundhus 2015; Pallister-Wilkins 2015b), as well as how border guards and migration officials cope with the resulting ethical dilemmas in their work (Borrelli 2022; DeBono 2019). By drawing on six interviews with Scandinavian border and coast guards seconded to Frontex operations at the South-Eastern land and sea borders, the paper contributes to this literature by examining how the interviewees resist the criminalization of migration but contribute to its securitization through their everyday routine work.

In the securitization literature, securitizing acts are generally attributed to speeches made by European policymakers (Buzan, Wæver & Wilde 1998) or mundane practices carried out by bureaucrats working in the EU institutions (Bigo 2014; Bigo, Bonditti & Olsson 2016). Consequently, securitization tends to be treated as either explicit or tacit (except for Campesi 2022; Léonard & Kaunert 2020). In this article, I seek to bridge this norm/exception binary by treating securitization as a scale which oscillates between overt securitizations and implicit but nonetheless harmful ones (Waerp 2024). I apply this theoretical framework to analyze how the Scandinavian border and coast guards understand their role in Frontex operations, arguing that despite discursively resisting the criminalization of migration, they accept its securitization by continuing to participate in these security-oriented operations. I therefore distinguish between criminalization and securitization, the former which refers to the merging of crime control and migration control (Aas & Bosworth 2013; Franko 2019) and the latter which denotes the treatment of migration as a security treat (Buzan, Wæver & Wilde 1998). I treat criminalization, in the form of pushbacks and violations of fundamental rights, as more visible than securitization, which in this paper takes on a less conspicuous form as a general mindset towards irregularized migration (Bigo 2002).

This distinction is useful for my elaboration of Nordic exceptionalism, which refers to the interviewees’ belief that their own moral standards and work ethic are superior to that of their Southern, Eastern, and Central European counterparts (see Aas & Gundhus 2015 for similar findings; and Emilsson 2018 and Bevelander & Hellström 2019 for a similar use of the term “Swedish exceptionalism”). I examine how this sense of superiority rationalizes the Scandinavian border and coast guards’ participation in Frontex operations since they understand it to be for refugees and migrants own good, who would be better off in their hands than the Greek or Italian coast guards’. The results indicate that Nordic exceptionalism blinds the Scandinavian border and coast guards to their own banal securitization of migration by contrasting it with the explicit criminalization by their non-Nordic peers, which allows them to deflect blame and distance themselves from the suffering and deaths at the EU’s external borders (see Borrelli 2018).

The paper proceeds as follows: the first section details the concepts of banal securitization and Nordic exceptionalism, as well as how they speak to the literatures on securitization and criminalization. The second section describes how the interviews were carried out, while the third section explores how Nordic exceptionalism serves as a rationalizing strategy for the interviewees. A brief conclusion follows at the end.

Banal Securitization and Nordic Exceptionalism

The Copenhagen school of security studies draws attention to the discursive and intersubjective construction of securitization, whereby securitizing actors (e.g. policymakers) frame an issue (e.g. migration) as a security threat to a referent object (e.g. the EU), in trying to convince an audience (e.g. the public) that exceptional measures are necessary. These “securitizing moves” hence need to be accepted by an audience in order to be successful (Buzan, Wæver & Wilde 1998: 25). Despite this important role afforded to an imaginary audience in securitization theory, it has been criticized for being both under-theorized and under-researched (Aradau 2004; Balzacq 2005; Côté 2016). The paper contributes to this gap in the literature by focusing on the role of seconded border and coast guards to Frontex operations, treating them as a relevant audience for Frontex’s securitization of migration and examining how they resist and/or reproduce this securitization. It thus departs from the assumption that migration has already become securitized in EU border control and that Frontex is a securitizing actor (Follis 2018; Horii 2016; Paul 2017).

The paper therefore contributes empirically to the literatures on the securitization and criminalization of migration (see Aas & Bosworth 2013; Franko 2019; van der Woude, Barker & van der Leun 2017), analyzing how the Scandinavian border and coast guards negotiate the securitized context which they work in. It also makes a theoretical contribution to securitization theory by conceptualizing securitization as a continuum, where it shifts between an explicit and implicit form (see Léonard and Kaunert 2020). By doing so, it bridges the divide between the Copenhagen and the Paris school of security studies, opening for analysis of securitization’s fluid form, as well as how it occurs through both discourses and practices.

This conceptualization draws inspiration from Billig’s (1995) understanding of nationalism as having both “hot” and “banal’” variants, with the latter often being ignored by Western scholars on behalf of the former, which tends to be attributed to non-Western societies. Introducing the notion of banal securitization, the paper examines how the Scandinavian border and coast guards banally securitize migration through their day-to-day work, as well as how they fail to recognize this because of their focus on the explicitly criminalizing practices of the Greek and Italian coast guards, which they position themselves against by invoking a sense of Nordic exceptionalism. The term banal does not suggest that there is anything trivial about the securitization of migration, especially not for refugees and migrants, but is rather an attempt to direct attention towards routinized and everyday ways in which this occurs. As Billig (1995: 7) points out, despite the “reassuring normality” of banal nationalism, it is not “benign”, serving as readily for mobilization during times of crisis as its more extreme version (see Arendt’s 1965/2006 “banality of evil’”).

Nordic exceptionalism, on the other hand, is an emic term used to describe the interviewees’ view of themselves as being more professional and ethical than their non-Nordic colleagues, which for them is rooted in their background coming from countries where these values are ostensibly held in higher regard (see Aas & Gundhus 2015; Bevelander & Hellström 2019; Björling 2022; Emilsson 2018). While used in criminology to refer to the Nordic countries’ comparatively less punitive penal systems (Crewe et al. 2023; Pratt & Eriksson 2014), this paper understands Nordic exceptionalism as a rationalizing strategy for the interviewees to make sense of their participation in what they see as problematic operations coordinated by Frontex. The analysis investigates how Nordic exceptionalism serves as a coping mechanism for the interviewees, which allows them to justify their continued participation in Frontex operations to themselves by differentiating themselves from their Southern, Central, and Eastern European peers, whom they believe subject refugees and migrants to harmful and illegal practices (see Borrelli 2018 for ignorance as a coping mechanism among police and migration officers). The feeling of some sense of Nordic exceptionalism thus becomes a way for them to resolve the moral dilemmas arising from their work (see Ekstedt 2023 for how European Asylum Agency caseworkers deal with working in a normatively complex field).

The paper hence mobilizes a critical constructivist approach, drawing attention to the seemingly trivial and unremarkable (Billig 1995; Kristensen 2019) in EU border control, which still has devastating consequences for the people trying to cross increasingly inaccessible borders.

Method

The paper draws on six semi-structured interviews (conducted between 2020–21) with Swedish and Danish border and coast guards and one informal conversation with a Nordic Frontex Management Board member. The interviews include one Danish police officer with a background in the navy, one Swedish document expert from Swedish border police (Gränspolisen region syd), and four Swedish coast guards (Kustbevakningen). The focus on seconded officers was a result of difficulty of getting access to Frontex’s standing corps members through Frontex’s press office, which processes interview requests. The Danish police officer was referred to me through snowballing, whereas the Swedish border and coast guards were found on their respective websites and contacted by email. The interviewees have all been seconded to different Frontex operations between 2015–20, including Triton in the Central Mediterranean, Poseidon in the Aegean Sea, as well as in Hungary and Albania (see appendix for list of interviews). All but one had extensive experience in their role before their secondments, and all had been on multiple operations.

The interviewees were informed that they could talk freely about their work and how they experienced being part of Frontex operations. Concrete questions related to their everyday work and challenging aspects of it. It was expected that the interviewees would be sympathetic to the security discourse surrounding irregularized migration due to the nature of their work, but I was nevertheless interested in seeing how it was discursively maneuvered by them and how they dealt with moral qualms about their work (see Bigo 2014 for a similar study; or Ekstedt 2023 for “trained indifference” among asylum caseworkers). The interviews were coded thematically in order to discern overarching themes, where both banal securitization and Nordic exceptionalism stood out. The interviews were thus analyzed abductively, where I brought an “open” rather than an “empty” mind to them (Atkinson 2015: 58). I focused not only on what the interviewees’ said but also how they said it (Gubrium & Holstein 2001), treating their accounts as discursive performances that need to be analyzed at a critical distance (Hammersley 2014).

The interviewees were informed about the aims of the research, that participation was voluntary, that they could withdraw their consent at any time without giving a reason, that they would be pseudonymized, and that their personal data would be handled in accordance with the GDPR and Malmö university’s guidelines on data protection. The interviews lasted around an hour and were carried out in English or one of the Scandinavian languages. They were recorded and transcribed in verbatim, with the recordings being deleted afterwards. The contact list was stored on an encrypted USB in a locker that only I had access to. No personal information except for this was stored and no sensitive information was gathered from the participants. The project was vetted by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (Etikprövningsmyndigheten, ref. no. 2019-05730), which means that it is found to meet the requirements of Swedish law regarding research with human subjects (Regeringskansliet 2003).

Nordic Exceptionalism as a Rationalizing Strategy

This section analyses how the Scandinavian border and coast guards defend their participation in Frontex operations by drawing on the notion of Nordic exceptionalism. It explores how their perception of being more professional and ethical than their colleagues from Southern, Central, and Eastern European member states allows them to simultaneously distance themselves from what they consider to be questionable practices while advocating for their continued participation in these operations. The analysis shows how Nordic exceptionalism enables the Scandinavian border and coast guards to discursively resist explicitly criminalizing practices, while numbing them to their own banal securitization of migration (Bigo 2002; Billig 1995). The following illustrates that Nordic exceptionalism, as a rationalizing strategy, allows these frontline workers to navigate restrictive EU border control policies by voicing opposition to them while at the same time complying with their implementation on the ground (see Lipsky 2010 for discretion in street-level bureaucracies). Nordic exceptionalism thus becomes a way for them to resolve the ethical dilemmas pertaining to their work (see Vandevoordt 2018 for the “emotional labor” involved in dealing with conflicting rationales).

The above is illustrated by the Swedish coast guards’ emphasis on the importance of fundamental rights in their operations and that this was one of their main contributions to Frontex operations, in addition to saving lives (see also Aas & Gundhus 2015).¹ When asked whether he considered that their operations in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas had been successful, one of the interviewees emphasized that “I feel that every time we go down and help – no matter which Nordic country does it – we make a very big difference” (interview 8/3/21). He elaborated why this was the case:

Here we see how the Nordic member states’ contribution to Frontex operations is framed as positive due to their stronger morals and work ethic compared to both Frontex and other member states, whom the interviewees imply should learn from them. The quote illustrates how the Swedish coast guard sees itself as a human rights watchdog in Frontex operations, which resolves any concerns the interviewees might have had with participating in them (see Vandevoordt 2018 for how dilemmas (dis)appear for frontline workers). Nordic exceptionalism was also evident in one of the interviewees’ motivations for participating in Frontex operations, which was “to make a difference” (interview 4/3/20). While innocuous, this adds a new dimension to the “victim-savior logic” that characterizes EU border control (Pallister-Wilkins 2015b), where the Scandinavian border and coast guards save refugees and migrants not only from unscrupulous smugglers but the Greek and Italian coast guard as well.

The interviewees noted several incidents of what they considered to be malpractice by the host member state’s coast guard, which in their eyes put refugees and migrants even more at risk. One example was the Greek coast guard’s practice of transferring refugees and migrants from their own boat to the coast guard vessel instead of escorting them to shore, which the Swedish coast guards described as dangerous because of high waves on the open sea and the risk that the migrant boat capsizes and people drown, especially when the transfers take place in the dark (interviews 4/3/20, 2/3/21). They described one such case which led to the coast guard vessel colliding with the migrant vessel.² The Swedish coast guards’ feelings of professional superiority thus rationalize their participation in Frontex operations, since they believe that they can change them for the better.

The sentiment of Nordic exceptionalism is also apparent in the interviewees’ emphasis on communication issues with the host state (Italy, Greece, Albania, and Hungary), with one of the Swedish coast guards underlining that it was easier to cooperate with other Nordic countries, explaining how the Icelanders briefed them before they went to the Mediterranean in 2015 and how the Finns helped them check the boats before patrol (interview 8/3/21). He added that it “also works well with the Portuguese” and other nationalities, but the preference was for Nordics who shared their mindset and working methods. The Swedish coast guards’ sense of superior ways of working is evident in the quote below, with the interviewee boasting that their standard operating procedures (SOPs) for search and rescue (SAR) had become adopted by Frontex:

Here we see the EU-wide diffusion of Nordic exceptionalism in the form of the Swedish coast guard’s SOPs, which includes not only a supposedly superior practical logic (i.e. preventing the boats from overturning) but also a superior attitude (that is, remaining “calm”), which makes refugees and migrants feel “safer” than if they were rescued by someone else. This portrayal of their own SAR operations, by contrast, implies that the response of other member states’ coast guards is chaotic and characterized by boats overturning (the Italian coast guard was implicitly linked to these descriptions). In the Swedish coast guards’ view, order meets disorder here, with them patiently reinstating control in this disorderly situation at sea, acting as the voice of reason in EU border control. By drawing on the notion of Nordic exceptionalism, the Scandinavian border and coast guards are thus able to both criticize problematic aspects of Frontex operations while at the same time insulate themselves from critique by civil society actors by arguing that they help improve the overall standards of the operations, which saves lives (see also Pallister-Wilkins 2015a).

Nordic exceptionalism hence provides them with a moral alibi for participating in these operations (see Borrelli & Lindberg 2018 for the “moral balancing acts” of migration and border officials). This is further demonstrated by one of the Swedish coast guard’s concern that Frontex’s standing corps will be mostly composed of officers from Eastern European member states because of the low pay grade, which he fears will lead to lower standards in the operations:³

Nordic exceptionalism is in this context linked to the whole of Western Europe, which is seen as having more liberal attitudes towards refugees and migrants, presumably translating into how these border and coast guards treat them during operations. Apart from being generalizing and stigmatizing, the quote illustrates the usefulness of Nordic exceptionalism as a frame in which to understand how the Scandinavian border and coast guards rationalize their work in the ethically charged field of EU border control, going to great lengths to separate themselves from Frontex and other member states’ dubious practices. They therefore discursively resist the criminalization and attendant de-humanization of migration while at the same time being complicit in its banal securitization through their daily work and continued participation in Frontex operations (see Bigo 2002 and Billig 1995 for the banal reproduction of securitizing practices and nationalism, respectively).⁴

The intricate link between resistance and complicity is further evident in the Swedish coast guards’ reflections on the serious incident report (SIR) they lodged during Operation Poseidon Sea in 2020, which was part of the mediatized pushback allegations against Frontex that culminated in the resignation of the Executive Director two years later (Barigazzi & Lynch 2022; Waters, Freudenthal & Williams 2020):

This quote shows how Nordic exceptionalism facilitates blame shifting and responsibility evasion for the negative consequences of their work, with the interviewee contending that after reporting an incidence of suspected pushbacks Sweden has done its job and that it is then up to others to “do what they are supposed to” (see Waerp 2024 for a similar tendency among Frontex and DG Home officials). This exemplifies how by focusing on clear-cut cases of criminalization of migration, the Scandinavian border and coast guards fail to see their own less noticeable role in its securitization (à la the Paris school), which is no less harmful. Responsibility evasion is also evident in the quote by another Swedish coast guard, who refused any responsibility for what happens to refugees and migrants outside of their immediate care:

The above again demonstrates the Swedish coast guard’s discursive resistance towards criminalization, being critical of the reported pushbacks taking place in the Mediterranean. In contrast, the interviewee draws on a humanitarian discourse in rationalizing his work, which for him was to rescue people at sea and respect their fundamental rights (see also DeBono 2019). The security framing of migration remains unquestioned, however, with the quote also indicating the limited scope of Nordic exceptionalism, with the Swedish coast guards considering their job to be done after disembarkation, with whatever happens to people next being member states’ responsibility (see Pallister-Wilkins 2015b). The following further illustrates this:

The limits of Nordic exceptionalism are also evident in the quote by the Danish police officer, who described pullbacks as the “best” way to save lives at sea:

This shows that securitization is not absent in the Scandinavian border and coast guards’ accounts of their work, but that it features in a less remarkable way than is the case for traditional accounts of securitization theory (see Buzan, Wæver & Wilde 1998; cf. Bigo 2002). This form of banal securitization is also present in the quote by one of the Swedish coast guards, who emphasized the complementarity of border patrol and search and rescue:

Although this interviewee discursively resists the criminalization of migration by emphasizing the right to asylum, the “care and control duality” (Pallister-Wilkins 2015b) is still present in the operations, which have both police and health care personnel onboard, with the refugees and migrants being perceived as a potential risk to the crew and Europe at large while also being at risk of dehydration or hypothermia (see Aradau 2004). Nordic exceptionalism here justifies the Swedish coast guard’s participation in Frontex operations since it provides them leeway in how they implement EU border controls, trying to uphold humanitarian values in a security-dominated field, while simultaneously obscuring their banal securitization of migration.

Nordic exceptionalism also came to the fore in the border and coast guards’ descriptions of culture differences in Frontex operations and how this complicated their work (see Aas & Gundhus 2015 for similar experiences among Norwegian border guards). This is clear in the quote by a female Swedish border police about her experience of gender inequality during deployments:

Participating in Frontex operations was seen as rewarding but also challenging for the Scandinavian border and coast guards, who found the context that they were working in very different from what they were used to at home. To them, these ways of doing things were also inferior to their own (described as “messy” or “macho” above), which the Swedish border police’s description of the Hungarian border guards’ work ethic illustrates:

While acknowledging the Hungarian border guards’ heavy workload, the interviewee is frustrated that they do not do their job ‘properly’ or cooperate with seconded Frontex officers in solving detected cases. This shows that Nordic exceptionalism serves as a benchmark for the Scandinavian border and coast guards, for which they compare non-Nordic member states’ operational practices to the standards and methods that they are used to from their home countries. This is further illustrated by the Swedish border police’s admittance that in the beginning she struggled to accept the fact that they were not there to monitor the Hungarian police but to help them (interview 8/2/21). The Swedish coast guards described similar experiences in Greece and Italy, listing bureaucracy, politics, and doubtful ethics as obstacles to doing their work:

This quote illustrates explicit discursive resistance among the Swedish coast guards towards the criminalization of migration in EU border control, while at the same time demonstrating their complicity in practice by following the Greeks’ ‘unethical’ recommendations. As such, it is a less overt form of securitization which is more easily overlooked than the pushbacks by the Greek and Italian coast guards (see Bigo 2002; Billig 1995), although it lends legitimacy to these. Nordic exceptionalism facilitates this simultaneous form of resistance/complicity, with the interviewee trying to come to terms with these operational practices which deviate from what he considers to be “normal seafaring standards”. Whereas firemen start fires rather than put them out in Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, in this operational environment coast guards put peoples’ lives at further risk rather than save them. Understanding their role as saving lives at sea and ensuring access to asylum, the Swedish coast guard’s role is hence inverted in Frontex operations.

This is also illustrated in their assessment of Frontex’s (mis)handling of their serious incidence report of a suspected pushback, initially trying to dissuade them from filing the report and later restricting the public’s access to it. This prompted several of the Swedish coast guards to reconsider their participation in future Frontex operations:

Although being critical of the lack of human rights safeguards in Frontex operations, we see here how the belief in Nordic exceptionalism allows the Swedish coast guards to legitimize their continued participation in these in order to diffuse their best practices to Frontex and non-Western European member states, who are seen as being in need of them. Instead of withdrawing, their possibility to “have eyes on the ground” become a reason for them to enhance the operations from within. When asked about lessons learned from the 2015 ‘migration crisis’, one of the Swedish coast guards emphasized that “both Frontex and those we worked with got to see a bit how we work and I hope they appreciated that way” (interview 17/3/21). Similarly, his colleague singled out Nordic countries’ “perspective on humanity” as their main contribution to Frontex operations:

Being humane and rule-oriented are here explicated as essential features of Nordic exceptionalism, which is seen as positive for Frontex operations, which lack these qualities. As this section has shown, Nordic exceptionalism does two things: 1) it rationalizes the Scandinavian border and coast guards’ participation in Frontex operations since it is for refugees and migrants’ own good, and 2) it enables the more banal securitization of migration through their everyday routine practices. By introducing the notion of banal securitization, the preceding has demonstrated how the Scandinavian border and coast guards resist the criminalization of migration while they reproduce banal securitization: the former discursively and the latter in practice. Nordic exceptionalism allows them to distance themselves from what they see as sub-standard or straightforward illegal practices, and at the same time to call for their continued participation in Frontex operations by claiming that it is beneficial for not only refugees and migrants but Frontex and other member states as well. This, in turn, enables the Scandinavian border and coast guards to shift both blame and responsibility for fundamental rights violations committed during these operations, with the result that securitization becomes increasingly normalized in EU border control (see Waerp 2024). Nordic exceptionalism thus facilitates the normalization of banal securitization in this field.

Conclusion

This paper has examined how Scandinavian border and coast guards rationalize their participation in Frontex operations. By drawing on interviews with Swedish and Danish officers seconded to Frontex operations, it explored their accounts through the prism of Nordic exceptionalism: their belief that Nordic border and coast guards have a higher moral standing and are more professional than non-Nordic ones. Being inspired by securitization theory (Bigo 2002; Buzan, Wæver & Wilde 1998) and Billig’s (1995) banal nationalism, the paper advanced the notion of banal securitization, which draws attention to the less noteworthy but nonetheless ubiquitous ways in which migration is securitized through routine everyday practices. Understanding securitization as a scale which ranges from banal to explicit, the paper argued that by focusing on the overtly criminalizing practices of the Greek and Italian coast guards, the Scandinavian border and coast guards failed to recognize what is hidden in plain sight: their own banal securitization. Nordic exceptionalism thus serves a dual function: 1) it justifies the Scandinavian border and coast guards’ participation in Frontex operations since it is for refugees and migrants’ best interest, and 2) it furthers the banal securitization of migration in EU border control, with the result that securitization becomes increasingly normalized.

As such, the paper makes a theoretical contribution to securitization theory, widening the concept of securitization to include both banal and explicit forms as well as discourses and practices (see Bigo 2002; Buzan, Wæver & Wilde 1998). It also contributes empirically to literatures on the securitization and criminalization of migration, focusing on the role of Scandinavian border and coast guards as a relevant audience of Frontex’s securitization and how the guards negotiate this in the execution of their everyday tasks. The paper elucidated how the interviewees resisted criminalization discursively but nevertheless became complicit in reproducing securitization in practice, both of which were enabled by their belief in Nordic exceptionalism. How border and coast guards understand their role in the morally fraught field of border control is an important avenue for future research, especially considering that Frontex – the largest EU agency – is operating further away from the external borders and is set to have its own standing corps of 10,000 border guards by 2027.

Competing Interests

The author has no competing interests to declare.