Date: Friday 13 June

Time: 15-16.30PM

Location: Room 207, 10 The Square, University of Glasgow 

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This interactive session explores how public attitudes towards migrants are shaped, contested and reshaped by security politics, emotions, and historical memory. As societies confront rising hostility toward migrants and refugees, our speakers examine how empathy can reduce perceived threats, how memories of past displacement can inform present responses, and how we can better understand the relational success or failure of securitsation contests.

Featuring lightning presentations by Georgios Karyotis (University of Glasgow), Andrew McNeill (Queen’s University Belfast), and Dimitris Skleparis (Newcastle University), the workshop will spotlight recent research published in International Studies Review and European Journal of International Security and unfold an evolving agenda for securitisation research and interdisciplinary connections.

The session is especially relevant for PGRs, early-career researchers, and practitioners interested in migration, security, political behaviour, and normative political theory. The second half is dedicated to open discussion and networking - an opportunity to share your research, build collaborations, and reflect on how scholarship can contribute to reversing perceived antagonisms in divided societies.

Programme 

Part I – Research Presentations (45 minutes)

Three lightning talks presenting recent and ongoing research.

  1. Understanding Securitisation Success: A New Analytical Framework
    Prof. Georgios Karyotis (University of Glasgow)
    Published in International Studies Review (2025), this paper introduces a new conceptual framework for analysing the success of securitisation processes, proposing ideal types to study how security is made, what it does over time, and for whom.
  2. Intersubjective Empathy and the Desecuritisation of Migration: Assessing Public Attitudes and Support for Refugees in the UK
    Dr Andrew McNeill (Queen’s University Belfast)
    Published in European Journal of International Security (2025), this article proposes and tests a novel construct —intersubjective empathy— that captures citizens’ ability to accurately recognise refugee emotions. Findings show this mechanism reduces perceived threat and increases the motivation to care for refugees.
  3. Collective Memories of War and Forced Displacement and Their Role in the (De)Securitisation of Migration
    Dr Dimitris Skleparis (Newcastle University)
    This ongoing project examines how collective memories of past conflict and forced migration shape both elite discourse and public receptiveness to the securitisation of contemporary migration, with a focus on historical continuity, trauma, and narrative structure.

Part II – Open Discussion (45 minutes)

Discussion Theme: An Agenda for Securitisation Research

A participatory session in which PGRs and colleagues are invited to:

  • Share their own research on migration, (de)securitisation, or adjacent themes
  • Reflect on empirical and methodological challenges
  • Explore intersections with psychology, memory studies, migration, and public attitudes
  • Build interdisciplinary and cross-institutional connections

 

Speaker Biographies

Prof. Georgios Karyotis is Professor of Security Politics and co-lead of the Peaceful, Secure and Empowered Societies research network at the University of Glasgow. His research focuses on securitisation theory, political behaviour, crisis governance, and migration, and he has published extensively on both theoretical innovation and public opinion in security contexts.

Dr Andrew McNeill is Lecturer in Psychology at Queen's University Belfast. A political psychologist, his work investigates how personal and collective experiences of suffering influence intergroup perceptions, affective empathy, and policy attitudes—particularly in post-conflict societies.

Dr Dimitris Skleparis is Senior Lecturer in the Politics of Security at Newcastle University. His research explores how migration is governed, portrayed, and experienced amid conditions of conflict and insecurity. He adopts interdisciplinary and mixed-method approaches to examine the dynamics between state, non-state, and societal actors.

 

First published: 9 June 2025

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