Paper short abstract:

The paper shows that the construction of an (imagined) Eastern threat is instrumentalised by different actors who prefer (electoral) success over law and good neighbourly relations.

Paper long abstract:

Since 1990, draftees of the Austrian army have been stationed at the country's Eastern border as a reaction to the opening of borders with Eastern Europe and the expected increase in cross-border crime. This "support deployment" was initially planned to last no longer than ten weeks, but soon it appeared that the military's border security deployment could also serve other ends than mere security factors and has since then been prolonged over and over again. In scrutinising the strategies of the various actors involved, the paper shows that the support deployment can be considered an act of securitisation and is as such entirely decoupled from the actual policing of the Schengen internal border. It argues that the support deployment does not relate to an actual threat, but that the construction of an (imagined) Eastern threat is instrumentalised by different actors who prefer (electoral) success over law and good neighbourly relations.