Securitization of Marriage Immigration in Taiwan

Applying Securitization theory, the thesis suggests that security is socially constructed. It is an outcome of a specific social process. Through speech acts, or the articulation of an issue in security terms, Taiwan’s government officials present Mainland China and Southeast Asian marriage immigrants issues as security issues and define related things as an urgent existential threat to the security of Taiwan. Due to its declared urgency, it provides Taiwan’s government officials with the right to legitimize the imposition of emergency, and extraordinary measures transcending standard political procedures to block the threat and handle the issue. mong the seven issues discussed, only in two of them the securitizing moves failed. The thesis conclude some possible cause of the seven issues, and applying internal and external conditions to explain why certain securitizing moves are successful while the others are not. The result shows that Securitization Theory is a proper framework to understand the dynamics between Taiwan’s government officials’securitizing discourse and civil groups and scholars’desecuritizing discourse.