Collective Memories of War and Forced Displacement and Their Role in the (De)Securitization of Migration

This article examines how collective memories of historical victimization and present-day immigration threat perceptions are associated with public support for restrictive immigration policies. Focusing on Greece, a country scarred by legacies of war, forced displacement, and longstanding geopolitical rivalry with Turkey, we develop an interdisciplinary framework that integrates Securitization Theory with psychological research on collective victimhood and historical moral lessons. Drawing on original, representative survey data and OLS regression analysis, we show that while both present-day immigration threat perceptions and Perpetual Ingroup Victimhood Orientation (PIVO) are significantly associated with support for restrictive immigration policies, PIVO – the belief that one's group is perpetually a victim – emerges as the strongest statistical predictor. These findings challenge presentist biases in (de)securitization research, uncovering the relevance of symbolic structures and historical consciousness in how audiences evaluate security claims. In Greece, public support for restrictive policies is conditioned by a broader macrosecuritizing logic rooted in national trauma and civilizational struggle, where moral lessons of reciprocity and humanitarian obligation coexist with defensive scripts linked to historical grievance. This article advances a history-sensitive approach to (de)securitization research and highlights the role of psycho-cultural dispositions in the durability of migration securitization in contexts marked by unresolved historical tensions.