Solidarity in EU Immigration and Asylum Law: A Corpus Linguistic Analysis

Solidarity is one of the core concepts of the European Union. It is promulgated throughout EU primary and secondary legislation, as well as it is frequently called out by many politicians. However, it is not easy to determine the extent of the application of the principle of solidarity, or the lack thereof. Since the principle of solidarity has been so widely employed in a variety of fields, attaching to it multiple meanings, it has become extremely difficult to define its legal, political, and social meanings. The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the concept of solidarity, especially focusing on EU immigration and asylum law. Therefore, the chapter is divided into three main sections. In Sect. 10.2, a theoretical framework of the overall concept of solidarity is provided, drawing conceptualisations from multiple fields such as sociology, political sciences, and law and discussing how the concept of solidarity has been introduced and shaped within the EU context, its legal framework and specifically EU asylum and immigration law. Section 10.3 outlines the methodological approach by emphasising the applicability of quantitative methods to the language of the law through quantitative corpus linguistic analysis. In the last section, Sect. 10.4, the results of the analysis are presented, conclusions are made, some caveats of the analysis are illustrated, and a future research agenda is set out.