Unending Puzzle

Incessant arguments and discussions regarding the legal status of Syrians and the policies addressed to them are the basic point of the origins of this study. The temporariness and vagueness of the legal status is stressed as the leading puzzle that opens the identities and imagery of Syrians to unceasing negotiations. Being one of the primary areas which circumscribes the policymaking and implementation processes, discursive sphere is considered as a substantial environment where the “symbolic politics” and “social constructions of target populations” are prominently manifested and affected the policy changes. Constant alterations and oscillations between the different framings of Syrian immigrants are simultaneously followed by transformations in policy implementation. A significant inference in this study that the policy implementation is quite flexible and malleable that social constructions of target groups can be heavily influential in legitimizing the policy programs is derived from the empirical observation. This research initiates the empirical study by carefully selecting the relevant newspaper narratives and the statements of governmental elites, which are considered to be the preeminent directors of the social constructions and eventually the changes in the implementation of the policies. ‘Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)’ is used as the primary method in order to understand the power relations between elites and the Syrian population, which is concretized with the policy approaches mostly against the favor of Syrians. This paper discusses the tangible effects of social construction of target groups to two interrelated policy implementations, which are “resettlement” and “voluntary repatriation”, with a qualitative approach based on interpretation of social framing, contextual determinants and the policy outcomes.