Securitization as a Political Practice Analysis Tool
At the heart of critical security theories lies the notion that security and threats are the outcome of social constructs, predominantly shaped by prevailing discourses. When threats are processed through a specific security format, the âdiscussion of security is a discussion of threatâ (WĂŠver 2011: 472â473, emphasis in original) and the issue at hand, having been securitized, merits emergency attention and extraordinary measures (Buzan et al. 1998; WĂŠver 1995). Thus, securitization is the process where issues turn into matters of security through political intervention; these âsecurity mattersâ are then taken outside the boundaries of normal politics and the mainstream ârules of the gameâ and are subsequently treated as special kinds of politics or beyond politics, therefore potentially justifying actions that fall out of the ordinary political procedures (Buzan et al. 1998: 23â24). The âhandlingâ of the issue no longer takes place in the sphere of normal politics as it is moved in the realm of emergency politics and if these (alleged) threats are not dealt with urgently and accordinglyâeven outside the realm of normal politicsâthen everything else will become irrelevant (WĂŠver 1995: 104).
The study of securitization is essentially a mechanism to help us analyze political practice. Vuoriâs (2008) work helps elucidate why this is the case by separating securitization into four strands, where each one is used to achieve one of the following four goals:
- a.To raise an issue on the agenda.
- b.To act as deterrence.
- c.To legitimize past acts or reproduce existing securitization.
- d.To acquire more control.
In the first caseâraising an issue on the agendaâsecuritization is used as a warning mechanism aiming to bring an issue to the attention of the appropriate decision-makers in a position to take the relevant measures to handle a specific perceived threat. In this case therefore, the actors who initiate the process are not necessarily the ones asking for access to, or tolerance for, extraordinary measures; they are rather the âmessengersâ who bring the issue to the appropriate agents (e.g. political elite) who can actually do something about the said potential threat (ibid.: 77).
The second strandâdeterrenceârefers to securitizing acts aimed at legitimizing activities that have not yet occurred, but are likely to occur in the future. The goal therefore is to âjustify actions that would otherwise be judged illegitimate by the evaluators of legitimacyâ (ibid.: 79â80). In this case, the âevaluatorsâ are audiences such as journalists and voters, while the actors are usually the decision-makers and political or military elite who can take action to handle a perceived threat, but still require the legitimacy for the necessary tolerance or access to measures to carry out the actions they deem necessary.
The third strandâlegitimization of past actions and reproduction of ongoing securitizationâis not about the future but about the past and the present. The goal in this case is to legitimize past actions that were deemed as illegitimate by the âevaluatorsâ (ibid.: 84â85). This is particularly useful for securitizing actors who, as discussed later, would like to portray themselves as the most âsuitable agentsâ to handle a particular kind of threats. This is even more important in cases where threats are part of the peopleâs routines and are thus constantly repeated.
The final strandâacquisition of controlârefers to securitizing acts aimed at granting the actor more control. In this case the actor is someone in a formal position with the ability to âauthorize compelling directivesâ (ibid.: 88). The aim of the actor in this case is âto get the audience to do the acts required by the actor or to forbid them from doing certain actsâ (ibid.).
The four strands analyzed above provide a more lucid picture of the motivations behind the different âkindsâ of securitizing actors, and equally importantly, even though it is not explicitly stated in Vuoriâs specific work, they also refer to the presence of multiple audiences. By incorporating several different audiences in the analysis, the theory becomes much more coherent in regards to identifying âwhoâ the specific audience is for each kind of securitizing act, and what it would take, in terms of audience approval, for an act to be successful.
Given the aforementioned broad approaches for securitization as a political practice analysis tool, it is not surprise that the theory has been used to study security-related issues and processes in several areas such as terrorism (Buzan 2006), immigration (Bigo 2002, 2005; Bigo and Walker 2002; Alexseev 2011), human security (Floyd 2007), environment (Wishnick 2010) and womenâs rights (Hansen 2000). It is also used to explain inter-state security relationships, with a central role in the literature of Regional Security Complexes (RSC), which are defined as âa set of units whose major processes of securitization, desecuritization or both, are so interlinked that their security problems cannot be reasonably analyzed or resolved apart from one anotherâ (Buzan et al. 1998: 201).
At the core of securitization lies the idea that security is J. L. Austinâs (1967) notion of speech act; thus, by labeling something as a security issue, something is done. In other words, âthe utterance itself is the actâ; âthe word âsecurityâ is the actâ (WĂŠver 1995: 55, emphasis in original). For an act to be considered successful the securitizing actor needs to convince a significant audienceâone that would grant the actor the access and legitimacy it requests. The securitizing moveâthat is, the labeling of an issue as an existential threat for a specific referent objectâdoes not necessarily constitute securitization. For the latter to happen the audience must accept the securitizing move, or at least tolerate it (Buzan et al. 1998: 25). As Watson notes, âan issue is securitized only if and when the audience accepts it as such, and securitization is not decided by the securitizer, but by the audienceâ (2012: 284). Thus, the securitizing act is a negotiation between the securitizing actor and the audience (ibid.: 26) and security, in the securitization theory, is the derivative of a discursive process where âthreats are represented and recognizedâ (Williams 2003: 513). Subsequently, securitization success lies in the production of a âsecurity labelâ that will be supported or tolerated by an audience (WĂŠver 1995: 50). This approach connotes that the presence of a ârealâ or actual threat is not a prerequisite for a successful securitizing act and the access to the subsequent extraordinary measures required to deal with the perceived threat.
While securitizing attempts (acts) are easily observable, especially in the era of phobia for immigration and Islam, the âacceptanceâ or not of the act by the necessary audience is much more difficult to determine with high confidence. Buzan et al. (1998) argue that if an act gains enough âresonanceâ it should be seen as a form of acceptance. But as the authors admit even resonance is difficult to assess (ibid.: 25). An equally important challenge is determining who constitutes the audience for each securitizing act. According to Buzan et al. (1998: 41) the audience is âthose the securitizing act attempts to convince to accept exceptional procedures because of the specific security nature of some issuesâ. But as Leonard and Kaunert (2011: 59) point out there is no criteria to âidentify who exactly constitutes the audience in practiceâ. Perhaps a more important gap, which is discussed in greater detail later, is that theory does not recognize the presence of multiple audiences for each issue and act. The role of audience(s) in the theory is an issue that receives growing attention in the literature and is discussed in detail later in the book.
Unsurprisingly not all securitizing acts are successful and, equally unsurprisingly, unsuccessful cases are rarely analyzed and theorized in the literature. One of the notable exceptions is Salter (2011) who used counter-terrorism programs in the US as a case study to offer three approaches of why failure occurs, namely ânormal failuresâ (the outcome of competing bureaucracies in a complex society and that of accidents that could occur in such societies; âinternal failuresâ (those moves that fail to meet the grammatical conditions of the act, namely to portray the threat as political and as existential); and âexternal failuresâ (the acts that meet the grammatical conditions, but are rejected by the audiences) (ibid.: 122â126). What is missing from the literatureâand is discussed at a later stageâis how routinized and resilient securitizing acts may oscillate between success and failure in terms of how much resonance they enjoy by the relevant audience.
Securitization Challenges
This section highlights some of the criticisms leveled against securitization, focusing more on those that are more directly relevant to the main premise of the book. One of the primary criticisms of the theory is the danger of broadening the security agenda, emphasizing the risk of diluting the meaning of security and the danger of not being able to differentiate between existential and ordinary risks Huysmans (2006: 500). This is indeed a very interesting criticism and more relevant in the era of populism and the use of social media. The counter-argument to this criticism is that security is tied to a specific figure or fixed form, namely that of the speech of securitization, thus avoiding the everything-becomes-a-security trap (WĂŠver 2011: 469). For this book, the issue of âwhat is an existential security threatâ is central, not because the security agenda was broadenedâas was the aforementioned criticismâbut rather because in protracted conflict environments the existential threat may also become an âordinaryâ risk in the sense that the audience(s) become accustomed to the existential and treat it as ordinary and âexpectedâ. In such cases, where there is a conflation of the âexistentialâ and the âordinaryâ risks, the theory faces analytical and practical challenges. For instance, at what point does the request for extraordinary measures, if it is repeated enough, become a routine or âordinaryâ political procedure? Similarly, do repetitive security-oriented speeches aiming to securitize become ordinary political discourses at some point, and not securitizing acts? Furthermore, one should consider the impact on the intersubjective process between the actors and the audience(s).
The latter issue is linked to one more relevant criticism, namely the under-explored role of the audience, or audiences to be more precise. Specifically, there a challenge to identify âwhoâ the audience is and equally importantly, its role in the process. Vuori, in line with the mainstream reading of the theory, argues that an audience qualifies as an audience only if it is in a position to provide access to what the actor wants (Vuori 2008: 72). This approach to audience(s) is very clear and useful when the securitizing actorâs request is tangible and requires a specific action. For instance, if an actor claims the need to declare a region a state of emergency and requests the use of troops and a budget to deal with the issue. In this case if the Parliament is the body that could authorize such measures, then the audience is clearly the Parliament as it is the only one tha...