International Security and Peace/ Kim Jaechun How useful is the concept, "securitization"? What are the promises and limits of this International Security and Peace/ Kim Jaechun Mª Belén Solís Ríos (I38039)

Context During the World wars, security was denoted as a synonym to power as the states seemed to be in constant struggle for power in the anarchic international arena. In the post-Cold War era, the conept of security became multifaceted and complex A circle of European scholar, known as the Copenhagen School attempted to provide an analytical framework using the central organising concept of "securitzation" to point to the discursive construction of particular issues as security threats

Concept of Securitization Securitization is a process-oriented concept of security. It examines how a certain issue is transformed by an actor into a matter a security  Securitization aims to understand “who securitizes (securitizing actor), on what issues (threats), for whom (referent object), why, with what results, and not least, under what conditions” Therefore, securitization can be viewed as the process through which non-politicized (issues are not talked about) or politicized (issues are publicly debated) issues are elevated to security issues that need to be dealt with urgency, and that legitimate the bypassing of public debate and democratic procedures Securitization theory is in the foreground of social constructivist security studies and serves as a theoretical bridge between the realists and the social constructivists

Securitization Spectrum Non-politicized The state does not cope with the issue The issue is not included in the public debate Politicized The issue is managed within the standard political system It is “part of public policy, requiring government decesion and resource allocations or, more rarely, somo form of communal governance’ (Buzan, 1998) Securitized The issue is framed as a security question through an act of securitization A securitizing actor articulates an already politicized issue as an existencial threat to a referent objet Source: Emmers

Securitization in Different Sectors There are five different sectors of security in which securitization could take place:  Five sectors do not operate in isolation from each other. Each defines a focal point within the security problematique, and a way of ordering priorities, but all are woven together in a strong web of linkage.

Securitization in Different Sectors Societal security is possibly the most intriguing of the five to consider. While it is difficult to separate it from the political sector, societal threats are about identity and the balance (or lack thereof) that can be found within any given state.  Weak states are often ill-equipped to deal with differences in identity and culture. Most conflicts that are prevalent now are those that have a societal element The environmental sector also proves difficult to define and can be considered the most controversial of the five sectors

The Copenhagen School (CPH School) The Copenhagen School has been particularly successful in developing a concept that has found a place in the lexicon of international relations thought, evidenced by the number and scope of publications working with its central concept of ‘securitisation’ or some variation of it The authors, most famous are Barry Buzan and Ole Waeve. They increased the emphasis on the role of constituencies or audiences in ‘backing up’ speech acts (Buzan, 1998) The CPH School’s conceptualization of securitization means, in its simplest form, the setting of national security as the supreme yardstick for all political considerations The Copenhagen School rest on a constructivist epistemology that sees security matters as the things people talk about – the things we people negotiate and accept The speech act is the center of this theory. It is not interesting as a sign referring to something more real; it is the utterance itself that is the act. By saying the words, something is done (like betting, giving a promise, naming a ship)’

How and How Who are securitizing actors? Governments, political elites, military, and civil society. Those actors who securitize an issue by articulating the existence of threats to the survival of specific referent objects How they securitize? Through speech act How is a process of securitization completed? Securitizing actors use the lenguage of security (speech act) to convince a specific audience of the existential nature of threat. The act of securitization is complete once the relevant audience is convinced of the existential threat to the referent object

Limits of Securitization Global level of complex processes in accommodation, rejection and reformulation take place in the interstices between global, national and local representation of the problem of security Critics of securitization as a mere reproduction of realist-inspired discourse of threat and conflicting social actors Extreme vagueness in indentifying the audiences of securitizing speech act Giving off Eurocentric description in the region of socio-political context Absence of marginalising gender security

Promises of Securitization Increasing interconnectedness calls for need of securitization: security is a relational phenomenon Security complexes can be useful in terms of policy and provides a good framework to discuss issues that are endemic to any one region The concept of "securitization" offers an innovative and systematic research strategy to understand newly emerging security issues entirely lacks a uniform framework of analysis 

Conclusion Wider security agenda is a necessary response to the global success of liberal project. New security problems can be handled in a multi-sectorial framework However, danger of excessive securitization remains, and as core poart of security studies must therefore provide means of identifying and criticizing counter-productive claims to securitization Mutli-sectorialism enables a proliferation of securitization, its constructivism delivers the means for questioning and politicizing each specific instance The theory of ‘‘securitization’’ developed by the Copenhagen School provides an innovative, sophisticated, and productive research strategy within contemporary security studies. Much of the distinctiveness of this approach