1NC
1NC – Burke/Ahmad
The aff embodies a political ontology driven by the security of the nation state.
This makes their impacts inevitable.
Burke ‘13 – Anthony, Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations in the
University of New South Wales, 2013 (“Security cosmopolitanism,” Critical Studies on Security
(Vol. 1, No. 1, 13–28) Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Tandfonline) **Modified for
ableist language.
The ontology underpinning security cosmopolitanism necessitates a profound transformation of
the national security ontology that precedes and frustrates it. While acknowledging the significance of states
– as core actors and potential means of security, as structures of democratic governance, and as (one) of the legal foundations of
international order and law – such an ontology understands human existence as irreversibly global in nature. When
multiple
and often anonymous human actions collectively produce such profound changes to the
biosphere and climate that many now term ours a new geological era – the ‘Anthropocene’ –
national borders lose their claim to define and enclose human existence, and humanity must be thought
in non-anthropocentric terms (Ganguly and Jenkins 2011; Alberts 2011). Through interlocking historical, social, and
systemic processes – imperialism, world war, decolonization, capitalism, cold war,
globalization, migration, terrorism, nuclear strategy, intervention, and environmental
degradation – human beings have effectively unified their life and death process on a planetary
scale and extended it to other species and life forms. This event needs to be reflected in a transformation of the
historically dominant ontological narrative of insecurity – the narrative of its origins, sources, nature, and necessity. In the
traditional (and still dominant) narrative, security emerges from insecurity through the creation
of a distinctive political form and subjectivity – that of the nationstate and its corporeal
manifestation, sovereignty, the ‘body-politic’. As argued by Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, the origins of
national security lie in a temporal narrative that traces the emergence of the sovereign state (the ‘Commonwealth’) from an
originary ‘state of nature’: a realm of perpetual insecurity and conflict in which a natural equality ‘and Right of every man to
everything’ remains governed by no rule or jurisdiction that could stabilize or order it; it resembles then a ‘time of Warre, where
every man is Enemy to every man’ and there ‘can be no security to any man of living out the time which Nature ordinarily alloweth
men to live’ (Hobbes 1985; Esposito 2008; Burke 2007, 36–41). As Roberto Esposito explains, an ‘immunitary mechanism begins to
operate’ in this narrative, because ‘if life is abandoned to its internal powers, [and] its natural dynamics, human life is destined to
self-destruct’. An all-powerful sovereign – the paradoxical embodiment and governor of the body-politic – then functions to
‘immunize’ the body-politic against the potential of its own disorder and preserve the life that threatens it. This biopolitical life is not
the degraded ‘bare life’ of Giorgio Agamben’s theory – which certainly remains an ever-present possibility for the subjects and
objects of sovereign power – but a rich vision of life that Hobbes describes in De Cive as ‘happiness’ and in Leviathan as all ‘the
benefit and good’ of ‘lawful industry’ and knowledge; a life, in short, enabled, protected, and transformed by modernity (Esposito
2008; Burke 2007, 37–38). Furthermore, as
international relations grow in complexity and danger, and an
international law based on the sovereign equality of peoples organized into states becomes
normatively dominant with the establishment of the United Nations and the emergence of the
post-World War II national security state, the Hobbesian imaginary mutates: the nation-state
comes to be thought of as a contained and vital body that must be immunized, or secured,
against threats that come from without as well from within. This national body has integrity,
sovereignty, borders – and international society, as Hedley Bull explained, comprises such ontologically
separate body-politics linked together by a spiderweb of international law, strategic balances,
and mutual interests. There is no common humanity, merely an anarchical society of states
regulated by a minimal set of agreed rules (Bull 2002, 82). National enclosure becomes paired with anarchic
balancing, strategic cooperation, and Realpolitik: this is the ontology that structures and
animates dominant state approaches to both national and collective security, across the
entirety of the security agenda. In security cosmopolitanism, there can be no successful immunization
of the national body against insecurities that come from outside. Such immunization failure can be
understood in two ways. First, the very constitution of the state and the national body can be a
source of threat – to ethnic, religious, or sexual minorities, dissidents, indigenous peoples, the
poor, and women – who become targets of exclusion, marginalization, discipline, violence, and
repression. Masculinist and totalizing metaphors of state and community as body then mobilize
their own violence, seeking to homogenize and exclude those designated as the other – the
virus or cancer – of the state. Such policies generate both severe human insecurity and
transnational insecurities in the form of refugees, the transmission of conflict, or the
internationalization of struggle – the Palestinians being a powerful case in point. Second, dominant patterns
of insecurity and threat – whether one thinks in terms of their causes, scope, or effects – develop within and
across borders in ways that render containment models of national security inadequate, and are
in fact exacerbated by the perseverance of such models. The atmosphere has no borders, and
climate change – which will have dramatic effects on human security from environmental
disruptions, degradation, disease vectors, climate-affected conflict, and ‘natural’ disasters such
as hurricanes and storm surges – arises as a totality out of millions of often anonymous daily
actions in industry, agriculture, government, and individual life. While action at the state and government
level is obviously crucial, attempts to partition legal responsibility along national lines have done little
more than create [irresolvable] paralyzing international disputes and no agreement on a global
treaty framework to reduce emissions and arrest climate change. The antagonistic structure and
ontology of international society here presents a profound obstacle to cosmopolitan ends: the
result is what writers such as Esposito and Jacques Derrida have called ‘autoimmunization’, an immune response that
threatens to destroy the social body rather than protect it (Esposito 2008, xiii–xix, 2011; Derrida 2005; Borradori 2003, 100–102).
Nuclear weapons present a similar dilemma dating to the beginning of the post-war national security state:
national efforts to seek security through nuclear threats soon became a threat to humanity as
such, creating a global community of fate through escalating insecurity dynamics that could
never be tamed or stabilized. In this way the nuclear balance of terror becomes the ultimate
autoimmunization, as deterrence is forced by time compression and uncertainty to exist at the
edge of pre-emption and thus of irreversible disaster, threatening to eliminate those it aims to
defend. Similarly transnational Islamist terrorism operates, propagandizes, and recruits across
borders, and violent and exceptionalist responses produce new autoimmunization processes
that undermine multiculturalism and the democratic rule of law and drive new forms of
radicalization and terror (Burke 2009, 2008, 2007, 4–13). Hence in security cosmopolitanism the founding narrative of
security changes: insecurity does not arise before or external to a state that (in the classical narrative)
acts as a double guarantee of both security and modernity, but arises out of that very modernity
as a function of its histories, choices, powers, relations, and systems. It is not the enemy in
possession of nuclear or conventional weapons that is the fundamental source of insecurity, but
the weapons system itself; not the forced migrant or the massive storm creating insecurity for
the nation-state, but the human interaction with the climate system; not the terrorist en route
to an attack, but a historical system of injustice, geopolitics, and ideology around violence that
enables terrorism as a normative choice and a social phenomenon. Similar arguments can be
made about hunger and food insecurity, global health inequality, asylum seekers, transnational
crime, weapons proliferation, and more. As Simon Dalby writes of climate change, its ‘irony’ is that ‘the
threat is self-imposed; we are the makers of our own misfortunes’. This generates profound
responsibilities toward peoples most vulnerable to climate disruptions and undermines ‘distinctions between nature
and culture, human and environment’ such that ‘the global scale we now live in’ must be
conceptualized as a ‘social nature’ (2009, 2, 6). While security cosmopolitanism does not deny that there are
event-based sites and sources of insecurity, it argues that they can neither be fully understood nor
ameliorated in their irruptive, symptomatic forms. Event-based threats – the insecurities of the
moment – are epiphenomena of larger scale structures and systems. Insecurities arise as
events out of multidimensional, interdependent, and often anonymous processes; out of
complex articulations of agency, determination, and accident stretching far into a multilayered
past and a future with multiple potentials. Against such a background, national governments can potentially
be a valuable means of security, but will not be able to contain their communities within a prophylactic
cocoon of safety in an insecure world; to secure nations, states must ensure that the world is
secured. In sum, the potential for insecurity is immanent to political power, social organization,
and cultural, industrial, and military activity under the conditions of modernity on this earth,
not external to them.
1NC – Alt
Vote negative to embrace water’s emancipatory potential. Reformulating
securitized discourse is the only ethical alternative.
Harrington ’13 [Cameron; Graduate Program in Political Science, The University of Western
Ontario. Thesis for Doctor of Philosophy; “Chapter Six: Hydrosolidarity: The Ethics of Water
Security”; 2013; Fluid Identities: Toward a Critical Security of Water;
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2884&context=etd; Accessed 7/19/21; NT]
Water security is an aperture – a window of opportunity – for deeper explorations of the social and
power relationships that work to construct the world of international relations. Accepting the existing state
of human relationships as necessary signals a moral choice, because reality then becomes
essentialized. To argue the immutability of certain social and political norms in security studies, like the international state
system, the pursuit of selfish national interests, etc., reifies and accepts specific configurations of power that contribute to an unjust
and dangerous world.
Traditional top-down, closed, and national-interest-based approaches to water management, no
matter whether they explicitly rely upon nationalistic imperatives of sovereignty, or are hidden
beneath the proclaimed values of hydrosolidarity, have the potential to be damaging to people and
the natural environment. To overcome this, the first step must be to uncover the deeply held
assumptions that ground the analyses of water-security relationships in terms most familiar to state
strategists and policy-makers. From there, considerations must be made that question the connections of
security with an objectivist view of knowledge generation and then seek to transform security
towards emancipation. Partial and atavistic articulations of security, like the ones associated with
territorial preservation of the nation-state and the threat and use of force, play an important role in limiting the
potential of individuals and groups to lead full lives. As long as assumptions remain unchallenged
about the primacy of states, the politics of security, the universality of security as state security, and the benefits of objectivity, it is
doubtful that the world will be able to transcend contemporary water problems.
However, there is hope that alternative approaches
can and will be harnessed to produce normatively
desirable, and analytically superior, evaluations of water security. The goal has been to produce the means
by which it is possible to conceptualize water security in emancipatory terms. This approach disrupts “settled” norms of
sovereignty, and points toward more holistic, “nascent” norms such as emancipation. This holism
can work to incorporate ethical concerns and create a critical, continuous dialogical engagement;
a humble, collaborative, recognition of others. Water is seen here as an important site that not
only demonstrates the continued dominance of traditional security, but also the junctures at
which it becomes insufficient, illogical, and obsolete. Perhaps the most vital impact of water is to
demonstrate the complex, and multifaceted ways in which security, the self, and the natural
environment might coalesce to promote hopeful alternatives that pursue emancipation as their
core responsibility. Water can never be truly bounded or separated. It connects the world. The task
then is to use water to catalyze and solidify human relationships, with each other and the natural
environment, that are built upon shared understandings of a common future.
2NC – L
L – Arctic
The plan occurs through a grammar of colonialism ignoring indigenous folks –
doing so only accelerates climate change and makes their impacts inevitable
Greaves 2016 - PhD, Lecturer, Trudeau Centre for Peace, Conflict and Justice University of
Toronto
Wilfred, "Environment, Identity, Autonomy: Inuit Perspectives on Arctic Security" in
Understanding the Many Faces of Human Security : Perspectives of Northern Indigenous Peoples,
Chapter 2
there is ample empirical support for
the argument that Inuit in Northern Canada discursively construct a holistic, human-centred understanding of
what Arctic security means. For Inuit, security is primarily concerned with protecting the Arctic environment
from degrada-tion and radical climate change; preserving their identity through the main-tenance of Indigenous cultural practices; and asserting and maintaining
Two principal conclusions can be drawn from the Inuit views of Arctic secu-rity assessed in this chapter. First,
Inuit autonomy as self-determining, rights-holding political actors whose claims to their traditional territory precede and underpin the sovereignty of the Cana-dian settler state.
Inuit are securitizing actors who employ the grammar and language of
in/security to identify threats to the continued wellbeing of valued referent objects linked to their survival as an Indigenous
people. On the basis of the threat-referent relationships they ar-ticulate, Inuit are primarily concerned over threats to the Arctic
environment, their Indigenous identity, and their political autonomy, but emphasize the interrelated nature of these
In terms of securitization theory,
security issues. Overall, however, human-caused environmental change permeates Inuit understandings of Arctic security; as a contributing factor to many longstanding
challenges to Indigenous peoples, and as a cause of many new security hazards confronting Inuit and other Northerners, environmental change is the backdrop against which all
Inuit understandings of in/security in the Arctic stand in stark contrast
to the perspective that informs Canada’s current Arctic policy. While Inuit leaders and organizations
have performed numerous securitizing moves identifying the compounding threats posed by rapid cultural
change, political disempow-erment, and ecological transformation, Canada’s understanding of
Arctic se-curity emphasizes military defence of its territorial claims and the northward expansion
other insecurities in the Arctic are occurring.
of an extraction-based natural resource economy. Canada insists on seeing climate change as an economic opportunity while “choosing not to see” the dangers it presents,68
whereas Inuit perceive climate change as foreclosing future opportunities to exist as Indigenous peoples in their traditional terri-tories. In effect, Canada’s Arctic policies
the second conclusion of this chapter is
that the security concerns of Inuit are virtually absent from the official Arctic security discourse
prioritize the very practices causing the ecological changes that Inuit identify as threatening. As such,
employed by the Canadian state. Despite the significant political achievements made by Inuit, their views of security in their own lands remain marginalized. In this respect,
Arctic security discourse and its current Arctic policy framework remain fun-damentally
colonial.To the extent that Inuit understandings are not included within official Arctic security discourse in Canada, it suggests there are limitations upon the capacity of
Canada’s
Indigenous peoples, and other non-dominant social groups, to successfully transform hazards threatening them into security issues acknowledged and addressed by the state.
Though a full theorization of this phenomenon is beyond the scope of this chapter, closer examination of the role of identity in the securitization process may cast light on the
exclusion of certain groups’ views from official security discourse. Building on the discus-sion of securitization theory in the first section of this chapter, I propose that Indigenous
identity operates as a barrier that obstructs the success of Indig-enous peoples’ securitizing moves. Since the facilitating conditions of securiti-zation reflect conditions of
unequal social power, it seems reasonable that In-digenous peoples making security claims within the context of settler-colonial states that have historically and contemporarily
Indigenous peoples – as an example of non-dominant
may thus experience their
identities as an inhibiting condition that impedes, rather than facilitates, acceptance of their
security claims. Understood as reflecting the historical and contemporary relationships between Indigenous peoples and the settler-colonial states in which they regenerated the conditions of insecurity for their Indigenous populations would be analytically significant.
societal groups with op-positional, antagonistic, or threatening identities to the authoritative audience of the sovereign state –
side, Indigenous identity may result in structural limitations on the capacity to speak security to the authoritative audience of the state and thus to suc-cessfully securitize. This
does not mean that dominant groups will always suc-ceed in securitizing their issues, or that non-dominant groups will always fail to securitize theirs. But it does suggest that
identity may determine why some securitizing moves fail: not because of the relative seriousness of the danger or the value of a referent object, but because of the speaker
making the security claim and their relationship to the audience whose acceptance is required to mobilize the power of the state in response to the specified threat.
L – Biodiversity
Biodiversity is not a neutral resource – it’s a strategic tool based on the
furthering of national security.
Erasga 12 [Dennis; Professor in De La Salle University’s Department of Behavioral Sciences;
March 2012; “Biopolitics: Biodiversity as a Discourse of Claims”;
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224829003_Biopolitics_Biodiversity_as_Discourse_o
f_Claims; Accessed 7-17-2021; BM]
3.3 Third world: Resource is security Quite similar in their agenda regarding the political economy of biodiversity, the memberstates
of the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN)8 have finally launched
a new wave of national and regional
security discourse that assigns a strategic dimension to nature and the resources it contained.9
This security discourse is inspired by the Association’s “joint endeavors” on sustainable development broadly articulated in its
collective “security and development” agenda. In her analysis of this agenda Hernandez noted (1995: 38): “To be sustainable,
development in its economic dimension, must be sensitive to its excessive demands on both natural and human resources as well as
its negative impact on the physical environment. Within this discursive platform, environmental
resources have been
assigned with a definitive status that directly impacts on the Associations’ burgeoning conception of
security. The discursive shift in the status of biophysical environment as “resources” unavoidably
ushered a new mode of thinking in terms of national vis-à-vis regional cooperation. In this context,
biodiversity i.e. biogenetic resources of plants, animals and microbes found in the environment, are no longer seen as
neutral elements of a physical border separating nations and their peoples. Environment as
container and refuge of biodiversity is no longer perceived as a lifeless frontier demarcating
nations and their cultures. Rather, environment and every genetic resource it contains are now
considered integral and strategic component of the ASEAN’s national and regional security. This
new political discourse is based on the emerging definition of political and economic security
that sees environmental protection and sustainable development as key organizing principles. Peria’s (1998:
5) analysis of the ASEAN’s changing notion of the potential of environmental resources rightly concludes that: “ Given the
growing scarcity of the world’s resources and the insatiable demand for it, security should be redefined
to include the matter of safeguarding the integrity of a nation-state’s natural resources.” Notwithstanding,
this new perspective is anchored on the insights that given the enormous economic, scientific and strategic potentialities of
biogenetic resources,10 (which are most often found in underdeveloped and developing regions of the world with equally diverse
cultural communities), national
security is unthinkable without incorporating biological and genetic
resources as key factors (cf. Dupont 1994).
The invocation of biodiversity threats are twisted into a perverse tool to
forefront the agenda of the nation-state.
Erasga 12 [Dennis; Professor in De La Salle University’s Department of Behavioral Sciences;
March 2012; “Biopolitics: Biodiversity as a Discourse of Claims”;
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224829003_Biopolitics_Biodiversity_as_Discourse_o
f_Claims; Accessed 7-17-2021; BM]
When I was invited to write a paper about biodiversity for this volume, I was tempted to organize my key arguments around the
politics of biodiversity (as it has been the original line of inquiry of my previous academic work on the topic). My reason was
that the concept has been given birth by political claims of conservation biologists and evolved,
henceforth as a form of political activism involving new sets of interest groups. However as an
environmental sociologist who has been intrigued by the discursive nature of political claims, I decided to use a title that truly
reflects the tricky nature this notion. Tricky because the
conventional notion led many of us to believe that the
politics of biodiversity was inaugurated by the way it has been used by the international community to
promote common economic and political ethos (e.g., Convention on Biological Diversity). I disagree. My
position was that the politics of this concept goes as far back as to the very day of its coinage.
Tracing the genealogy of biodiversity as a discursive claim is a more strategic and encompassing way of reframing the issues it
implicates. Phrased differently, it is my position that the discussion of the biography of the concept we call biodiversity is to highlight
not only the politics that goes with it, but to call attention to the sociological relevance surrounding its current usage. Thus the thesis
of my chapter is twofold: I submit that: i. Biodiversity is a politically charged concept as its
birth is politically instigated;
ii. Biodiversity is a politically charged concept as it is invoked to further political agenda. In order to
amplify the major thesis of the chapter, I divided the discussion in two major parts. Part 1 elaborated on the scientific context that
led to the naming of this concept. Part 2 highlighted the power play that goes with its current usage. Respectively, the former
tackled the genealogy of biodiversity; its birth as a social construction to justify a call for collective action; while the latter
documented how biodiversity
as a political tool has been appropriated by and forms part of, the discursive
armory of three grassroots epistemic communities1 as they advanced their respective political
agenda. 2. Genealogy: The birth of biodiversity Before 1986 the term “biological diversity” or “biodiversity” is non- existent. This
word was invented by a group of American conservation biologists in the conference “The National Forum on BioDiversity” held in
Washington D.C. in 1986. Walter Rosen (who probably coined the term) organized the gathering with the support of Edward Wilson.
The activity was under the joint auspices of the National Academy of Sciences and the Smithsonian Institute. The group felt that a
new catchword was needed to promote nature conservation and to make people aware of the lurking dangers of species extinction.
The neologism apparently was created to replace several other terms, viz. ecosystem, endangered species, natural variety, habitat
and even wilderness, that had been in circulation in promoting nature conservation (Nieminen 2001; Sarkar 2002). 2.1 Biodiversity
as a scientific activism As a rare example of scientific activism, biodiversity then was originally conceived to be a scientific tool aimed
to achieve certain ends: to prevent worldwide loss of species diversity, to alert the world that species extinction was rapid and
problematic and to catalyze and solicit public interests and action (Lane 1999). Biodiversity as an organizing concept was invented as
a communicative tool in the broader political arena. It was conjured up from the need to communicate and act in a concerted effort
(Norton 2003). While the history of the term is relatively short2, it already has sparked distinctive philosophical debates. Some of
these are entangled in the very definition of ‘biodiversity’, an issue, which becomes the hallmark of some of the present political,
environmental, and social aporia. To date there has been no universally approved definition of biodiversity within the community of
scholars with the exception, of course, of the original one proffered by the organizers of the 1986 Washington convention.3 Since
then, biodiversity
as a concept becomes so stretchable a term there seem to be no chances of
bringing it back to its original usage. 2.2 Biodiversity as feature of nature As if to lighten the vagueness of the term and
the confusion it generates among its scientific users, two complementary schemes have been proffered the hub of which are the
issues of (i) pinning down a precise definition (i.e. definitional problem) and (ii) operationalization of its indices (i.e. application
problem).4 These schemes are complementary in the sense that the first served as the take off point of the second. The second
approach, on the other hand, did not abandon the optimism of the search for categorical definition. Rather, it fleshed out the ethics
and practicality of such process. 2.3 Policy discourse The first scheme has been advanced in a paper presented during the 2000
London 3rd Policies for Sustainable Technological Innovation in the 21st Century (POSTI) Conference on Policy Agendas for
Sustainable Development. The approach divides biodiversity into two parts when analyzing its use in environmental policy namely:
(i) biodiversity as a feature of nature (i.e. the variety of species, phenomena, and processes that exist in nature); (ii) biodiversity as a
policy discourse (i.e. a concept and a discourse that is used to argue for the need of nature conservation, and in legitimating
different conservation policies). As explicitly argued by Nieminen (2001: 2) “Biodiversity as the essential feature of nature is
foremost the realm of scientists, it is the realm of scientific measuring, categorization and theorizing. Biodiversity as a discourse, on
the one hand, is the realm of policy-making, administration and communication.” Biodiversity along the first divide refers to the
pure objective status of the variety of living organisms, biological systems, and biological processes found on Earth. This bias is aptly
captured by the following definition articulated by its staunchest supporter- Edward O. Wilson: “Biodiversity…is all hereditary-based
variation at all levels of organization, from genes within a single local population, to the species composing all or part of a local
community, and finally to the communities themselves that compose the living parts of the multifarious ecosystems of the world.”
(Wilson 1998: 1-3) As a
policy initiative, biodiversity is embedded within the “rhetorical resources for
identifying the responsibilities, characterizing social actors and groups, praising and blaming, criticizing
conventional knowledge or accepting it, legitimizing courses of action or political strategies and for
promoting the factuality of otherwise contestable claims” (Nieminen 2001: 3). In other words, biodiversity
is a form of social standard that can be used to evaluate human actions in relation to utilization,
conservation and management of the benefits of biodiversity. It must be noted though that whether conceived as an objective
feature of nature or as an object of policy initiatives, biodiversity
remains to be a ‘discursive (or linguistic) creation’
of stakeholders - originally of the conservation biologists and later on of policy makers. It is difficult to pin down an exact
definition of discourse. The works of Fairclough and Wodak (1997), van Djik (1997), Jaworski and Coupland (1999) and recently, of
Wetherell, Taylor and Yates (2001) attest to this problematique. Generally speaking though, discourse refers to the actual practices
of speaking and writing (Woodilla 1998, see also Gergen 1998). Hall (1992) posited that discourse is a group of statements which
provided a language for talking about – i.e., a way of representing- a particular kind of knowledge about a topic. Hence, when
statements about a topic are made within a particular context, the discourse makes it possible to construct the topic in a certain way
and viewed this way, they are constitutive of identities (Hajer 2003; Norton 2003) as discourse allows something to be spoken of by
limiting other ways in which the topic can be constructed (see Foucault 1987; Burr 1995; Parker 1992). As the social history of
biodiversity attests, conservation biologists who invented the term did not merely describe what they see as biological diversity; but
the very act of description constitutes the object so described. The following quote from the book ‘Making
Nature, Shaping Culture’, poignantly captured this strong constructivist theme: “Nature exists only through its description, analysis,
mapping, and manipulation… What
we call as objective reality is constituted by both the actual physical
configurations of elements in things and in human conceptual frameworks (theories, definitions, and
‘facts’)… It is our ordering of the information received by our senses that constitutes the picture of ‘all that is’ and that we refer to as
nature” (Busch et al 1995: 3-4). The second scheme muses not so much on ‘how’ to define biodiversity. Rather it inquires as to ‘why’
define the concept in the first place. It bolstered the constructivist stance described above by stressing that words like biodiversity
do not correspond to pre-existing objects, individuals and categories5 (cf. Hajer 2003). By act of (usually implicit) choice, the
development of a vocabulary of terms to discuss observable phenomena ‘constitutes’ the objects and categories humans recognize
and manipulate linguistically. According to Norton (2003) communicative ‘usefulness’, and not ‘truth’ should determine our
definitionsusefulness implies careful examination of our shared purposes toward which communication is directed, which ultimately
leads us back to the subject of social values and commitments. Within the context of second scheme, we
could neither find
nor create any ‘correct’ definition of biodiversity, for virtually there is none. What we could and must
strive for, instead, is to look for a definition that is ‘useful’ in deliberative dialog regarding how to protect and preserve biological
diversity, however defined. Our
categories including biodiversity must be developed from the need to
‘communicate’ and to ‘act’ together within the broader political ethos (Norton 2003). Quite obviously, the second
scheme interrogates both the possibility and utility of precise definitions. It sensitizes us to the fact that carefully worded definition
is not a necessary guarantee that a cooperative discourse would ensue or that concrete actions will be taken. On the contrary,
definitions may alienate, either by silencing or relegating to the background, the local ‘voices’ of those who may have equal and
valid stakes on the very issues these definitions bring about. 3. Claimants: Biodiversity as political discourse From the
conservation biologists to policy makers to the general public the currency of the term biodiversity mutates in unimaginable forms.
The concept has
become a buzzword that serves to promote the various political, economic and
cultural agenda of scientists and decision-makers as well as of individuals, communities, institutions
and nations (Escobar 1999). With its usurpation by these new sets of articulators came newer modes of discourse, hence a
whole new array of meanings and usage. Biodiversity has become a masterframe used by the epistemic
communities of various stakeholders. As a masterframe from where all sides draw meanings, biodiversity
looses its ‘signature meaning’.6 A fascinating consequence of this development is the blurring of the
distinction between the scientific discourse (of the experts) and the popular discourse (of lay or nonexpert) (Haile 1999; Nieminen 2001, Dwivedi 2001). As Eder (1996: 183) observed: “Biodiversity becomes a collectively
shared ideology undermining the hegemony of science and at the same time seriously
weakening the position of traditional environmental organizations and movements as primary mouthpiece
of the environment.”
L – Brownfields
Brownfields aren’t bad because they hurt people, they are bad because they are
not productive- the affirmative’s attempt is one of managerialism, making
ecological capitalism inevitable
Luke 2003
Timothy [Program Chair of the Government and International Affairs Program, School of Public
and International Affairs at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University]; EcoManagerialism: Environmental Studies as a Power/Knowledge Formation; Aurora; Issue 2003
Resource managerialism can be read as the essence of today's enviro-mentality. While voices in favour of conservation can be found
in Europe early in the 19th century, there is a self-reflexive establishment of this stance in the United States in the late 19th century.
From the 1880's to the 1920's, one saw the closing of the western frontier. And whether one looks at John Muir's preservationist
programs or Gifford Pinchot's conservationist code, there is a spreading awareness of modern industry's power to deplete nature's
stock of raw materials, which sparks wide-spread worries about the need to find systems for conserving their supply from such
unchecked exploitation. Consequently, nature's stocks of materials are rendered down to resources, and the presumptions of
resourcification become conceptually and operationally well entrenched in conservationist philosophies. The fundamental premises
of resource managerialism in many ways have not changed over the past century. At best, this code of practice has only become
more formalized in many governments' applications and legal interpretations. Working with the managerial vision of the second
industrial revolution, which tended to empower technical experts like engineers or scientists, who had gotten their degrees from
agricultural schools, mining schools, technology schools like the one I work at, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, which prides itself as
they say on producing the worker bees of industry. Or, on the shop floor and professional managers, one found corporate executives
and financial officers in the main office, who are of course trained in business schools. Put together, resource managerialism casts
corporate administrative frameworks over nature in order to find the supplies needed to feed the economy and provision society
through national and international markets. As scientific forestry, range management, and mineral extraction took hold in the U.S.
during this era, an ethos of battling scarcity guided professional training, corporate profit making, and government policy. As a
result, the operational agendas of what was called sustained yield were what directed the resource managerialism of the 20th
century. In reviewing the enabling legislation of key federal agencies, one quickly discovers that the values and practices of
resourcification anchor their institutional missions in a sustained yield philosophy. As Cortner and Moote observe, the statutory
mandates for both the Forest Service, the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act, and the National Forest Management Act, and the
Bureau of Land Management, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, for example, specifically direct these agencies to
employ a multiple use sustained yield approach to resource management. More often than not, however, these agencies adjusted
their multiple use concept to correspond to their primary production objective -- timber in the case of the Forest Service, grazing in
terms of the Bureau of Land Management. Although sustained help is not specifically mentioned in the legislated mandate of
agencies such as the National Parks Service or the Bureau of Reclamation, they too have traditionally managed for maximum
sustained yield of a single resource - visitor use in the case of the parks, water supply in the case of water resources. So the ethos of
resourcification imagined nature as a vast input/output system. The mission
statements of sustained yield pushed
natural resource management towards realizing the maximum maintainable output up to or
past even the point where one reached ecological collapse, which in turn of course caused widespread ecological degradation, which leads to the project of rehabilitation managerialism.¶ The
acknowledgement of ecological degradation is not tremendously difficult. Indeed, the will to manage environments arises from this
wide-spread recognition back in the 19th century.
One obvious outcome of building and then living around
the satanic mills of modern industrial capitalism was pollution of the air, water, and land. As it continued and
spread, the health of humans, plants, and wildlife obviously suffered, while soils and waters were poisoned. Yet the imperatives of
economic growth typically drove these processes of degradation until markets fell, technologies changed, or the ecosystem
collapsed. At that juncture, business and government leaders, working at the local, regional, and national level, were
faced
with hard choices about either relocating people and settlements in industry to start these cycles of degradation anew, or maybe
rehabilitating those existing economic and environmental assets to revitalize their resource
extractive or commodity producing potential. Rehabilitation management then is about
keeping production going in one way or another. Agricultural lands that once produced wheat might be turned
to dairy production or low-end fibre outputs. Polluted water courses, poisoned soils, and poverty-stricken workers can all be
remobilized in environmental rehabilitation schemes to revive aquatic ecologies, renew soil productivity, and replenish bank
accounts. The
engagements of rehabilitation management are to find a commodifiable or at least
a valuable possibility in the brown fields of agricultural excess and industrial exhaustion. Even after
decades of abuse, there are useful possibilities that always lie dormant in slag heaps, derelict factories, overused soil, polluted
waterways, and rust belt towns. Management must search for and then implement strategies for their rehabilitation. Such
operations can shift agricultural uses, refocus industrial practices, turn lands into eco-preserves, and retrain workers. But the goals
here are not return ecosystems to some pristine natural state. On the contrary, its agendas are those of sustaining the yields of
production. Of course, what will be yielded and at what levels it is sustained and for which environmental ends all remains to be
determined. On the one hand, the motives of rehabilitation management are quite rational, because these moves delay or even
cancel the need to sacrifice other lands, air, and soil preserves at other sites. Thus nature is perhaps protected elsewhere or at large
by renewing industrial brown fields in agriculturalized domains for some ongoing project of industrial growth. On the other hand,
rehabilitation managerialism may only shift the loci and the foci of damage, rehabilitating ecosystemic degradation caused in one commodity chain, while simply redirecting the inhabitants
of these sites to suffer new, albeit perhaps more regulated and rational levels, of environmental
contamination in other commodity chains. If one doesn't want to rehabilitate what has been ruined, one can then
perhaps get into restoring it.¶ So a restoration managerialism is a recognition that lies at the root of many environmental problems
that has sparked a reaction so intense that many called for going beyond rehabilitation and returning to some status quo anti. The
call is first stop exploiting nature's endowments, and then move towards restoring those sites in systems that have been most
abused. Ecological
restoration, however, is a very tricky proposition, because what is to be restored?
How will it be reclaimed? Who must revive what has been damaged, and exactly which prior state of existence is to be
privileged as the state of restoration? Most appeals for restoration are made on aesthetic grounds. But restoration management has
also developed more macrological engagements for maintaining the integrity of the earth's carrying capacity. In this respect,
restoration managerialism focuses upon mobilizing all of the biological, physical, and social sciences to address the major economic
and political affects of current environmental problems. Their
resourcifications allow ecosystem managers to
infrastructuralize all of the earth's ecologies in the name of an almost complete restoration for
some biomes, bioregions or biosystems. The earth becomes, if only in terms of contemporary technoscience,
an immense terrestrial engine. Serving as the human race's ecological support system, it has, with only the occasional
localized failures (as restorationists like to say), provided services upon which human society depends consistently and without
charge. As the environmental infrastructure of technoscientific production, the earth then can continue to generate these
ecosystem services or their derivative products of natural systems, but only if they are restored.
So this complex system of
systems is what must survive, and its outputs include of course what we know: the generation of soils,
the regeneration of plant nutrients, the capture of solar energy, the conversion of that solar energy into biomass, the
accumulation, purification and distribution of water, the control of pests, the provision of a genetic library, the maintenance of
breathable air, the control of micro and macro climates, pollination of plants, diversification of animal species, development of
buffering mechanisms in eco-catastrophes. And, at the end of the day, some aesthetic enrichment to make it all seem worthwhile.
Because it is the true capital stock of trans-national enterprise, the planet's ecology requires such highly disciplined treatment in
order to restore some of its original capacities, and then guide perhaps its subsequent sustainable use. Restoring
as much or
as many as possible of these ecosystems is very important, because it might even bring back
some almost extinct ecosystems to enlarge our existing carrying capacity. That in turn leads to
another engagement, which is renewables managerialism.
L – China
Mainstream IR tokenizes quasi-official discourses about China’s foreign policy
intentions only insofar as it supports the Western frame of the China rise
theory
Kristensen 15 – fellow in IR at the University of Copenhagen
(Peter, ‘How can emerging powers speak? On theorists, native informants and quasi-officials in
International Relations discourse,’ Third World Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 637-653)
A third way of speaking in Western IR discourse is quasi-official speak. This is related to the native informant, with the difference
that quasi-officials
not only contribute with ‘local data’, they also aim to represent their country’s
view of the world. While native informants are accepted by mainstream journals because they provide empirical material of a
certain truth-value about their country or region, the quasi-official is accepted because he (it is only men) speaks for the
country and its leadership. In the case of emerging powers, quasi-official speak becomes
interesting to mainstream IR because it tells the West something about ‘how the Chinese view
the world’. It is epiphenomenal and politicised discourse. Quasi-official speak is accepted largely
because of the position from which it is spoken, not only because of what is spoken. It tends to come from
scholars who are also advisors, diplomats or government officials, or who work in international organisations or
NGOs. Quasi-official speak is exemplified by Wang Jisi’s Foreign Affairs articles, which not only try to represent the
Chinese perspective (‘Here is a Chinese view’), but also do so in the typical Realpolitik discourse of Foreign
Affairs, where states (usually referred to as capitals, Beijing and Washington) are the primary units trying to
safeguard their ‘core interests’ against external ‘threats’: ‘Washington will not regard Beijing as its main
security threat’; ‘many Chinese still view the United States as a major threat’.74 While quasi-official
speak tries to explain China’s foreign policy concepts and leadership intentions to the world, i.e.
the USA, it does so within the Western frame of ‘China’s rise’ and ‘“China threat” theory’.75 As
Wang argues in relation to debates about a China model, the Beijing Consensus and China Dream, ‘the Chinese leadership does not
dream of turning China into a hegemon or a standard-bearer’, rather ‘it is in China’s interest to contribute to a peaceful international
environment’.76 Foreign Affairs also published an interview with the Chinese ambassador to the USA explicating Xi Jinping’s notion
of a ‘new type of great-power relationship’ based on ‘mutual respect and mutual benefit’ rather than a ‘zero-sum game’, and
explaining why China is not a ‘revisionist’ power but seeks integration and follows the rules: ‘We stand for necessary reform of the
international system, but we have no intention of overthrowing it or setting up an entirely new one’; ‘We never provoked anything.
We are still on the path of peaceful development.’77 Quasi-official articles represent ‘the Chinese view’ in reassuring plus-sum terms
that posit the country as peaceful and only ‘rightfully’ aiming for international restoration and responsibility.78
The impact is a theoretical silencing of radical non-Western perspectives that
do not simply respond to the Western security agenda but innovatively
reconfigure the terms of geopolitics itself
Kristensen 15 – fellow in IR at the University of Copenhagen
(Peter, ‘How can emerging powers speak? On theorists, native informants and quasi-officials in
International Relations discourse,’ Third World Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 637-653)
In quantitative terms emerging
powers still cannot speak in mainstream IR. Like scholars in other non-core,
non-Western, non-Northern settings, the majority of Chinese, Indian and Brazilians are
‘subaltern’ in the sense of having no voice in mainstream IR. It is difficult to ascertain whether the problem is
that ‘they’ are not talking or ‘we’ are not listening.85 This paper has shown that when ‘we’ are listening, however, the
few articles that access the infrastructure of global/Western IR discourse tend to speak in one of three
voices: first, as theorisers within
established Western theoretical traditions such as realism, constructivism
or English School; second, as native informants presenting empirical material from their own country; and third, as quasiofficials representing a perspective from their country. Theory speak from ‘non-Western’ IR scholars
does not deliver the radical difference usually expected from scholars based in a different
context – there are no ‘third world radicals’ or indigenous theorisers in mainstream journals.
Rather it often looks like ‘social science socialised’ disciplined by the mainstream discipline.86 The
majority, however, speak about or for their own country and region. In the past decade they have done so increasingly using the
‘emerging power’ prism. There
is no doubt that the growing attention to emerging powers opens up the
discursive space of IR for scholars located in those countries to speak at all. However, native
informants and quasi-officials not only speak about and for themselves, they often do so within a securitised
discourse. Chinese articles in particular frame their empirical contributions in the debate over
the ‘China threat’ and ‘peaceful rise’. It seems that Chinese scholars must, at least peripherally, engage the
‘China threat’ discourse to get published in a mainstream Anglo-American journal. But why would
even articles on political economy be dressed up in security speak? Why does a Chinese scholar frame the study of, say, China in the
IMF in terms of whether China is a threat or not, whether it will be peaceful or not? It is almost inconceivable that articles on
Germany or the USA in the IMF would have a similar framing. It
is somewhat paradoxical to read Chinese
scholars debating whether their own country will be revisionist or status quo-oriented, whether
it will overturn the American-led liberal order or integrate into it – questions infused by
US/Western security concerns and a status quo bias. This mode of ‘speaking back’ has its
pitfalls because it is always more of a negation of US threat theories, a ‘non-China threat
theory’, than an opening to alternative and innovative theorising. Although there is no India threat theory,
Indian scholars are not exempt from this logic when they try to correct negative US images of India and reassure the country that
India will be a different, democratic great power, nor are Brazilians who try to explain why Brazil and the BRICS seek greater
influence. This
raises the question of whether ‘non-Western’ emerging powers can speak in IR
without always already speaking back to the ‘West’, its theories and security agendas.
L – Econ
Attempting to save the global economy from disaster is a liberal order-building
method of security—justifies violent intervention
Neocleous 8 – Mark Neocleous, Prof. of Government @ Brunel, 2008 [Critique of Security,
p.101-105]
In other words, the
new international order moved very quickly to reassert the connection between
economic and national security: the commitment to the former was simultaneously a
commitment to the latter, and vice versa. As the doctrine of national security was being born, the major player on
the international stage would aim to use perhaps its most important power of all – its economic
strength – in order to re-order the world. And this re-ordering was conducted through the idea of
‘economic security’.99 Despite the fact that ‘economic security’ would never be formally defined beyond ‘economic order’ or
‘economic well-being’,100 the significant conceptual consistency between economic security and liberal
order-building also had a strategic ideological role. By playing on notions of ‘economic wellbeing’, economic security seemed to emphasise economic and thus ‘human’ needs over military
ones. The reshaping of global capital, international order and the exercise of state power could
thus look decidedly liberal and ‘humanitarian’. This appearance helped co-opt the liberal Left
into the process and, of course, played on individual desire for personal security by using
notions such as ‘personal freedom’ and ‘social equality’.101 Marx and Engels once highlighted the historical role
of the bour geoisie in shaping the world according to its own interests. The need of a constantly expanding market
for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle
everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere . . . It compels all nations, on pain of
extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them . . . to become bourgeois in themselves. In one word, it
creates a world after its own image.102 In the second half of the twentieth century this ability to ‘batter down all Chinese walls’
would still rest heavily on the logic of capital, but would also come about in part under the guise of security. The whole world
became a garden to be cultivated – to be recast according to the logic of security. In the space of fifteen years the
concept
‘economic security’ had moved from connoting insurance policies for working people to the desire to shape the world in a
capitalist fashion – and back again. In fact, it has constantly shifted between these registers ever since, being
used for the constant reshaping of world order and resulting in a comprehensive level of
intervention and policing all over the globe. Global order has come to be fabricated and
administered according to a security doctrine underpinned by the logic of capital accumulation and a bourgeois conception of
order. By incorporating within it a particular vision of economic order, the concept of national security implies the interrelatedness
of so many different social, econ omic, political and military factors that more or less any development anywhere can be said to
impact on liberal order in general and America’s core interests in particular. Not only could bourgeois Europe be recast around the
regime of capital, but so too could the whole international order as capital not only nestled, settled and established connections, but
also ‘secured’ everywhere. Security
politics thereby became the basis of a distinctly liberal philosophy
of global ‘intervention’, fusing global issues of economic management with domestic policy formations
in an ambitious and frequently violent strategy. Here lies the Janus-faced character of American foreign policy.103
One face is the ‘good liberal cop’: friendly, prosperous and democratic, sending money and help
around the globe when problems emerge, so that the world’s nations are shown how they can
alleviate their misery and perhaps even enjoy some prosperity. The other face is the ‘bad liberal
cop’: should one of these nations decide, either through parliamentary procedure, demands for self-determination or violent
revolution to address its own social problems in ways that conflict with the interests of capital and the bourgeois concept of liberty,
then the
authoritarian dimension of liberalism shows its face; the ‘liberal moment’ becomes the
moment of violence. This Janus-faced character has meant that through the mandate of security the US, as the national
security state par excellence, has seen fit to either overtly or covertly re-order the affairs of myriads of nations – those ‘rogue’ or
‘outlaw’ states on the ‘wrong side of history’.104 ‘Extrapolating the figures as best we can’, one
CIA agent commented in
1991,‘there have been about 3,000 major covert operations and over 10,000 minor operations –
all illegal, and all designed to disrupt, destabilize, or modify the activities of other countries’,
adding that ‘every covert operation has been rationalized in terms of U.S. national security’.105
These would include ‘interventions’ in Greece, Italy, France, Turkey, Macedonia, the Ukraine, Cambodia, Indonesia, China, Korea,
Burma, Vietnam, Thailand, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Bolivia,
Grenada, Paraguay, Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Philippines, Honduras, Haiti, Venezuela, Panama, Angola, Ghana, Congo, South
Africa, Albania, Lebanon, Grenada, Libya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and many more, and many of these more than
once. Next up are the ‘60 or more’ countries identified as the bases of ‘terror cells’ by Bush in a speech on 1 June 2002.106 The
methods used have varied: most popular has been the favoured technique of liberal security – ‘making the economy scream’ via
controls, interventions and the imposition of neo-liberal regulations. But a
wide range of other techniques have
been used: terror bombing; subversion; rigging elections; the use of the CIA’s ‘Health Alteration Committee’
whose mandate was to ‘incapacitate’ foreign officials; drug-trafficking;107 and the sponsorship of terror
groups, counterinsurgency agencies, death squads. Unsurprisingly, some plain old fascist groups and
parties have been co-opted into the project, from the attempt at reviving the remnants of the Nazi collaborationist Vlasov
Army for use against the USSR to the use of fascist forces to undermine democratically elected governments, such as in Chile;
indeed, one of the reasons fascism flowed into Latin America was because of the ideology of national security.108 Concomitantly,
‘national security’ has meant a policy of non-intervention where satisfactory ‘security partnerships’ could be established with certain
authoritarian and military regimes: Spain under Franco, the Greek junta, Chile, Iraq, Iran, Korea, Indonesia, Cambodia, Taiwan, South
Vietnam, the Philippines, Turkey, the five Central Asian republics that emerged with the break-up of the USSR, and China. Either
way, the whole world was to be included in the new‘secure’ global liberal order. The result has
been the slaughter of untold numbers. John Stock well, who was part of a CIA project in Angola which led to the
deaths of over 20,000 people, puts it like this: Coming to grips with these U.S./CIA activities in broad numbers and figuring out how
many people have been killed in the jungles of Laos or the hills of Nicaragua is very difficult. But, adding them up as best we can,
we come up with a figure of six million people killed – and this is a minimum figure. Included are: one
million killed in the Korean War, two million killed in the Vietnam War, 800,000 killed in Indonesia, one million in Cambodia, 20,000
killed in Angola – the operation I was part of – and 22,000 killed in Nicaragua.109 Note that the six million is a minimum figure, that
he omits to mention rather a lot of other interventions, and that he was writing in 1991. This is security as the slaughter bench of
history. All of this has been more than confirmed by events in the twenty first century: in a speech on 1 June 2002, which became
the basis of the official National Security Strategy of the United States in September of that year, President Bush reiterated that the
US has a unilateral right to overthrow any government in the world, and launched a new round of slaughtering to prove it. While
much has been made about the supposedly ‘new’ doctrine of preemption in the early twenty-first century,
the policy of
preemption has a long history as part of national security doctrine. The United States has long
maintained the option of pre-emptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national
security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction – and the more compelling the
case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves . . . To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our
adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act pre emptively.110 In other words, the security policy of the world’s only
superpower in its current ‘war on terror’ is still underpinned by a notion of liberal order-building based on a certain vision of
‘economic order’. The National
Security Strategy concerns itself with a ‘single sustainable model for
national success’ based on ‘political and economic liberty’, with whole sections devoted to the security benefits
of ‘economic liberty’, and the benefits to liberty of the security strategy proposed.111 Economic security (that is, ‘capitalist
accumulation’) in the guise of ‘national security’ is now used as the justification for all kinds of
‘intervention’, still conducted where necessary in alliance with fascists, gangsters and drug
cartels, and the proliferation of ‘national security’ type regimes has been the result. So while the
national security state was in one sense a structural bi-product of the US’s place in global capitalism, it was also vital to the
fabrication of an international order founded on the power of capital. National
security, in effect, became the
perfect strategic tool for landscaping the human garden.112 This was to also have huge domestic
consequences, as the idea of containment would also come to reshape the American social
order, helping fabricate a security apparatus intimately bound up with national identity and thus
the politics of loyalty.
Economic collapse predictions create self-fulfilling prophecies
Mckendrick 12 (Joe, Independent analyst who tracks the impact of information technology on
management and markets, author of the SOA Manifesto, written for Forbes, ZDNet and
Database Trends & Applications, 9/18/12, “Are economic downturns self-fulfilling prophecies,”
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/business-brains/are-economic-downturns-self-fulfillingprophecies/26329)
There are tangible, and often painful, fundamentals that determine the course of the economy — unemployment, interest rates,
housing prices, inflation, industrial production, government debt. But more than anything else, markets
are psychology,
and an atmosphere of fear and panic among producers and consumers leads to scaling back of
purchases, which further exacerbates a downturn. Over the past few years in particular, there have been
plenty of messages of impending doom circulating through the mass media. Like Eeyore, the miserable mule from
Winnie-the-Pooh, many pundits ignore any bright spots and flood the airwaves with grim predictions
of imminent collapse and despair just around the corner. In an economy heavily tied to consumer confidence,
such talk could have far-reaching consequences. Such downbeat messages may eventually result in a
self-fulfilling prophecy, actually translating into job losses. A new analysis by Sylvain Leduc and Zheng Liu,
analysts at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Fransisco, says there is a statistically measurable impact
from “talking down” the economy. The economists say that the atmosphere of uncertainty in the recent downturn of
2008-2009 added at least one to two percentage points to the unemployment rate: “During the Great Recession, the increase in
uncertainty appears to have been much greater in magnitude…. Our model estimates that uncertainty has pushed up the U.S.
unemployment rate by between one and two percentage points since the start of the financial crisis in 2008. To put this in
perspective, had there been no increase in uncertainty in the past four years, the unemployment rate would have been closer to 6%
or 7% than to the 8% to 9% actually registered.” Policymakers and pundits can’t be pollyanish in the face of economic troubles, of
course. But the Fed authors suggest that as
media channels fill up with dire and downbeat talk, fear levels
go up, and people start to lose their jobs. “Heightened uncertainty acts like a decline in aggregate demand because it
depresses economic activity and holds down inflation,” the Fed economists observe. Another thing is clear as well: when analysts
and pundits put their Eeyore faces on, it doesn’t help anybody. What is needed is more discussion and ideas about solutions and
disruptive innovation that create opportunities, improve our world, and provide people more control over their economic destiny.
L - China (Generic)
Anti-China rhetoric justifies extreme US policies and magnifies the risk of war.
Ooi and D’arcangelis 17 Su-Mei Ooi is a professor at Butler University. Gwen D’Arcangelis is
a professor at Skidmore College. “Framing China: Discourses of othering in US news and political
rhetoric”, Global Media and China
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2059436418756096, [Accessed: 7-182021]//cblasi
Peter Hays Gries once suggested that the
way Americans view China is most likely motivated by “cold
calculations of their own self-interest … intertwined with deep-seated ‘gut feelings’ about China” (Hays Gries, 2006, p.
209). And while we “frequently infer Chinese intentions from Chinese capabilities,” admitting to these features in US policy is
something that we are often unwilling to do (Gries, 2006). China
has, since the end of the Cold War, occupied a space in
the US imaginary as the potential enemy Other, and the areas of contention highlighted above have become ample
context for the reification of negative images of China as an imminent source of threat. These images have been drawn
from older tropes of the Yellow and Red Perils and also newer incarnations of the “sleeping” or “awakened” giant. As
previous work has shown, such tropes have the ability to do the cultural work that shapes and justifies
US policies (Buzan & Wæver, 2003; de Buitrago, 2012; Steuter & Wills, 2010; Turner, 2014). In the present moment, negative
images of China have enabled the justification of an increasingly hardline approach to China. The latest
National Security Strategy articulated by the Trump administration has unequivocally named China a
challenger to “American power, influence and interests” who has attempted to “erode American
security and prosperity” (Landler & Sanger, 2017; U.S. White House Office, 2017), and the United States’ hardline tack
toward China has been further reflected in the areas of contention in the US–China Comprehensive Dialogue. 280 Global Media and
China 2(3–4) We
have aimed to interrupt post–Cold War representations of China as a potential
enemy Other that encourage a reductive attitude toward a “rising China.” We have been particularly
concerned with how this may disable the US public from fairly evaluating China’s actions as a rising
power, as well as the US government’s policies toward China. Indeed, if China is essentially a lawless bully, a
thief, and a cheat incapable of learning international norms of acceptable behavior, what options
besides the exercise of hard power does the United States have to meet its long-term security
objectives? A treatise on the aims and modes of US national security is beyond the scope of this article, but we hope to at least
foreground the way othering frames the “truths” about China, so that the wider public may view US China policy with a more critical
filter. The
ability of the US public to do so could become increasingly important—diversionary
wars have been used as a tactic to shore up public support for unpopular leaders threatened by
domestic discontent, after all (Sobek, 2007). Although China’s longtime position has been to maintain
a strong partnership with the US based on mutual interest, benefit, and respect, it is imperative
that the US public understands when US policy encourages China to retreat from that position,
and the potential that holds for conflict.
L - China – (Cyber)
China Cyberwar rhetoric reinforces the notion that China is perpetually
uncivilized.
Ooi and D’arcangelis 17 Su-Mei Ooi is a professor at Butler University. Gwen D’Arcangelis is
a professor at Skidmore College. “Framing China: Discourses of othering in US news and political
rhetoric”, Global Media and China
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2059436418756096, [Accessed: 7-182021]//cblasi
The construction of China as potential enemy Other takes on an additional hue when we look at
the depictions of China’s cyber activities—China moves from cheat to a more malicious cousin, the thief. The United
States first focused on issues of “cyber warfare” in the mid-2000s to late 2000s, but at the time, the trope associated with
China was not necessarily that of thief. In the mass news media, a militaristic lens framed much
of the discussion, depicting China as a rule breaker flouting international norms and thus posing a
security threat. For example, a Los Angeles Times article highlighted that “China in the last year has
developed ways to infiltrate and manipulate computer networks around the world in what U.S. defense
officials conclude is a new and potentially dangerous military capability, according to a Pentagon report” (Barnes, 2008). C hina is
even placed in relation to al-Qaeda: “Cyber-attacks and cyber-espionage pose a greater
potential danger to U.S. national security than Al Qaeda and other militants that have dominated America’s
global focus since Sept. 11, 2001, the nation’s top intelligence officials said Tuesday” (Dilanian, 2013). This juxtaposition
with al-Qaeda only served to heighten the military valence of China’s cyber activities, and a push to
prepare for such a threat. Indeed, in the words of Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL): “The threat, to be sure, is real—and, we cannot allow
ourselves to grow complacent …” (Nelson 2008). Snowden’s revelations of US spying on China in June of 2013 drastically changed
the shape of the discussion however. Snowden
demonstrated that the NSA (1) had two data centers in China
from which it had been inserting spy software into vulnerable computers; (2) targeted the Chinese
University of Hong Kong, public officials, businesses, and students; (3) hacked mobile phones; and (4) in 2009, hacked the
Pacnet headquarters in Hong Kong, which runs one of the biggest regional fibre-optic networks. In response to Snowden’s
revelations, a spate of articles compared the United States’ and China’s hacking, displaying a range of
attitudes from journalists—some espoused that both countries demonstrate equivalent transgressive behavior, while others
argued that China has crossed the line into more aggressive hacking that goes beyond the
United States’ more benign “preemptive” hacking. The latter attitude indicates the resilience of
tropes of the Yellow and Red Perils, a China whose inherent ideological and cultural differences
with the West makes it a threat. The different lenses through which journalists and pundits viewed China’s
spying in comparison with that of the United States further invoke this Orientalist demarcation.
An article in The Washington Post thus contrasts China’s behavior against that of the United States, which merely seeks “to examine
huge amounts of communication metadata around the world to look for trends” and “to preempt some threat against the U.S.”
China’s spying is described, however, as “infiltrating almost every powerful institution in
Washington, D.C.,” “breaking into major news organizations,” “stealing sensitive military technology,” and
“stealing so much intellectual property that China’s hacking has been called the ‘greatest transfer of wealth in history’” (Fisher,
2013). Drawing in particular on incendiary words like “stealing” and “infiltrating,” this article distinguishes China as a sneaky thief. US
journalists and pundits, in charging China with stealing economic resources, have further solidified the demarcation of China as an
inferior and dangerous Other. A well-circulated quote by national
security pundit Adam Segal stated, “The problem is
we’re not talking about the same things … We’re trying to make a distinction between cyber economic
espionage and normal political-military espionage. The Chinese don’t make that same
distinction” (Bengali & Dilanian, 2015). By portraying China as unable to grasp the fundamental
distinction between economics and national security, Segal suggests China’s thievery is
connected to a more fundamental character flaw—China is unable to grasp proper civilized
norms. Similarly, US official response has been that China’s view of data collection as a sovereign right has rendered them
essentially different from the United States and by implication, the civilized world. That Chinese governmental espionage involves
the collection of economic intelligence that is shared with Chinese companies further departs from civilized norms. Michael Rogers,
Director of the National Security Agency thus explained that “they clearly don’t have the same lines in the sand, if you will, with that
regard” (Bennett, 2015). Historically,
US depictions of China as uncivilized have occurred whenever China
has gained power or threatened US interests. The narrative of China as a sort of child following in the United States’
footsteps on the path to modernity has proven exceedingly popular since World War II and frames the US approach to China as a
potential ally and resource who at the same time may never be civilizable (Kim, 2010; Vukovich, 2012). In this Orientalist narrative,
China’s journey to modernity is always understood as precarious and, moreover, subject to US vigilance as to whether it meets the
appropriate benchmarks. The title of an editorial in The Washington Post epitomizes current iterations of this sentiment and the
ease with which Orientalist imagery can be invoked to portray China’s path to modernity as needing US guidance when China falls
out of line: “The US Needs to Tame the Cyber-Dragon: Stronger Measures are Need[ed] to Block China’s Economic Espionage
[emphasis mine]” (“The U.S. Needs to Tame,” 2013). In reality, US
vigilance can be attributed to the concern since
the end of the Cold War, that a “sleeping giant” able to challenge US global hegemony is
awakening (Kim, 2010). Thus, the cultural work done by portrayals of China as unable to adhere to
civilized norms serve to bolster the image of China as perpetually unprepared to be a
responsible member of the international community. In fact, this narrative of China’s thievery serves
to persuade the American public that China is a threat to the international community. One Wall
Street Journal journalist perfectly echoes this sentiment: A China that leads the world in the theft of intellectual property,
computer hacking and resource nationalism will prove extremely destabilizing. If it continues on this course, Beijing should not be
surprised if other countries begin to band together to collectively counter some of the more harmful implications of China’s rise. A
better outcome for all will be for China to embrace its responsibilities to help lead the world … (Metzl, 2011) This article, although
hopeful that China may at some future point become a responsible global actor, even leader, ultimately reifies
that an increase in China’s global power is always suspect.
the notion
L - China (Maritime Conflict)
China’s territorial claims in the SCS are valid—the aff’s rhetoric gaslights China
to portray them as a lawless bully to serve US security interests over the global
good.
Ooi and D’arcangelis 17 Su-Mei Ooi is a professor at Butler University. Gwen D’Arcangelis is
a professor at Skidmore College. “Framing China: Discourses of othering in US news and political
rhetoric”, Global Media and China
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2059436418756096, [Accessed: 7-182021]//cblasi
China as lawless bully: maritime disputes To
cheat and thief, we can layer the trope of lawlessness, readily
employed in media representations and political rhetoric over maritime territorial and EEZ
disputes involving China and its neighbors in the Western Pacific. China’s territorial claims in the South
China Sea are largely historical in nature and do encroach on the 200 nautical miles EEZ of neighboring countries
such as the Philippines and Vietnam. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) does not expressly prohibit
land reclamation in the sea as long as due notice is given to other concerned states and due regard to the rights of other states (Art.
60.3, 56.2, and 56.3) is taken into account, while the obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment is observed (Art.
192). Parties to a dispute are also obligated to refrain from acting in a manner that would jeopardize or hamper a final agreement
resolving the dispute (Art. 74.3 and 83.3). The frantic building of artificial islands to enhance the legality of China’s claims, unilateral
installations, and skirmishes in the disputed areas are thus amenable to interpretation as lawless bullying. An
editorial in the
Wall Street Journal titled “Calling Out China’s Lawlessness; The US Points Out that Beijing’s
Claims to the South China Sea Don’t Stand Up,” describes the “sketchy legality of its [Beijing’s]
actions” and claims that “China is changing the status quo in the South China Sea with force and the
threat of force” (“Calling Out,” 2014). This characterization in the media is consistent with political rhetoric. US
Secretary of State John Kerry was reported to have said in May 2014 that China’s “introduction of an oil rig and numerous
government vessels in waters disputed with Vietnam was provocative” (Ives & Fuller, 2014). Eliot Engel of the House of
Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee framed China’s actions in skirmishes with Vietnam as “needless provocations” (Engel,
2014). At the same time, media
representations and political rhetoric have tended to obscure the fact
that China’s regional neighbors all built airstrips and outposts on the claimed islands long
before China ever did. China also displays inconsistent behavior in that it has reached agreements with Vietnam in the Gulf
of Tonkin and South Korea in the Yellow Sea to divide fisheries equally and carry out joint enforcement patrols in keeping with
international law.3 Indeed, China
has in land disputes signed “fair and balanced” treaties with 13 out of
14 neighbors in keeping with international legal principles (Kraska, 2015). These instances have not, however,
drawn any significant media attention. Instead, the emphasis on China’s non-compliance with international
law in the South China Sea disputes has served to recapitulate China in Orientalist terms as
uncivilized and, moreover, as a fully awakened “sleeping giant” that bullies its neighbors and is
unsuited to replace the US as regional leader. US political rhetoric and media representation has also
obscured the vagueness of international law when applied to the East China Sea dispute as it would be
inconsistent with the image of China as a lawless bully in the South China Sea. The UNCLOS appears to
have a straightforward framework that gives states maritime jurisdiction over resources 200 nautical
miles from their coastal baseline, but it says nothing about how overlapping maritime jurisdictions are to
be resolved. In the case of the East China Sea, the area of dispute is only 360 miles across at its widest point. At the heart of
the territorial dispute between China and Japan is the “territorial acquisition” of the Senkaku/Diaoyutai
islands, but there is no convention on how states acquire sovereignty over disputed territories .4 The
flexibility of applicable principles in international customary law have instead allowed both China and Japan to invoke the law to
justify their claims to sovereignty (Ramos-Mrosovsky, 2008). China’s refusal to have the dispute adjudicated by an international body
reflects the unpredictability of outcomes and not necessarily China’s lawlessness, especially when viewed, in light of a similar
disinterest on the part of the Japanese. The
essentialization of China as lawless, despite the malleability of
international law and dissimilar behavior in other disputes, has the potential to drive a wedge between
China and her neighbors, thus “containing” China’s growing influence in the region. Indeed, the
depiction of China as a lawless bully plays up the insecurities of its immediate—and in many cases,
much weaker— neighbors, whose heavy reliance on international law to constrain hegemonic behavior is palpable. The breaking
of norms has been identified as a crucial signal that heightens threat perception (Farnham, 2003). In the context of long-standing
maritime territorial disputes, playing up an image of China as a lawless bully also suggests that the United States continues to be a
necessary power broker in the region. The
notion that there is an overbearing bully in the neighborhood
that could care less about the rules of the game returns the United States to the role of
protector in the post– Cold War period—its ostensible “manifest destiny.” Since the late 1990s, titles
such as “Spratly Spat Heats up over Chinese ‘Bullying’” (Lamb, 1998) or “Asian Nations Support US Silently” (Wiseman, 2001)
demonstrate how constructing China as a lawless bully serves to reinforce this purpose. Indeed, a recent
editorial in The Wall Street Journal makes this link explicit in the text: Washington’s hesitant response has allowed controversy to
build around freedom-of-navigation missions that should be routine. Beijing’s strategy in the South China Sea is to bully its neighbors
and achieve regional hegemony through coercive means short of war. Turning peaceful naval patrols into diplomatic hot potatoes is
exactly the sort of change Beijing seeks. (“A 12-Mile,” 2015) 278 Global Media and China 2(3–4) Here, China’s
behavior is
portrayed as incorrigibly belligerent, in distinct contrast to genteel US diplomacy. One Wall Street Journal article makes
this point clear in its title alone: “Chinese Diplomacy Off Course; By Overreaching in the South China Sea,
Beijing has Drawn the US Irrevocably into the Debate” (Wain, 2000). This article embodies the
dominant narrative that assumes implicitly the rightful role of the United States to dole out
proper diplomacy and take on any transgressors to maintain world peace. A Wall Street Journal article
describing China’s “increasingly powerful—but highly opaque—military and its more assertive stance [towards the South China Sea]”
emphasize China’s military as an inherent threat to world order but construct the US military according to a different standard, again
assuming the righteousness of US military intervention (Page, 2011). In this regard, it
is important to note that US
grand strategy consists of preventing the development of any regional power capable of
obstructing US access to Eurasia—where most of the world’s resources and economic activity are
located. This long-term security goal has informed the Obama administration’s much-touted Pacific Pivot policy, which many
have viewed as a “China containment policy.” A Congressional Report notes that although U.S. policymakers have not often stated
this key national strategic goal explicitly in public, U.S. military (and diplomatic) operations in recent decades—both wartime
operations and day-to-day operations—can be viewed as having been carried out in no small part in support of this key goal.
(O’Rourke, 2014) China’s
territorial claims in the South China Sea cover about 90% of the area that could potentially
allow China to deny the United States such access. As China continues with the modernization of
its naval and air capabilities, US apprehension has increased that the disputed land features in the South
China Sea are being used to bolster military and coast guard forces that can monitor and
respond to the activities of US allies, deny the US navy access to these waters, and ultimately
check US naval dominance in the region. It is for this reason that the United States has insisted
on freedom of navigation and innocent passage—protected by UNCLOS—through these contested waters, although
tensions with China have ratcheted up considerably as a result. As direct conflict between the United States and China has become a
real possibility, and as the United States has not ratified the UNCLOS, the United States has attempted to base its actions on firm
legal principles, and in turn, to frame China’s behavior in the region as lawlessness. Through
US portrayals of China as a
lawless bully, China incurs reputational costs in the global and regional community that have
the potential to exert pressure on China to stand down. The guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen was thus sent
in October 2015 on a “freedom of navigation” patrol within 12 nautical miles of islands artificially built by China in the Spratly chain,
which the United States insists is in compliance with international law.5 The United States revealed this aim in another dispute on
whether China has an international legal right to regulate foreign military actors operating within China’s 200-nautical-mile EEZ. The
United States’ view, which China disagrees with, is that China has a right to restrict military and surveillance activities only within 12
nautical miles of its territorial waters. Tensions reached new heights when China announced in November 2013 an East China Sea Air
Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) that not only covered her territorial waters but extended into its EEZ and thus, the contested
areas in the East China Sea. US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel responded in a press statement that “We view this development as
a destabilizing attempt to alter the status quo in the region. This unilateral action increases the risk of misunderstanding and Ooi and
D’Arcangelis 279 miscalculations,” yet the United States followed shortly by flying two B-52 bombers through the zone (Harlan,
2013). Certainly, there
have been media analyses that characterize China’s behavior as motivated by
normal national self-interest or that point out that US actions to curtail China are “hypocritical”
and “hegemonic” (see, for example, Denyer, 2015; Wu, 2005). However, many more choose to reprise longstanding debates about whether China is a military threat or not, with titles such as “US Starting to View
China as Potential Enemy” (Mann, 1995) and “Weakening Yet Still Aggressive, China Poses Test for U.S. Presidential Candidates”
(Sanger, 2015). None
take seriously China’s claims that its actions in the region have been defensive
in nature. Even with a wide range of opinions on the matter, by focusing on the issue of China’s military buildup, these news
articles only serve to heighten this perceived threat by inferring threatening intent from growing
military capabilities. Political rhetoric tends to contain far less ambiguity, however, some even going so far as to suggest that
the United States has been unnecessarily patient toward China. Senator John McCain (2016), Chairman of the Committee of Armed
Services, thus commended and encouraged the continuance of the freedom-of-navigation operation of October 2015, adding that
“this decision is long overdue.” In a keynote speech delivered at the Fourth Annual CSIS South China Sea Conference in 2014,
Representative Mike Rogers (R-MI), Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence further advised that the
United States should stop being “deferential” to China’s “naked aggression” as it continues to “bully” and “intimidate” its
neighbors.6 Indeed, political
rhetoric appears to take China’s image as lawless to its logical
conclusion—China as the full-fledged threat to regional stability legitimizes any force that the United States might be compelled
to take in the future to contain such a threat. Unpacking the great power rivalry in the maritime disputes
thus helps us to understand the cultural work that the trope of lawless bully does to bolster the
long-term security objectives of the United States in the region.
L – Climate Change
Securitized conceptualizations of climate change transform into demands for
more resilient governmental warfare.
Lucke ’20 [Franziskus von; Postdoctoral Researcher in International Relations at the University
of Tübingen. His research focuses on critical security studies, climate politics and climate justice,
and he has worked extensively on the securitisation of climate change.; “Chapter 5: Revisiting
the Securitisation of Climate Change and the Governmentalisation of Security”; 2020; Springer;
The Securitisation of Climate Change and the Governmentalisation of Security; Accessed
7/19/21; NT]
Reconstituting something as security issue reduces complexity, for instance, by hiding the environmental and
economic implications of climate change as well as deflecting attention away from the root causes. At the same time,
it refocuses the attention on a limited set of qualities—a specific ‘security truth’ (Burgess 2011, p. 39)—which
can be more easily targeted by specific political interventions. This quality of securitisation resembles the key
effects of power in discourse, namely to establish a specific understanding of reality as ‘true’, an effect which is reinforced by
securitisation. With increasing strength, security discourses
present their particular meaning as objective,
their representation becomes reality, or in Gramsci’s and Laclau and Mouffes’s conceptualisation, hegemonic (Cox 1981, pp.
137–138, 1983, p. 169; Laclau and Mouffe 2001). Focusing on this very specific truth makes it easier to discuss the
political handling of the issue than trying to grasp it in its entire complexity. It can also suppress political
opposition. In the case of climate change, this has contributed to establishing a specific understanding of
climate change be it as national security threat, human security issue or long-term risk, or a specific
combination of all three, as almost hegemonic and without feasibly alternatives—at least for a certain amount of time and in a
specific context.
In practice, this constitutive process
begins when security discourses bring something on the political agenda and
help to politicise it. It is precisely the redefinition and constriction of the political meaning, for example, from ‘soft’
towards ‘hard’ politics or from ‘environmental’ to ‘human security issue’ that is one of the drivers behind increased
attention, urgency and novel political solutions. The resonance for the issue broadens significantly, new actors play a role and new
audiences are drawn to listen. A key example is the US debate where the increasingly dominant understanding of climate change
as direct threat to national security made it easier to handle the issue politically across both isles of the political spectrum. At the
same time, it seriously
narrowed down its meaning.
This last point demonstrates the
contradictory effect of securitisation that although the reconstitution of
issues as security related can revive and politicise the debate, at the same time it narrows it down, which
eventually can lead to a de-politicisation. The discursive claims for objectivity and urgency that come
with securitisation can make it very difficult for alternative discourses and actors to keep playing a role. While
certainly finding its theoretical endpoint in the extraordinary measures described by the Copenhagen School, these
exclusionary tendencies already exist below this threshold. One example is the absence of environmental
groups and discursive alternatives in the US, which during the rise of the sovereign discourse were
increasingly framed as naïve, left-wing ‘tree huggers’ while the military and defence establishment’s view
was constituted as neutral voice of reason. In stark contrast, in Germany and Mexico, the armed forces or more
unilateral conceptions of national security never had a real chance to play a larger role in the human security and risk-dominated
debate. At the same time, in both countries, the climate security debate was broader (concerning discussed topics as well as actors)
than in the US, indicating that the disciplinary and governmental discourses are less exclusionary and better compatible with
politicising the debate than the sovereign discourse.
The above-discussed qualities of securitisation to narrow down the debate as well pertain to the three power forms that
are at the core of the governmentality approach. Thus, pointing
to an existential threat contributes to transform
these power
forms and associated security conceptions and ultimately can drive them towards their theoretical
extreme. Consequently, in a securitisation context, sovereign power does not merely mean to take matters into
the hand of the sovereign, for example, by issuing climate laws or taxing GHGs. Instead, it is often directly linked to
one-dimensional national security conceptions that are firmly rooted in defence and security policy.
The narrow understanding of national security in the US climate security debate in the mid-2000s exemplifies this transformation. At
the same token, as the US and German cases have demonstrated, human
security does not only empower or
emancipate individuals. Instead, in its extreme, securitised variants, it can contribute to exert behavioural
control over people and can entail problematic paternalistic notions that constitute actors from the
Global North as champions of climate protection while victimising poor people in the Global South
and robbing them of any meaningful agency. Likewise, in a securitisation context, governmental power and associated
conceptions of risk can go beyond the ‘laissez-faire’, indirect governance originally imagined by Foucault. Ultimately, they can
legitimise drastic preventive approaches to gain control over seemingly existential risks that in the
end can come very close to traditional conceptions of security (see Methmann and Rothe 2012; Ahmed et al. 2016). The debates
about ‘black swan’ events in the US and associated military planning to control for any possible future serve as an example.
Another constitutive feature of securitisation is its propensity to merge formerly separated policy areas. Whereas linking nontraditional issues such as climate
change to security conceptions under specific circumstances can lead to a
militarisation or to a constriction of the political meaning of this issue, it also has the reverse effect. A key finding of the
empirical analysis of this book is that securitisation is not a one-way street but has bidirectional effects, which other have already
described respectively as ‘climatisation’ or ‘medicalisation’ (Oels 2012; Elbe 2011; Maertens 2018). It is not only the securitised issue
that changes its meaning, but the very concept of security itself and the governance practices in the security and defence sector
transform as well in the course of the securitisation process (see also Duncanson 2009 who makes a similar argument concerning
masculinity). This is not necessarily confined to the traditional security sector. If the securitisation primarily rests on
nontraditional conceptions of security such as human security or risk, it can
also have a considerable influence on the
sectors that are usually associated with these alternative forms of security, for example, the development or insurance sector.
In general, the bidirectional
effects of securitisation are part of the broader process of the governmentalisation of security,
which blurs the boundaries between ‘normal’ and ‘security’.
In the case of climate
change, on the one hand, the securitisation transformed what people understood under the label
climate change. It legitimised new security-related policies and directly affected climate research by
increasing the demand for security-related ‘actionable’ knowledge. On the other hand, this also had profound
consequences for the policy sector that now became a part of climate governance. In Mexico, for instance, seguridad nacional
meant something quite different in relation to climate change than it did in connection to the drug trade. In the US, even the most
traditional defence policy think tanks highlighted the multifaceted security challenges posed by
climate change, which necessitated entirely new (security) practices. They hence recognised that ensuring US national security
was increasingly also about different forms of risk management, about coping with disasters, poverty and humanitarian problems
abroad, as well as associated with ‘greening’
the military (see Oels 2011, p. 26, 2012, pp. 198–199). Moreover, the
securitisation in Germany, which emphasised the foreign policy components of climate and national security, facilitated entirely
new concepts such as ‘climate foreign policy’ and ‘climate diplomacy’. Finally, in both the US and Germany, the
securitisation of climate change accelerated the merging of defence and development policy. It hence contributed to the spread of
concepts such as ‘networked security’ and underlined
the political mantra that there is no development
without security but also no security without development (Merkel 2010; Pospisil 2009; Tschirgi et al. 2010).
Existential risk framing produces counterproductive climate strategies – turns
case.
Warner and Boas ’19 [Jeroen; Associate Professor, Sociology of Development and Change
Group at Wageningen University and Research Centre; Ingrid; Associate Professor at the
Environmental Policy Group at Wageningen University and Research Centre; “Securitization of
climate change: How invoking global dangers for instrumental ends can backfire”; 2019; Vol. 37,
Issue 8; Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space;
https://doi.org/10.1177/2399654419834018; Accessed 7/15/21; NT]
Davoudi (2014) shows how the social
understanding of nature moved from nature-as-clockwork (Enlightenment)
discourses of global danger and
insecurity caused by nature. The author traces the rise of ‘climate securitization’ back to a conference, ‘The
Changing Atmosphere: Implications for Global Security’ in Toronto in 1988, which portrayed the consequences of climate
change as only second to nuclear war. Since the 1990s climate change has often been presented as a global crisis, an existential
through nature-as-finite (Club of Rome, 1970s), through nature as risk (1990s) to
threat to human civilization, a planetary catastrophe (Paglia, 2018). Yet, unlike an aggressive force out to conquer foreign territory,
climate change is a special domain of emergency, that of ‘threats without enemies’ (Prins, 1993). As argued by Methmann
and Rothe (2012: 328), climate is depicted as an external threat, with impacts coming suddenly, ‘from the
outside’.
Issues of risk and security ‘can provoke strong emotions, legitimise extraordinary practices, and
lead to practices that are otherwise indefensible’ (Davoudi, 2014: 371–372). Environmental securitization however is an
uncertain domain for securitization (Buzan et al., 1998; Trombetta, 2008). In climate change, the burden of proof to
legitimize securitization is especially tricky. While a clear majority of the academic community considers anthropogenic
climate change sufficiently proven, its invisibility as a source of anticipated catastrophes that have yet to happen,
cannot easily compete with visible weather events in the ‘attention economy’ (Hamblyn, 2009). Other publics, then, are not
convinced, as has become clear for instance under the Trump administration. Moreover, there
is no ready consensus within
the academic community on a clear and present nexus between climate change, violent conflict and/or
migration (Adams et al., 2018), and if there is, that it can be successfully averted through a particular course of
action.
The lack of ‘full closure’ has not stopped some from trying to securitise climate change. But overstressing the security
dimension risks
reducing democratic accountability (Coaffee et al., 2008). Some scholars have indeed warned for a
security discourse to induce aversive policies, such as a larger role for the military to cope with
feared effects of global warming like climate migration (Hartmann, 2010). Indeed, issues that can harm military capability, are
more likely to become securitized than those that cannot (Fidler, 2007).
Not only is climate a ‘threat without an enemy’ (Prins, 1993) but also lacks a ‘hero’ to save the day. Armed forces can
defeat an invading enemy, a SWAT team can neutralise a terrorist, ICT experts can intercept a hacker, civil engineers and water
managers can stop the flood, but no
single actor can stop climate change. A pitfall of climate securitization therefore
a sense of ontological insecurity in the intended audience rather than rallying support.
Presenting an apocalyptic picture without a ‘way out’ upsets people’s basic sense of security and trust in the
world around them. ‘Insecuritizing’ them (Bigo, 2002) instils a feeling of helplessness in the recipients of the message, a
perceived lack of agency, leading people to ignore the issue and hide behind a false sense of security in their home
is that of instilling
and community (Harries, 2008). The way out becomes the domain of more mundane technocratic practices. ‘[A]pocalyptic climate
change is articulated as overstraining the capacity of political actors, and thus as ruling out exceptional measures and passing
responsibility to the “political machine” (...)’ (Methmann and Rothe, 2012: 324). The security discourse on climate
change has not resulted in successful securitization in the sense of having led to exceptional measures being accepted and
implemented (Corry, 2012; Methmann and Rothe, 2012; Oels, 2012). Instead, it ‘is so exaggerated that it
prompts the opposite:
routine and micro-practices of risk management: mitigation as precautionary risk management,
adaptation as investing in preparedness, and security not as pre-empting but as a combination of the
former two’ (Methman and Rothe, 2012: 337).
Climate securitization stalls effective mitigation measures and makes its effects
inevitable – depictions of apocalypse preclude productive discussions
Warner and Boas ’19 [Jeroen; Associate Professor, Sociology of Development and Change
Group at Wageningen University and Research Centre; Ingrid; Associate Professor at the
Environmental Policy Group at Wageningen University and Research Centre; “Securitization of
climate change: How invoking global dangers for instrumental ends can backfire”; 2019; Vol. 37,
Issue 8; Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space;
https://doi.org/10.1177/2399654419834018; Accessed 7/15/21; NT]
A securitizing move involves an existential, life-and-death threat and its corollary: an extraordinary course of
action as the only way out. Both case studies discussed here (Table 1) show a dramatic securitising move, where climate
change was presented as the source of great potential crisis that will harm us all, unless we take
urgent action – either for mitigation (the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions) or for adaptation (adjusting to
climate impacts). In the UK case, the FCO warned about the security implications of untamed global warming – such as climate
conflict or mass climate migration – to persuade the international community, and in particular the emerging economies, to mitigate
their emissions to prevent these potential security threats. In the Dutch case, the security framing legitimized considerable
interventions in the form of dike reinforcement, river rehabilitation and defence infrastructure, raising the level of Lake IJssel in the
Central Netherlands, digging a bypass, and moving huge amounts of sand around (‘Building with Nature’). A special Delta Fund and
Delta Commissioner added to the special pleading to counter the climatic threat. By reducing the number of scenarios and options,
and successfully controlling the ‘staging’ (Hajer et al., 2010) of its public launch, the Delta Commission almost seems a textbook
example of turning the logic of ‘choice’ into one of ‘necessity’ (Verduijn et al., 2012). In the end however the mandate of the
Commissioner and the extent of intervention was seriously curtailed.
Our analysis helps us to further explain discrepancies in climate securitization processes. Once successfully placed
on the
policy agenda, its effect has been lacklustre in both cases. Whilst endorsing an exceptional discourse, in both cases
the securitizers ultimately sought to endorse ‘a rather piecemeal and technocratic approach’ (Methmann and
Rothe, 2012: 324). The UK FCO’s securitising move was strategic and instrumental. Instead of purposefully endorsing,
exceptional measures such as military intervention and martial law, the agency sent apocalyptic warnings to raise
the urgency of mitigation measures. Even its actions within the UN Security Council seemed mundane, although
clothed in alarmist discourse considered excessive by India and other BRIC countries, risking the further polarization of
the climate debate in the international arena. The FCO primarily used the Council as a platform for raising further awareness, rather
than to actually institutionalize climate change within the UN Security Council, which would have been a more exceptional move.
The Delta Commission did not call for drastic action either. Instead, the Commission aimed to secure long-term year-on year funding
and legitimacy for infrastructural investments, and was successful in that striving, if in a watered-down form. In many other
countries, a commitment to infrastructural funding up to 2200 would be considered absurd. Attrition and erosion inevitably took
their toll, but the plans essentially still stand. Thus, in line with arguments advanced by scholars such as Trombetta (2008), Corry
(2012) and Methmann and Rothe (2012), we note the urgent
action promoted here is within the everyday realm of
climate policy: the mitigation of GHG emissions via carbon markets, technological innovation without major implications for the
world economy and raising flood defences against potential sea-level extremes.
Our cases furthermore demonstrate the instrumental nature of these securitizing moves, as carefully planned and developed within
policy settings. As the interview quotes from the UK case in particular show, the FCO employees promoting the narrative were
instrumentally using its argumentative value for their climate diplomacy efforts, making it integral to their climate communication
strategy. However, both cases illustrate that security language can but does not necessarily help to increase the urgency of climate
action, particularly if it comes across as strategic. In the words of one Indian interviewee, interviewed in relation to India’s position
as audience to UK’s efforts in the UN Security Council: ‘If you want policy to be changed you [will] have to tell people: this is the
challenge and this is the policy response for it and it has to be believable’.14 Instead, the FCO’s securitising
move fuelled
further distrust amongst key target audiences within the UN Security Council debates. It made emerging countries more
sceptical of the UK’s intentions on climate change and felt pressured through scare stories that were
unfounded. The lesson from this case, then, is that a framing has to be genuine and valid for it to be convincing and successful
amongst an already sceptical audience. Furthermore, as the Dutch Delta case demonstrated, apocalyptic discourses risk
fuelling public disengagement with climate change and promote a sense of fatalism or scepticism
leading ‘to denial of the problem and disengagement with the whole issue in an attempt to avoid the discomfort of
contending with it’ (O’Neil and Nicholson=Cole, 2009: 371). In this case, the dramatic imaging of climate change
fuelled a sense of anti-environmentalism and scepticism regarding the likelihood of extreme weather impacts, such as
severe and sudden storms and sea-level rise (see also Bettini, 2013: 69; Hulme, 2009: 213; Lowe et al., 2006). Exaggerating the
gravity of the crisis, the Delta’s commission risked losing its credibility and playing into the hands of hard-line populist scepticism. In
both cases, the security frame backfired like a ‘policy boomerang’ (van Buuren and Warner, 2014a). To
conclude, the analysis illustrates that particularly in the domain of climate change, where the future remains uncertain and many of
discussions focus
on issues of risks and potentialities (Corry, 2012), successful securitization is complex. An audience
is not easily persuaded when hearing that something is an urgent threat – such a discourse needs to resonate with a context
giving some indication that the doom scenario might come true. The debate on climate change and security is in many respects
‘dominated by its futurology’ (Baldwin et al., 2014: 121), making it an easy target for politicians to play on but also a difficult one to
successfully securitize. When there are multiple audiences, chances are that not all will accept the securitization, which obtains for
both cases. Given the lack of an immediate threat, the time element inexorably works against climate securitizers.
The ‘affect’ of climate change (Protevi, 2009) moreover was short-lived as climate change became out-securitized by economic and
immigration concerns in both countries. Climate issues however have bounced
back; these days it seems to have returned
shape of things to come
in a warmer world (Le Page, 2015). Likewise, natural disasters are increasingly ‘climatized’ (Grant et al.,
to the global agenda again, as the plight of Syrian refugees has been framed by some as the
2015; Oels, 2012).
Employing the lens of national security legitimizes the militarization of climate
change – turns case.
Loeff ’20 [Agnes Schim van der; MSc Human Ecology, Lund University; “Climate Change and
National Security: Contradictions Challenging the Status Quo”; 2020; Issue 1; SOAS
Undergraduate Research Journal; https://www.soas.ac.uk/ugrj/issues/volume-1/file146234.pdf;
Accessed 7/14/21; NT]
National security’s traditional focus on
threats of a military nature limits its understanding of nonmilitary threats such as
climate change, where militarization might bring it higher on the policy agenda but compromises the chance of an
effective solution. Taking states as the referent object of security generally assumes threats will come in the form of external
military attacks or “internal subversion of the political order” (Dalby, 2009: 2). Consequently, the military and related security
institutions are considered the main actors in providing this security. As mentioned above, climate change being a
non-traditional, non-military threat for a long time kept it off the policy agenda. Thus, the military addressing climate change is a
positive development in that its securitisation makes
it “an urgent, existential threat which demands immediate
action” (Trombetta, 2018: 595). Particularly since the 2007 UN report on climate change there has been an “extension of
the military and the national security state into the arena of environmentalism” (Marzec, 2015: 1). However,
serious questions must be asked as to whether the military is in fact an appropriate actor to address the issue of climate change,
especially considering it is “one of the most polluting of human institutions” (Dalby, 2009: 4). While military threats usually involve
intentional attacks by states or terrorist organisations, threats related to climate change are “diffuse, indirect, and international,
originating both inside and outside the state concerned” (ibid: 50). Additionally, while the former tends to be occasional and rare,
“environmental degradation is a long-term process usually derived accidentally from routine economic activities,” and therefore not
easily ‘fixed’ by the military (ibid).
Although the profound differences between ‘new’ environmental threats and ‘traditional’ military threats requires a
non-traditional approach to security, this is not yet the case in the militarisation of climate change. Military
reports addressing climate change as a national security threat exclude the possibility of transformative policies that could mitigate
its effects, considering it unavoidable and attempts at mitigation useless (Marzec, 2015: 2). The
result is the militarisation of the
environment with a singular focus on adaptation as a crucial element in “the “exceptional” war on global warming”
(ibid: 4). This is exemplified in the 2007 US military report National Security and the Threat of Climate Change which concludes that
“the
U.S. war machine must expand its power globally to avoid significant disruptions to
international stability” (ibid: 7). Furthermore, climate change is presented as a “threat multiplier”
exacerbating conflicts and existing vulnerabilities in alarmist discourses that direct policies to limit migration rather
than solve the root causes of poverty and environmental change (Dalby, 2009: 50). This is partly because in the militarisation of
climate change the ideological basis is left unacknowledged, an ideology that “disadvantages the potential for alternatives and can
result in the reduction of the state to an aggressive ecological policing agent” while still prioritizing “market forces over the needs of
the planet’s dispossessed and their environments” (Marzec, 2015: 26). Ignoring
this is dangerous, considering that the
relative affluence in the Global North combined with higher vulnerability to climate change in the Global South could lead
Northern security institutions to impose a “defence-oriented solution that seeks to remap the
earth along the lines of a gated community” (ibid: 27). Thus, climate change itself remains unaddressed, and its victims
are turned into a threat that is more readily understood in the realist framework of national security.
The status quo: threatened or threatening?
The most fundamental contradiction in adopting a national security approach to climate change is that while the former aims to
preserve the status quo, this is exactly what is driving the latter. The painful “irony
of climate change is that the
threat is self-imposed”, at least for those in affluent consumer societies (Dalby, 2009: 2). Therefore, any
adequate response to this threat requires transformation of the current political system of nation-states and the
economic system of carboniferous capitalism. In this way anthropogenic climate change questions the legitimacy of the dominant
conceptualisations of modernity and development, since the security this has given the Global North is
based on fossil
fuels that are now creating insecurity (ibid: 3). However, as pointed out by Lacy, there are “networks of power
that have an interest in protecting a limited vision of security”, which is reflected in the strategies employed by national
security agents in relation to climate change (Lacy, 2005: 6). These strategies focus primarily on “securing and protecting a
particular mode of existence” and the people who benefit from that, as opposed to “disrupting the strategies of
powerful actors in the fossil fuel economy” (ibid: 105-106). For example, the European Union was advised to take
responsibility for ‘managing climate security risks’ through “more proactive […] interventions in crisis
regions” (Fetzek and van Schaik, 2018). Meanwhile, fossil fuel subsidies were recently estimated at €55 billion per year in the EU
(Coleman and Dietz, 2019). Other scholars have noted that the dominant way of conceptualising environmental change implies that
climate change can only be addressed by “remaining within the existing [neoliberal] frame of our politico-environmental relations”
and following the realist conclusion of the inevitability of adaptation (Marzec, 2015: 26).
Alarmist depictions of migration driven by climate change are rooted in violent
threat discourse – turns case.
Boas and Wiegel ’21 [Ingrid; Associate Professor at the Environmental Policy Group at
Wageningen University and Research Centre; Hanne; PhD candidate at the Environmental Policy
Group and the Sociology of Development and Change Group at Wageningen University and
Research Centre; “7. Climate migration between conflictive discourses and empirical realities”;
2021; Edward Elgar Publishing; Handbook on the Governance and Politics of Migration; Accessed
7/15/21; NT]
The issue of climate change-induced migration, or environmental change-induced migration more broadly –
referring to migrations in the context of significant changes in the natural environment – has gone on and off the
political radar over the last two decades. It became particularly popular in the early 2000s when climate change turned into an
issue of high politics, particularly in Europe (Boas 2015; Trombetta 2008). At that time, most writings on the climate change–
migration nexus, both academic and non-academic, portrayed the issue in what has later been labelled as an alarmist
way (see discussions in Bettini et al. 2017; Gemenne 2009). Within academia, most such writings came from those
working on environmental studies, seeking to highlight the gravity of environmental change by referring to
its implications on society (Gemenne 2009). For example, Norman Myers (Myers and Kent 1995; Myers 2002), as an
environmental specialist, warned of 200 million environmental refugees by 2050, largely caused
by sea-level rise. Such estimates have later been critiqued for being ‘at best, guesswork’ (Parry et al. 2007: 365)
and have thus far not been supported by empirical evidence (Gemenne 2011). Nevertheless, this
estimate has been
adopted by several policy documents and NGO reports on climate change and migration (for example, Christian Aid 2007;
Stern 2006) and is still today referred to during policy conferences held on the subject.1 As such, these high numerical
estimates have the political function to gain attention and to create a sense of urgency around the issue of climate
change-induced migration.
Indeed, supported
by a discursive lexicon of alarming phrases, such as ‘climate refugees’, ‘mass
migration’, ‘climate conflict’ and ‘chaos’, national governments, the United Nations, NGOs, think tanks, and some
academics also tried to put the issue of climate change-related refugees and migrants on the political radar (Bettini 2013; Boas 2015;
Warner and Boas 2019). One of the authors of this chapter employed this
framing in previous work, emphasizing the
vulnerability of ‘climate refugees’ in order to stress the existing lack of legal protection (Biermann and Boas 2010).
This was (perhaps naïvely) done without considering the discursive implications of framing the subject in such a
fashion, which, rather than helping refugees by signalling the gravity of the situation, can support a
fearsome imagining of ‘climate refugees’ as ‘barbarians at the gate’ trying to make their way into Europe (see
Bettini 2013 for this critique). Such a framing can result in an apocalyptic imagining of the subject matter
through which the ‘envisioning of an ultimate threat (the tsunami of climate refugees), … raises the
imperative “If I don’t do this … some unspeakably horrible X will take place”’ (Žižek, cited in Bettini 2013: 65). A number of
humanitarian NGOs such as Christian Aid have, in trying to convince policy-makers to act on both climate change and
migration to avoid a future crisis, indeed adopted such a scaremongering discourse by framing climate refugees as
the threatening ‘Other’ posing risks to the stability of the international community (Bettini 2013; Boas 2015). It is on
this basis that they have then argued for more interventionist action in the fields of climate mitigation, adaptation
and conflict prevention work, with the rationale to prevent future risks from unfolding (for example, Boas and Rothe 2016).
Yet, in this discourse, ‘climate
refugees’ are not only framed as a threat, but simultaneously as passive
victims of changes in the environment (on a similar discursive tension between migrants as threat or victims, see
Thibos and Howard in this volume, Chapter 12, on human trafficking). To make the argument that the international community
should help protect affected ‘climate refugees’ (for example, Biermann and Boas 2010), these so-called ‘refugees’
are often
depicted as having low adaptive capacities and limited agency to protect themselves. This framing has received much
criticism, not least by those being framed in such a manner. For example, inhabitants and politicians from the Pacific small island
states of Kiribati and Tuvalu reject the label ‘refugees’, since for them it
‘evokes a sense of helplessness and a lack
of dignity that contradicts their very strong sense of pride’ (McAdam and Loughry 2009). Furthermore, the definition of refugees
in the 1951 Geneva Convention signals persecution or lack of protection from one’s government, which is not necessarily applicable
in the case of climate change-induced migration (cf. Hart, Chapter 8 and Crawley and Setrana, Chapter 16, both in this volume).
These concerns about the alarmist
discourse have been supported by a wave of criticism coming mainly from
academics specializing in migration studies or in discourse theory. Migration scholars highlighted the multi-causal nature
of migration and the persisting scientific uncertainties around the impact that climate change, or environmental changes
more broadly, have or can have on migration (Black 2001; Castles 2002). These scholars argued that other factors, such as
economic, political, demographic and social factors, are intertwined with environmental drivers of migration
in a complex manner, so that in most cases it is impossible to single out the impact of climate change on migration
decisions (Black et al. 2011).
In addition, many migration studies have noted the multiple and diverse
ways in which people respond to
climate impacts: whereas some may decide to migrate to more distant places, many others prefer to stay or to move
only temporarily or locally, whilst again others may remain unwillingly ‘trapped’ in dangerous situations as they do not
have the means to move away (Foresight 2011). For instance, in New Orleans, USA, those most affected by Hurricane Katrina in 2005
were those without access to a car, who, having to rely on a failing public transport system, got ‘trapped’ in New Orleans when the
hurricane hit (Hannam et al. 2006). This shows that moving away does not necessarily reflect vulnerability. Instead, it is
the ability to move or to stay, and the inequalities experienced in that process, which are crucial to understand (Gill et al. 2011).
Several scholars have also demonstrated that the political
effectiveness of the apocalyptic framing of climate
change-induced migration is questionable (Boas 2015; Hulme 2009; O’Neil and Nicholson-Cole 2009). Presenting an
issue as a major threat does not necessarily result in more action. Indeed, it can further induce
scepticism amongst an already sceptical audience (Boas 2015), or make people and decision-makers feel
that climate change is too big an issue for them to manage (Hulme 2009; Methmann and Rothe 2012; O’Neil and
Nicholson-Cole 2009). As argued by O’Neil and Nicholson-Cole (2009: 371), it can lead to ‘denial of the problem and
disengagement with the whole issue in an attempt to avoid the discomfort of contending with it’.
Despite the strong criticism, the alarmist discourse continues to be influential. In particular, the 2015 ‘European
refugee crisis’ brought projections of ‘future waves of climate refugees’ firmly back on the radar of influential organizations and
governmental agencies. It has resulted
in numerous news headlines, ranging from those emphasizing the
dangerous impacts of climate change (for example, ‘Climate change key in Syrian conflict – and it will trigger more war
in future’ (The Independent 2015)2 ) to those using it to warn about future migration (for example, ‘Calais migration crisis is a taste
of what a warmer world may bring’ (New Scientist, 2015)3 ). This shows that the
apocalyptic imagining continues to
re-emerge as a strong political message, even when it has been shown to be empirically
unfounded (Bettini 2013).
L – Disease
Disease politics operate under a cloak of fear that justifies internalizing violence
Debrix and Barder 2012
Francois [prof of polis ci @ Virginia Tech] and Alexander D. [Dept of political Sci @ American U of
Beirut]; Beyond Biopolitics: Theory, Violence, And Horror in World Politics; p. 63-5
Put differently, if insecurity or unease is the problem, and if fear/terror dispositifs¶ are to be the answer, governmental
agents/agencies must certainly¶ make sure that the conduct responsible for the alleged irregularity or¶ abnormality is done away
with (before it turns into an endemic, as we¶ saw above). This is once again what biopolitical and governmentalization¶ centered
analyses show us. But, more importantly, these terror dispositifs¶ upon which governmental agents rely turn to bodies or organisms
that are¶ actively recruited in the maintenance of these regimes of governance. It is¶ precisely these bodies, organisms, or
amalgamations of human flesh that must¶ self-rationalize, self-normalize, self-securitize, and indeed self-terrorize. They¶ must
mobilize themselves against the possibility that their own conducts,¶ movements, gestures,
reactions, or even instinctive responses will be what will¶ lead to contemporary society's
insecurity and terror. They must immunize¶ themselves (by putting their flesh in danger as much as protecting it,
as¶ Esposito suggested69) against the ever present (virtual) possibility that they¶ will be the responsible
"agents" for the "ill health" of humanity itself, or what is left of it.¶ Ultimately, then, it is against their own
self-induced terror that human¶ bodies must guard. To guard against such a terror that one's
being (mind,¶ body, and soul) promotes, radical measures need to be in place, irrespective of¶ whether
the body remains alive or not. Human bodies thus end up conspiring¶ in many contemporary situations of terror,
whether they are conscious of it or¶ not. In a way, without humanity itself being directly implicated in its own¶ operations of horrific
disfiguration, contemporary systems of terror and¶ indeed horror would probably not be so effective. This is once again the crucial¶
but terrifying insight one is led to draw from the kind of analytical perspective¶ (introduced by Cavarero, as we saw in the
"Introduction" to this¶ book70) that recognizes the passage from biopolitical regimes of terror and¶ terror reproduction to agonal
conditions of horror.¶ A
telling example of this self-mobilization and self-immunization against¶ one's
body and flesh can be found in the way Western states (or, rather, some of their governmental agents and
agencies) along with some transnational¶ organizations (the World Health Organization, the United Nations) asked¶ populations the
world over to preemptively take charge of their health,¶ hygiene, and everyday routines in the context of the recent A/HlNl (or¶
"swine flu") pandemic. In
this popular health scare, as with many other¶ instances of spreading epidemics over
the past decade (SARS, the H5Nl¶ "bird flu," but also AIDS before), individual beings were asked to be the¶ primary
layer of securitization and defense against terror by turning their¶ bodies (and those of family members,
neighbors, co-workers, and so on) into¶ primordial sites of scrutiny, intervention, and indeed governance.
With the¶ "swine flu" fear, a constant questioning of one's body movements and symptomatic¶
features, along with one's daily habits, became an automatic (and¶ auto-immune) and mostly
unquestioned safeguard against the epidemic.¶ Humanity's bodies, the physiology of the human species, but also
the meaning¶ of what it means to be human (and whether humanity should be reduced to a¶ management of the
flesh) became the main targets of the pandemic terror but,¶ just as crucially, of the containment terror
that followed the revelation of the¶ pandemic. This governance of the "swine flu" and its scare (the disease
and¶ its terror were indeed inseparable from the moment a pandemic discourse was¶ launched)
was then based on a series of menial operations at the level of the¶ human body and flesh (do I have a fever? Is my cough a sign that
I have been¶ infected? Did I remember to wash my hands after riding the bus or the¶ subway?). Of course, it also relied on several
self-cancellation measures¶ (I must stay home for days if I feel sick; I must wear a protective mask if¶ I venture outside and have a
runny nose; we must close entire schools for as¶ long as necessary if we suspect that children in the community have the flu).¶ In the
end, the swine flu terror also raised vital questions about what¶ humanity today is by proliferating a succession of moral quandaries
that¶ actually sought to reconfigure humanity as that which is always already¶ primed for sacrifice. Among such so-called
fundamental social dilemmas were¶ questions like: Must
I sacrifice my body and myself if my children are not
yet¶ sick but I am (and thus, I could infect them)? Will I have to allow myself to¶ go without treatment (and possibly not make
it) if it turns out that, as was¶ reported, there are not enough vaccines for everybody? Must I segregate¶ myself, and
remove my body from the community of the living, so as not to¶ let the remaining healthy bodies be even more at risk? The
sacrificial logic¶ involved in the swine flu scare may evoke some of Rene Girard's theorizations,¶ particularly to the extent that this
form of sacrifice appears to be aimed¶ at the safeguarding of the community. But today's
self-sacrificial or selfeffacing¶ logic goes far beyond the claim advanced by Girard that "the sacrifice¶ serves to protect the
entire community from its own violence." 71 Or, for¶ that matter, that the ritual of the sacrifice "prompts the entire
community to¶ choose victims outside itself."72 To the contrary, the encouraged sacrificial¶ ritual of the swine flu
pandemic terror is, to repeat, an auto-immune response¶ or attitude that, far from casting violence
away, actually seeks to keep it within and strives to spread it, sometimes in a horrific fashion, to
as many¶ living members of the community as possible. In fact, by placing itself beyond¶ the threshold of both
life and death, and by questioning the meaning¶ of the human itself (and suggesting that the human should be redefined¶ as that
which is always ready for sacrifice), the swine flu sacrificial
terror¶ enters the realm of agonal politics and
brings in the specter of a horror¶ whereby humans must allow themselves to be quarantined,
potentially culled,¶ possibly manipulated and tested upon beyond death, and eventually left to¶
decay in a condition of neither life nor death (not bios, not zoe, and not even¶ thanatos) where the human is
rendered unrecognizable as human.¶ From this perspective on how human bodies in societies of unease enable¶ and
reproduce conditions of terror that can open onto sites of horror¶ no centralized model of power can make sense of the fear that is
necessary¶ to these regimes of agonal or agonizing governance. At the same time, what¶ these regimes of perpetuation of selfgovernmentalized terror tactics and biopolitical¶ insecurity call for is the beginning of a different understanding of¶ what human life
under agonal conditions means (as we already suggested in¶ Chapter 1). It is not enough anymore to think of life as docile or
regulated.¶ It may also not be sufficient to think of today's living bodies as abandoned¶ beings (as Agamben affirms73) who are
caught in a state of endless sovereign¶ exception (we will return to the issues of states and spaces of exception in¶ Chapter 3).
Rather, the
self-rationalizing, self-securitizing, self-terrorizing, and¶ self-horrorizing bodies and lives
that act, react, and interact in societies of¶ fear production today are closer to another analytical
paradigm, one that was¶ recently introduced by Mick Dillon and can be called "emergent life."74
L – Energy Security
Energy security is a rhetorical ploy to further the nation-state’s technocratic
goals – turns the aff via rash securitized actors and psychological numbing.
Dunham & Schlosser 16 [Ian M.; Assistant Professor of Business and Society / Sustainability
in the Management Department in the Lam Family College of Business at San Francisco State
University; Kolson; assistant professor of instruction in GUS/ES with research interests ranging
from geohumanities to political ecology; 2016; “Energy security discourses and environmental
protection measures in U.S. federal energy legislation: An introductory exploration”; The
Extractive Industries and Society Volume 3, Issue 1, January 2016, Pages 86-94;
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2015.11.015; Accessed 7-21-2021; BM]
This paper seeks to provide an empirical analysis of U.S.
energy security policy, and build out an understanding of how
energy security is conceptualized, used as a rhetorical tool, and the subsequent outcomes or effectiveness of the
use of energy security as a useful frame for addressing environmental issues. After President Jimmy Carter’s usage of the term
energy security in the 1970s, energy security has become a recognized frame used by policymakers to
emphasize a link
between energy issues and national security concerns. Analyzing the degree that securitization—
the ongoing political praxis that reflects dominant structures of power in society—has manifested rhetorically in
American federal energy legislation provides insight into the process of securitization of
legislative policy-making related to energy. This research reveals that, as energy policy has evolved, so too has the
lexicon used by policymakers when crafting legislation, the range of problems addressed as security concerns, the range of bills that
include environmental provisions, and the quantity and quality of the environmental provisions of the legislation. Building out an
understanding of the nuanced process of securitization, as well as delineating differences in policies, is an important step forward in
understanding the legislative process and the desirability of framing energy issues as security concerns. The
use of security
rhetoric serves as an exercise of power in the policy-making process that may be intentionally
adopted by lawmakers to achieve certain goals. Framing energy issues as security concerns may
be a strategy to create urgency for a particular policy and serve to elevate energy policy on the legislative
agenda. The energy security argument may also be used help to build a consensus among policymakers with divergent opinions.
Energy security may be an attractive bargaining point, capable of bringing together lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle.
The concept may have the potential to close a political gap by having energy and environmental issues addressed in the context of
national security. After all, what politician wants to been seen as soft on national security? However, actors may simply invoke
national security as a rhetorical device, a way to get the legislation enacted, and may be somewhat
unaware of the larger structural, distributional, and other outcomes. Securitization may be a very
deliberate political act for some and a mere strategy (that may lead to perhaps unintended outcomes) for others. The
security-threat binary reflects the inclusive exclusion that Agamben (2005, 2014) identifies as being
as old as sovereign authority, dating back to antiquity. That invoking security politically constructs
threat (and vice versa) is nothing new, and as stated at the outset of this paper, illustrating this process is still important. On the
day of the passage of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, Congressman Steny Hoyer (MD) compared its historical
relevance to the attacks on Pearl Harbor almost 66 years prior (Hoyer, 2007). While
lending immediacy to energy
issues has its merit, to do so by invoking an existential threat at the national scale potentially
obscures finer scale policy questions with social justice implications. This may be why there is a lack of
consensus as to how the elusive goal of energy security should be met. For example, energy security may be used to
advocate for increased supply of domestic nonrenewable energy sources at any environmental
cost, and without regard for the social impacts of the negative externalities it creates (not least of
which is climate change). To put it differently, energy policies justified via reference to Pearl Harbor-like
threats leads to the ‘post-political’ (Smith, 2009; Swyngedouw, 2010) condition whereby the complexity
of energy policy is simplified into a matter of government technocratic expertise. Questions of who is
to be made secure, in what way, and through what type of alteration of what social, economic or political structure become, simply,
how to import less foreign oil. Further complicating the issue is that the interpretation of what constitutes emergency is subjective
(Agamben, 2005). In this way, the energy security argument is vulnerable to opportunistic political posturing, which is typically
reductive by its nature. Thus, while securitization itself is very old, illustrating how it manifests in contemporary federal energy policy
can help add precision and clarity to a complicated debate. Extending from the existing arguments in the literature about the
desirability of framing environmental issues as security concerns, a number of questions about the energy security frame and praxis
emerge. First, energy
security may be used as a rhetorical strategy to unfairly justify or champion one
issue over another, possibly detracting from decision-making processes that are democratic, based on
scientific research, and employ uniform risk assessment. Second, energy security may be
susceptible to future misuse. Security carries rhetorical meaning as a justification for swift and
deliberate action by policymakers. Linking energy and national security too closely may make
future policy decisions about energy highly susceptible to future shifts in national security. Third,
energy security may be losing its meaning due to overuse. The use of catastrophic or overly exuberant language to
frame energy problems may erode the usefulness of the energy security argument. If every energy or
environmental issue must be presented as a catastrophic risk in order to be addressed, eventual
skepticism of the rhetoric may emerge. Exploring the construction of meaning in beliefs about environmental
protection and the conceptual promise and analytical difficulties that those beliefs create is important for those involved in the
governance process. Future research can improve upon this analysis with a more complex evaluation of environmental provisions.
However, this analysis is a crucial first step to evaluating the motives of legislators, and providing a greater understanding of the
discourses used to address energy issues.
L – Environmental Racism
Critiques of environmental racism fail to problematize racism while
whitewashing other hegemonic forms of domination
Pulido 2000 (Laura [Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity @ USC]; Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege
and Urban Development in Southern California; 2000. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90(1), 12-40
The concept of environmental racism – the idea that nonwhites are¶ disproportionately exposed to pollution –
emerged more than ten years ago with the¶ United Church of Christ’s study, Toxic Waste and Race in the United States (1987).¶
Given the social, ecological, and health implications of environmental hazards,¶ geographers have explored environmental racism
with the goal of contributing to better¶ policymaking. Studies have sought to determine if inequalities exist and the reasons for¶
such disparities, and to make recommendations (Cutter, 1995). While these are¶ obviously important research contributions,
studying environmental racism is¶ important for an additional reason: it helps us understand racism.¶ Although the study of racial
inequality is not new to geographers (Anderson,¶ 1987; Gilmore, 1998; Jackson and Penrose, 1994; Kobayashi and Peake, 1994; S.¶
Smith, 1993; Woods, 1998), environmental racism offers us new insights into the¶ subject, particularly its spatiality.
Unfortunately, scholars of environmental racism¶ have not seriously problematized racism,
opting instead for a de facto conception¶ based on malicious, individual acts. There are several problems
with this approach.¶ First, by reducing racism to a hostile, discriminatory act, many researchers, with the¶
notable exception of Bullard (1990), miss the role of structural and hegemonic forms¶ of racism in
contributing to such inequalities. Indeed, structural racism has been the¶ dominant mode of analysis in other
substantive areas of social research, such as residential segregation (Massey and Denton, 1993) and employment patterns¶
(Kirschenman and Neckerman, 1991), since at least Myrdal’s An American Dilemma¶ (1944). Not
only has the
environmental racism literature become estranged from social¶ science discussions of race, but, in
the case of urban-based research, it is divorced from¶ contemporary urban geography. A second and related
concern is that racism is not¶ conceptualized as the dynamic sociospatial process that it is. Because racism is¶ understood
as a discrete act that may be spatially expressed, it is not seen as a¶ sociospatial relation both
constitutive of the city and produced by it. As a result, the¶ spatiality of racism is not understood,
particularly the relationship between places. Yet¶ pollution concentrations are inevitably the product of relationships between
distinct¶ places, including industrial zones, affluent suburbs, working-class suburbs, and¶ downtown areas, all of which are
racialized. A final problem with a narrow¶ understanding of racism is that it limits claims, thereby reproducing a racist social¶ order.
By defining racism so narrowly, racial inequalities that cannot be attributed¶ directly to a hostile,
discriminatory act are not acknowledged as such, but perhaps as¶ evidence of individual
deficiencies or choices. Yet if we wish to create a more just¶ society, we must acknowledge the breadth and depth of
racism.
Voting negative is an act of rejecting the whiteness embedded in the 1acvoting affirmative will only gloss over the underlying racial order, making the
aff a double turn
Pulido 2000 (Laura [Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity @ USC]; Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege
and Urban Development in Southern California; 2000. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90(1), 12-40)
In this paper, I investigate how racism is conceptualized in the environmental¶ racism literature. Using Los Angeles as a case study
(Figure 1), I apply an alternative¶ concept of racism, white privilege, in addition to more common understandings of¶ discrimination,
to explain disparate environmental patterns. I identify three specific¶ issues that contribute to a narrow conception of racism: first,
an emphasis on¶ individual facility siting; second, the role of intentionality; and third, an uncritical¶ approach to scale. Typically, a
study may acknowledge environmental inequity if¶ nonwhites are disproportionately exposed to
pollution, but environmental racism is¶ only conceded if malicious intent on the part of decision
makers can be proven.2¶ I argue that the emphasis on siting, while obviously important, must be located¶ in larger urban
processes, and thus requires us to “jump scales” in our analysis (N.¶ Smith, 1993). This is especially true given recent findings that
pollution concentrations¶ are closely associated with industrial land use (Anderton et al., 1994b; Baden and¶ Coursey, 1997; Boer et
al., 1997; Colten, 1986; Pulido et al., 1996). This research¶ recasts issues of intentionality and scale, as it requires us to examine the
production of industrial zones, their relation to other parts of the metropolis, and the potentially racist¶ nature of the processes by
which these patterns evolved.¶ Because of the limitations of the prevailing approach to racism, I
seek to¶ broaden our
understanding through a complementary conception of racism: white¶ privilege. My understanding of
racism begins from the premise that race is a¶ material/discursive formation. Because race exists in various realms, racial meanings¶
are embedded in our language, psyche, and social structures. These
racial meanings are¶ both constitutive of
racial hierarchies and informed by them. Thus, it would be¶ impossible for our social practices and
structures not to reflect these racial¶ understandings. Given the pervasive nature of race, the belief that racism
can be¶ reduced to hostile, discriminatory acts strains logic. For instance, few can dispute that¶ U[nited] S[tates] cities are highly
segregated. Can we attribute this simply to¶ discriminatory lenders and landlords? No. Residential segregation results from a¶
diversity of racisms. Moreover, there is growing evidence that racial responses are¶ often unconscious, the result of lifelong
inculcation (Devine, 1989; Lawrence, 1987).¶ Thus, focusing
exclusively on discriminatory acts ignores the fact
that all places are¶ racialized, and that race informs all places. Clearly, our preoccupation with
discrete¶ discriminatory acts ignores vast dimensions of racism.¶ A focus on white privilege
enables us to develop a more structural, less¶ conscious, and more deeply historicized
understanding of racism. It differs from a¶ hostile, individual, discriminatory act, in that it refers to the privileges and
benefits that¶ accrue to white people by virtue of their whiteness. Because whiteness is rarely¶ problematized by
whites, white privilege is scarcely acknowledged. According to¶ George Lipsitz, “As the unmarked category against
which difference is constructed,¶ whiteness never has to speak its name, never has to acknowledge its role as an¶ organizing
principle in social and cultural relations” (1995, 369). White privilege is¶ thus
an attempt to name a social
system that works to the benefit of whites. White¶ privilege, together with overt and institutionalized racism,
reveals how racism shapes¶ places. Hence, instead of asking if an incinerator was placed in a Latino
community¶ because the owner was prejudiced, I ask, why is it that whites are not
comparably¶ burdened with pollution (see Szasz and Meuser,¶ 1997)? In the case of Los Angeles, industrialization,
decentralization, and¶ residential segregation are keys to this puzzle. Because industrial land use is highly¶ correlated with pollution
concentrations and people of color, the crucial question¶ becomes, how did whites distance themselves from both industrial
pollution and¶ nonwhites?
L – Environmental Threats
The fetishization of state security central to environmental conflict discourse
constitutes environmental imperialism that inflicts exclusionary violence on the
Global South.
Kumari 12 [Parmila; LLB Law and International Relations Masters, University of Birmingham
and University of Nottingham; 1-29-2012; “Securitising The Environment: A Barrier To
Combating Environment Degradation Or A Solution In Itself?”; E-International Relations;
https://www.e-ir.info/pdf/17235; Accessed 7-21-2021; BM]
This essay argues that securitising environmental issues can constitute a solution to combating environmental
degradation. This is because framing environmental degradation as a security concern gains the attention of highlevel decision
makers and allows mobilisation of resources towards a solution. However although the concept of security has been ‘widened’ to
include environmental issues, the failure to ‘deepen’ it to include human security has meant that there
is still a
“fetishization of the state” (Wyn-Jones 1999:chapter 4 in Hough 2004:8). The traditional concept of ‘national
security’ is applied, where the state is to be secured against environmental threats and the best
perceived way to do this is by maximisation of power through use of the military (Hough 2004:3). This has resulted in
environmental conflict discourse, which depicts environmental degradation as contributing to
scarcity of resources, which then ultimately leads to conflict. Not only is this theory flawed but it also justifies
military intervention in the Southern states(Detraz and Betstill 2009: 305). This type of intervention is seen by the South as a
form of environmental imperialism, which operates as a barrier to cooperation with the
developed states. Such emphasis on national security also ignores other effects of environmental degradation such as climate
change, which are transnational and which the military can do little about. A focus on human security rather than
state security will make a coordinated effort between the North and South to combat
environmental degradation possible, and will help to address the underlying causes and exacerbating circumstances
(such as socio-economic inequalities). Finally, this essay looks at how constructivist theory can be used to reconstruct ‘security’ and
how this may facilitate solutions to environmental degradation. “There
is, in short, no neutral place to stand to
pronounce on the meaning of the concept of security, all definitions are theory-dependant, and all
definitions reflect normative commitments” (Smith 2005: 28)
Environmental conflict’s focus on national security shifts the burden on
resource-strapped countries – it culminates in endless conflict and a selffulfilling prophecy in climate mitigation efforts
Kumari 12 [Parmila; LLB Law and International Relations Masters, University of Birmingham
and University of Nottingham; 1-29-2012; “Securitising The Environment: A Barrier To
Combating Environment Degradation Or A Solution In Itself?”; E-International Relations;
https://www.e-ir.info/pdf/17235; Accessed 7-21-2021; BM]
“The Dilemma should by now be apparent; securitising environmental issues runs the risk that the
strategic/realist approach will coopt and colonise the environmental agenda rather than
respond positively to environmental problems.” (Barnett 2001:137) The realist take on ‘security’ in the
post-WWII period still holds a firm grasp today, so that the state is still the referent object of security and it is still its
sovereignty which is to be secured against the threat of states. The problem is that, in the context of the environment,
this makes no sense because the traditional focus of national security (interstate violence) has
nothing to do with the focus of environmental degradation (human impact on the environment).
Furthermore, talking of national security is too restrictive because a state’s ecological footprint may cross its sovereign domain. The
wealthiest 20% of the world’s population consume 84% of all paper, use 87% of the world’s vehicles and emit 53% of all C0². Yet
those least responsible suffer the effects the most. This is because wastes are exported to and
resources come from the Southern poorer countries, so that their lands experience resource
depletion and extraction (Barnett 2001:13). A focus on national security selects the military, because
environmental degradation is viewed as having the potential to destabilise regional balances of
power (Hough 2004:13-16). One only wonders how the military alone could prevent the effects of
depletion and extraction. The environmental-conflict literature is a good example where traditional national
security concerns have been linked with the environment. The narrative within this discourse is that
environment degradation will lead to resource scarcities, which will make the developing
countries more militarily confrontational towards the industrialised states (Barnett 2001:38). Conflict
over scarce resources undermines the security of the state (Detraz and Betsill 2009:305), so it is the state
which is to be protected. Emphasis on such an account is undesirable for many reasons. Firstly, it is untrue that
the only consequence of environmental degradation is conflict. Bogardi and Brauch have noted how environmental security involves
freedom from want (economic and social security dimensions), freedom from hazard impacts (natural or human-induced hazards as
effects of environmental degradation) and freedom from fear (violence and conflict)(Brauch 2008: 17-8). This demonstrates how
conflict is but one consequence of degradation. Environmental-conflict literature ignores the
root socioeconomic causes and hazard impact dimensions of environmental security; a focus on which
would lead to conclusions of undertaking non-military efforts like disaster preparedness,
adaptation, mitigation, early warning systems etc (Brauch 2008:17-8), and economic solutions like pricing goods to
reflect the costs of their provision (Mathews (1989:172). Secondly, the assertion that environmental degradation is
a primary reason of conflict is purely speculative (Barnett 2003:10). Barnett suggests that the ‘evidence’ provided in
support is a collection of historical events chosen to support the conflict-scarcity storyline and reify the realist assumption that
eventually humans will resort to violence (Barnett 2001:66). This is as opposed to acknowledging that humans
are equally
capable of adapting. Thirdly, research shows that it is abundance of resources which drives
competition, not scarcity (Barnet 2003:11). This makes sense because any territorial conquest to obtain
resources will be expensive. A poor country suffering from resource scarcity would not be able
to afford an offensive war(Deudney 1990: 309-11). The second and third points mean that environmental-conflict
literature counteracts any attempts at solving the problem of environmental degradation. The
discourse attributes high intentionality to people-because of scarcity they decide to become
violent. This ignores the fact that human actions are not intended to harm the environment. The high
intentionality given to people prevents them from being seen as victims who need help. Instead
they are pictured as threats to state security. This view can exacerbate ethnic tensions as the state
uses minority groups as scapegoats for environmental degradation. It also means that only those
involved in conflict are relevant to environmental security, not those who are vulnerable (Detraz
and Betsill 2009:307-15). In this way the South is scripted as “primeval Other” (Barnett 2001:65), where order
can only be maintained by the intervention of the North, rather than by the provision of aid. The
North’s agency in creating the environmental problems is completely erased. Instead environmental
degradation is seen from the perspective of the individual state, questioning how it could affect
the state, i.e. increased migration (Allenby 2000:18) and this leads to the adoption of narrow policies. Saad has
said that securitising the environment in this way allows the North to justify intervening and
forcing developing nations to follow policies which encapsulate the North’s norms (Saad 1991:3257). In this way the powerful become stronger, and the weak weaker. This view may affect the South’s relations with the North. For
example, Detraz
and Betsill have commented on tensions between the North and South in the 2007
United Nations Security Council debate on climate change. Only 29% of the Southern states
compared to 70% of Northern speakers supported the idea of the Security Council being a place to
develop a global response to climate change. The reasons for this difference was that shifting
decision-making to the
Security Council would make Southern states unable to promote efficiently their interests in
obtaining resources for climate adaptation and mitigation plans. Furthermore, Egypt and India argued that in
suggesting this Northern countries were avoiding their responsibilities for controlling greenhouse
gases, by trying to “shift attention to the need to address potential climate-related conflict in
the South” (Detraz and Betsill 2009:312). In this way environmental security becomes a barrier because the
traditional (realist) concept of security is used to immobilise any action towards dealing with the root
causes of environmental degradation.
Rhetoricizing climate as a security risk folds the military-industrial complex into
environmental solutions – guarantees failure.
Davoudi 15 [Simin; Professor of Environmental Policy and Planning at Newcastle University.
She is Past President of the Association of European Schools of Planning and, as coordinator of
the Planning Research Network, advised the Department of Communities and Local Government
on its research priorities until 2007; 3-13-2015; “On Securitization of Nature”; disP – The
Planning Review; http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02513625.2013.892780; Accessed 7-21-2021; BM]
There are two terms that have come to define the twenty first century: urban age and the ‘age of man’. While the former is often
rehearsed, the latter is rarely mentioned despite their interconnection. It is widely known that the 21st century is the first urban
century because for the first time in history more people live in cities. However, what is less known is that the urban age is the
manifestation of ‘the age of man’. The latter, also known as ‘Anthropocene’, describes an epoch which is paradigmatically different
from the previous 10,000-yearold geological period of relative climate stability (called Holocene). For
the first time in
history, human activities have caused planetary changes whose significance is on par with
geological forces. A compelling evidence of this is the reconfiguration of the planet’s carbon cycle
by anthropogenic release of quantities of fossil carbon over the past couple of centuries that took the
planet hundreds of millions of years to store away. The outcome is multifaceted and includes global
warming, sea level rise, melting of the Arctic, changes to oceans’ chemistry, and a whole range
of other changes that are attributed to climate change. What has made this process materially possible and
ethically acceptable is the anthropocentric view of the world that has prevailed since the Enlightenment era. This was the time when
scientific revolution stripped nature from its divinity and symbolic values and by doing so gave humans both means and the right to
exploit nature. The rise of environmentalism in the 1960s followed by the sustainability agenda of the 1990s began to question the
fallacy of the modernist assumption about our ability to conquer and exploit nature with little or no consequences. This realisation
was firmly confirmed by climate change which has become a powerful reminder of our complex and precarious relationship with
nature. However, elsewhere 1 I have argued that the reflexive
environmentalism which imbued the
sustainability agenda is increasingly displaced by the increasingly dominant discourses of climate
change that are shifting the focus from nature as asset to nature as risk. This is a new way of
seeing nature which is radically different from the one evoked by sustainability because it construes nature not as
a finite asset to be sustained for future generations but as a threat against which future
generations should be secured. Seeing nature as risk ushers in deep anxieties about security.
The more nature is conceived of as a threat to us, the more our relation to it is framed in terms of
safety and security. Therefore, risk and security feed from one another in the sense that keeping up
the demand for security requires maintaining a heightened sense of risk. Given the attraction of such
circularity, many of our contemporary social and environmental problems, including climate change,
are being re-cast as security problems, making securitisation the hegemonic discourse of our
times. As a result, the hallmark of the reflexive modernity has become not just the risk society, as Ulrich Beck suggests, but also
the security society. In this context, security is not just a means to an end (i.e. protection from risk), but is an end
in itself (i.e. a tradable good). It is ‘sold’ as a commodity with a price tag and is factored into both
business plans and governance strategies. In the environmental field, the axis of debate seems to be
swinging from development versus environment to: which security should take precedence. For example, the
debate over energy crops has turned into a competition for priorities between energy security
and food security. This is an anathema to traditional environmentalism because increasingly,
food security trumps biodiversity, energy security trumps renewable energy, and climate
security trumps sustainability. In many ways, this is hark back to a pre-modern conception of human-nature relations that
was centred on what nature does to us rather than what we do to nature. The securitisation of nature has profound
implications for how the environment is treated and valued, what kinds of environmental
policies are formulated, and what types of environmental politics are mobilised. Risk and
security provoke strong emotions that can legitimise extraordinary measures which may
otherwise be indefensible. A clear manifestation of this discourse is reflected in the language
used by the national military advisors who are now active participants in the international
climate change negotiations. For them, climate change is a “threat multiplier” ; i.e. an underlying condition
for all other threats such as terrorism, and hence is open to military strategies if need be. The language of risk and
security create imaginaries of fear which can renounce social conflicts, foreclose politics, and
crowd out any descending voices in the name of urgency and emergency. They squeeze out the
arenas in which questions about justice and fairness can be raised. The interpretation of climate change as
national security problems can turn the conflict over the distributive implications of climate change into
a new geopolitics in which nation states may consider military strategies as acceptable
responses to the conflicts over who is exposed to what climate risk, and who has access to what
climate security. The danger is that democracy may suffer in the name of urgency and emergency.
L – Green Militarization
The aff’s environmental management culminates in violent forms of green
militarism.
Massé et al. ’18 [Francis; PhD, Department of Geography at York University; “Linking green
militarization and critical military studies”; 2018; Vol. 4, Issue 2; Critical Military Studies;
https://doi.org/10.1080/23337486.2017.1412925; Accessed 7/19/21; NT]
A robust
literature chronicling the intersections of military activity and the environment now spans a
range of disciplines. Often influenced by Westing (1975), this literature highlights the negative impacts of military
activity on the environment. This includes the massive consumptive patterns of an expansive physical and
social military infrastructure, the direct impacts of conflict and military buildup on ecosystems and wildlife,
and the often-indirect impacts caused by the victims of warfare such as refugees (Hanson et al. 2009; Hupy 2008; Woodward 2004).
This is joined by a growing literature on the strategic deployment of animals and the harnessing and manipulation of biophysical
processes in the name of war and other military interventions and military research (Brady 2012; Cudworth and Hobden 2015;
Gregory 2016; Kosek 2010). Others point
to climate change as a new military–environment encounter
driven by environmental security and resource scarcity discourses (Gilbert 2012).
Further analysis
reveals an array of complexities found within military–environment encounters, especially those that involve
sites into
state protected areas, or military to wildlife (M2W) conversions, a phenomenon we see stretching from
North America (Havlick 2011) to Southern African (Mckenzie 1998). ‘De-militarized zones’ – what are in fact heavily
militarized landscapes – have also emerged as important sites of biodiversity conservation, as these spaces are too
environmental conservation. One example is the increasingly common transformation of former military
dangerous for human habitation and development (Kim and Cho 2005; Brady 2008). The example of M2W conversions and
demilitarized zones illustrates novel and arguably nonintuitive military–conservation encounters and outcomes.
Military actors also play a more concrete role in biodiversity management and spaces of conservation,
highlighting a direct relationship between environmental conservation and the military, among other
security forces. Indeed, this has emerged as a quickly growing area of inquiry within the field of political ecology. The
establishment and management of protected areas have historically been used to exert state control over
recalcitrant populations and their resources (Neumann 2001; Peluso 1993; Vandergeest and Peluso 1995). Often made
possible by the framing of vulnerable and marginalized populations as the enemy of conservation, the state and
its military apparatus have played a leading role in policing such populations through the use of overt and
covert forms of violence (Devine 2014; Neumann 2001; Vandergeest and Peluso 1995; Ybarra 2012). Such engagement is
increasingly translating into green militarization or ‘the use of military and paramilitary personnel, training,
technologies, and partnerships in the pursuit of conservation efforts’ (Lunstrum 2014, 814). This is a trend we see
across parts of Africa (Duffy 2014, 2016; Dunlap and Fairhead 2014; Marijnen 2017; Marijnen and Verweijen 2016; Massé and
Lunstrum 2016; Verweijen and Marijnen 2016) and Asia (Barbora 2017), with military builup also unfolding in protected areas in
Latin America (Devine 2014; Ojeda 2012; Ybarra 2012).4 Indeed, there is a
long history of military involvement in
conservation (Devine 2014; Ellis 1994; Lunstrum 2015a; Spence 1999; Wels 2015). The difference today is that such
involvement is quickly intensifying and vastly expanding within a broadly framed conservation context and sense
of ecological crisis.
L – Food Wars
Food security discourse is an exploitative tool of developed nations for profit
generation, power accumulation, and competition – it’s the self-fulfilling
prophecy that creates resource conflicts
Shepherd 12 [Benjamin; Center for International Security Studies, University of Sydney,
Australia; 2012, “Thinking critically about food security”; Security Dialogue, 43(3) 195-212; DOI:
10.1177/0967010612443724; Accessed 7-21-2021; BM]
Co-opting of food security A consequence of casting food security as an availability problem is that actors
use food-security
language to legitimize competition over increasingly scarce food-production resources. The
underlying implication is that controlling or hoarding of resources must be good; however, control
and hoarding by some invariably implies exclusion and deprivation for others. Food-security
language has become widely employed as a way of pursuing particular agendas and legitimizing
particular actions, especially those of powerful actors, but at the expense of others. Food-security
language is used to legitimize the securing of rights over agricultural lands (Alshareef, 2009; People’s
Republic of China, 2008), which one African scholars described as ‘a dubious way to solve the food
security conundrum in Ethiopia’, noting that it seems paradoxical that one of the most vulnerable
countries in the world is handing over vast land and water resources to foreign investors to help
food security efforts of their home countries.2 It is used by transnational agribusiness
corporations in the legitimization of their profit-generating activities (ArcherDanielsMidland, 2010; Cargill,
2010; Monsanto, 2010), which range from the corporatization and amalgamation of farmlands –
sometimes pushing small- and medium-sized landholders off their farms – to the pursuit of
revenues from patented inputs that have been argued to be detrimental to poor farmers in
developing countries (Holt-Giminez, 2011; Patel, 2007; Shiva, 2002, 2005, 2007). It is used to justify the pursuit of
speculative profit by wealthy investors (Emerging Asset Management, 2010). It is also used in the pursuit of
political agendas – for example, in concert with the subsidizing of electorally sensitive rural
constituencies (USDA, 2010; Philpott, 2006) or, contrarily, providing an argument for the reduction of trade
barriers in the quest for greater access to foreign markets. For example, the official Australian foodsecurity policy position is that developing countries must reduce trade barriers in preference to
supporting local food producers.3 This privileges Australia’s major agricultural exporters over the agrarian
poor in the developing countries. In such ways, the current paradigm of food security is used to
privilege the interests of certain actors, often at the expense of others, including those at risk from the
inability to access adequate food. The commandeering of food-security language helps explain
the contradiction that, while it is ostensibly about hunger (achieving sufficient food for ‘all people at all times’),
food security has instead become a game for powerful actors competing for advantage (profit or
scarce resources such as agricultural land) in an increasingly resource-constrained world.
They’re part and parcel to the hegemonic pursuit of governance over the Global
South via biometric dataveillance – it’s justified under the guise of food
security.
Alcock 09 [Rupert; graduated with a distinction in the MSc in Development and Security from
the Department of Politics, University of Bristol in 2009; 2009; “Speaking Food: A Discourse
Analytic Study of Food Security”; University of Bristol School of Sociology, Politics, and
International Studies; Accessed 7-21-2021; BM]
Conclusions: Speaking Security/Governing Risk Risk
is a way – or rather, a set of different ways – of ordering reality, of rendering
it into a calculable form. It is a way of representing events in a certain form so that they might be made
governable2 in particular ways, with particular techniques and for particular goals… The significance of risk lies not
with risk itself but with what risk gets attached to (Dean, 1999: 177). This notion of risk embodies the
hegemonic form of rationality which characterises the modern liberal mode of governance. In so
far as a government is legitimated by its capacity to provide its citizens with security and insure
them against whatever may threaten it, the calculation and articulation of risk has become its primary
occupation. In what Michael Dillon has called the practice of ‘underwriting security’, risk management has become the central
concern of the biopoliticisation of security: ‘Underwriting… captures the essence of how risk operates as an assemblage of
mechanisms for measuring and commodifying exposure to contingency’ (2008: 310). In modern industrial societies, risk insurance is
provided by a range of public and private assemblages and covers every aspect of social life; we are literally insured against life and
death. Many populations in the developing world, however, lack these social safety nets; Duffield argues that the non-insured status
of what he calls ‘surplus life’ in the developing countries provides a more instructive criteria to distinguish global populations than
the traditional developed/underdeveloped binary (Duffield, 2007: 22-24). In the last half century it has been the professed aim of
the aid and development industries and intergovernmental organizations like the United Nations 52 to fill this insurance gap, or, in
other words, to locate, measure and manage the risks faced by those people exposed to contingency. Food
security is the
constructed categorization of one set of such risks. As a technology of global liberal governance,
food security represents one aspect of the biopoliticisation of security. The notion of biopolitics derives
from Foucault’s investigations of the new technologies of political power which he sees emerge at the end of the eighteenth
century. While sovereign power had previously been concerned with ‘the contracting individual’ and the right of the sovereign ‘to
take life or let live’, biopolitics is concerned with the administration of life itself at the level of population and applies regulatory
mechanisms to control and manage aggregate life processes (Foucault, 2003: 245). While biopolitics and liberalism are
interconnected, they are not equivalent; liberalism is a form of government which necessarily incorporates biopolitical imperatives
but attempts to constrain their unlimited operation (Dean, 1999: 113). Global
liberal governance is thus described by
comprised of techniques that examine the detailed properties and
dynamics of populations so that they can be better managed with respect to their many needs and life
Dillon and Reid as ‘substantially
chances’ (Dillon & Reid, 2001: 41). The notion of ‘human security’ comprises the contemporary articulation of the totality of life
dynamics rendered amenable to global biopolitical management, of which ‘food security’ is one sub-component. Human security, as
a rationalising framework of global governance, complements an erosion of the legitimacy of the developing state and a challenge to
its right to political sovereignty (Pupavac, 2005: 178). As the current modus operandi of the development community, human
security represents the mutual conditioning of development and security and begs the question
of which humans it is concerned to 53 secure. The destabilising effects of underdevelopment are
now conceived to directly threaten the security of the industrialised countries, in the guise of
such issues as international terrorism, environmental degradation and global health crises. The
function of human security – and food security by analogy - is thus to contain the instability wrought by
‘Third World’ underdevelopment and enable increasingly extensive surveillance of those regions
deemed threatening to the functions of massconsumer society. Conterminously promoting self-reliance and
basic needs, these governmental technologies also provide the means for emotional adjustment, hope and the moderation of desire
in societies where the prospect of material development has been abandoned and re-problematised as destabilising (Pupavac,
2005). The establishment of world
food security as an international and developmental concern at the
emergence of biopolitical techniques which monitor and
manage how food is produced and consumed at the level of global populations. At this embryonic
World Food Conference in 1974 represents the
stage the monitoring techniques available were relatively crude; as my analysis of the International Undertaking (IUWFS) has shown,
indicators of world food security were limited to national levels of food supply. The
resolution adopted at the
Conference to establish a system of ‘international’ grain reserves represents a rudimentary
attempt to manage the risks of an unpredictable global market, devoid of American surpluses, by means of
an insurance level of buffer stocks. The other main emphasis was on the need for more data and information, to enable more
comprehensive monitoring of the ‘world food situation’. This
resulted in the establishment of the Global Information
and Early Warning System for Food and Agriculture (GIEWS), which marks the first stage of a 54 process of
techno-scientific informationalization regarding food and the patterns of its global production.
‘Biopolitics’, writes Michael Dillon, ‘change according to changes in the technologies through which ‘life processes’ are made
transparent to knowledge’ (2008: 310). The
biopolitical securitisation of people’s food consumption thus
becomes possible as new technologies enable more comprehensive global monitoring of these
‘life processes’. From its early focus on national production aggregates, the GIEWS now incorporates a view from
space using satellite technology to analyse the very constitution of the earth’s crust. The
juxtaposition of the poor Indian farmer working his land with plough and ox while surveyed from
beyond the ionosphere by the latest in satellite technology – as a means to ensure his food
security – exposes the absurdity that characterises what Baudrillard conceives as ‘the precession of
simulacra’: Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the
generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal. The territory no longer
precedes the map, nor does it survive it. It is nevertheless the map that precedes the territory –
precession of simulacra – that engenders the territory (Baudrillard, 1994: 1, emphasis in original). Just as new
technologies enable new models of the hyperreal, I suggest that new forms of ‘knowledge’ simultaneously enable the development
of new technologies of monitoring and surveillance. The
food security discourse which emerged in the 1980s
regarding access to food, adapting Sen’s work on entitlements and famine, led to the establishment of more
complex mapping systems which construct the risk of hunger 55 via an economic grid of
intelligibility. Critically enabled by what Duffield calls the zenith of the non-governmental trajectory of the NGO movement in
the 1980s (Duffield, 2007: 25), in which the economic dynamics of non-insured and ‘food insecure’ peoples became increasingly
exposed to international surveillance, the world was accordingly remapped to incorporate the new conflation of risks articulated at
the World Food Summit. The
Food Insecurity Vulnerability Information and Mapping System (FIVIMS) is
the culmination of this re-rendering of reality; just as GIEWS produced the poor and hungry as victims of risk
inherent in nature, FIVIMS produces a new category of people as victims of risk inherent in a global
economy and social (dis)order. As the logics of biopolitics evolve, so do its calculative techniques: One has to be
classifiable to exist in species terms. One now has to be classifiable as informational code to be admitted
to the category of contemporary biological species. One has to be in circulation as value to exist as
economic species (Dillon & Lobo-Guerrero, 2009: 5). The current political obsession with climate change represents the final
liquidation of security and the full assimilation of risk management as governmental rationality. Current FAO publications are
dominated by the language of risk, disaster and vulnerability: Disaster risk management and climate change adaptation are
ultimately about reducing the risk posed by climate change to the lives and livelihoods of 56 vulnerable people and therefore are key
tools for protection of food security (FAO, 2008d: 21). Adapting to climate change involves managing risk by improving the quality of
information and its use, providing insurance against climate change risk, adopting known good practices to strengthen the resilience
of vulnerable livelihood systems, and finding new institutional and technological solutions (FAO, 2008e: 32). In an age now
characterised by existential and perennial risk, what we require is more information; ending
world hunger now depends
in no small part on monitoring and managing the chaos that constitutes a changing climate. 5 Yet
another information system, the Food Security Information and Early Warning System (FSIEWS), is
now under construction (FAO, 2008e). A similar trend is discernible in the construction and management of international
terrorism; to mitigate the uncertainty posed by the terrorist ‘threat’, governments require a
dramatic increase in surveillance technologies. The erosion of civil liberties by way of more intrusive
modes of surveillance is presented as a legitimate means to secure citizens by reducing the risk of
future attack. New techniques of biometric ‘dataveillance’ represent the biopoliticisation of
security at perhaps its most acute: To misconceive risk is to misconceive the ontopolitics, the apparatuses of
power/knowledge and techno-scientific devices by means of which Western societies are now governmentally secured: from the
macrocalculations of 5 Early formulations of chaos theory were derived from studying weather patterns in the 1960s (see Gleick,
1988). 57 geopolitical analysis – no matter how scandalously they misconduct their risk assessments (Iraq) – to the biopolitical
micro-management of individuals and populations (Dillon, 2008: 327).
L - Forest fire
Media reps of environmental disasters is securitizing.
Scheffran et. al. 12 Prof. Dr. Jürgen Scheffran, Research Group Climate Change and Security
(CLISEC), Institute of Geography Prof. Dr. Michael Brzoska, Institut für Friedensforschung und
Sicherheitspolitik an der Universität Hamburg PD Dr. phil. habil , Department of Political and
Social Sciences, Free University Berlin; Dr. Peter Michael Link, Research Group Climate Change
and Security (CLISEC), Institute of Geography, Janpeter Schilling, Research Group Climate
Change and Security (CLISEC), Institute of Geography; “Climate Change, Human Security and
Violent Conflict” Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Security and Peace. https://linkspringer-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-642-28626-1.pdf, [Accessed:
7-22-2021]//cblasi
In this sense, looking
at climate change and its process of securitization, one can distinguish a wide
variety of methods being used to convey messages to the corresponding audience. Public addresses
by government officials are considered to be the most common types of speech acts since these securitizing actors hold the main
institutional positions in western societies. Passing
environmental laws, urging environmentally responsible
behaviour, or using uncommonly bold language to convince the public of the necessity of drastic
measures are all perceived as institutionally supported speech acts. Apart from these, if the suggestions by
Williams and McDonald of incorporating visual representations into the speech act concept are taken into account, it comes as a
natural consequence to shift the interest toward images and their indisputable capacity to carry compact and comprehensive
meaning. In
the case of climate change, in particular, images tend to acquire a significantly greater
communicative power because through them the public comes virtually in visual contact with
the consequences of this phenomenon even in the most remote areas of the planet. Pictures of long-term
catastrophic developments, like desertification, or relatively swift natural disasters striking unwary
communities, easily travel around the world spreading the dire news to an international audience.
People from around the planet got to know and actually see what the aftermath of hurricane Katrina was like for those directly
affected. The
same applies to the great 2007 forest fires in southern Greece or to the cataclysmic
floods in central Europe in 2009. A vast audience witnessed these and many similar events, all of
which were linked somehow to climate change, and was consequently sensitized about humanity’s fragility in facing nature’s
responsive fury. In this way, modern
media with advanced audiovisual capabilities provide the
securitization process with another kind of communicative technique, usually more expressive, and
sometimes more efficient, than speeches. The concept of a ‘speech act’ in the securitization of climate
change is thus opening up another dimension which largely complements the way securitization
itself is perceived. Political addresses to the public, the passing of laws, television representations, and images constitute a
wide array of instruments that function as speech acts with the only difference that actual speech is now just another constitutive
element, rather than the exclusive means of communication. Having taken a quick look at actors and speech acts in their broader
concept, it only remains to turn to the ‘audience’ as the third and last pillar of securitization in order to gain an understanding of
how this triple-factor process works. As ‘audience’, the Copenhagen School is referring to a significant part of the public which the
securitizing actor’s efforts are aiming at when performing a speech act. It
is the final receiver of the securitizing
move and the one that judges whether the particular highly politicized issue, referred to as a
threat, actually deserves to enter the security agenda and thereby be effectively addressed by
any means possible and with an increased priority. This, however, may be described as an ideally democratic
process, whereas in reality securitization can often mean a rather undemocratic course of events triggered by the unilateral
decisions of political actors concerning the elevation of specific issues on the security agenda. Securitization, as Didier Bigo argues,
can regularly lead to exceptional measures in dealing with a given issue, as well as to institutional empowerment of security experts
such as the military or the police (Bigot 2006). Therefore, when the Copenhagen School uses the term ‘audience’ in the
securitization process, it generally refers to the society (or population) whose prosperity or physical safety is allegedly affected or
challenged by the so-called ‘referent object’ that is none other than the threat under examination. However,
the actual, or
falsely assumed, threatening nature of the issue under discussion and the subsequent possible
vulnerability of the public’s security is something pointed at or advocated by the securitizing
actors. This audience, naturally, includes people who can be seen as individuals, citizens, the electorate (national or broader), or
civil society in general. In this sense, the audience can be perceived not as a single monolithic element but as a broad and
polymorphous human entity responding to a wide array of political, ethnic, and social characteristics. Taking this into consideration,
concluding the cycle of securitization appears to be a rather tricky procedure since the response of the third pillar can under no
circumstances be accurately predicted without a comprehensive ad hoc approach having preceded it. Culturally, ethnically,
politically, and socially dependent diversity leads to differently placed audiences and this, in turn, creates the conditions for varying
comprehensive capability, responsive will, and of course outcomes in the securitization process. Much
of the theoretical
emphasis on the audience’s readiness to be convinced (Balzacq 2005: 192) as part of the facilitating
conditions of securitization relies exactly on this broad diversification that defines the content of
the third pillar and further highlights the constructivist nature of the securitization framework
itself. Likewise, successful (in the sense of being complete) securitization of climate change ultimately rests upon public
acceptance. What matters in the final phase of the process is how the audience will react to the
securitizing move after the designation of climate change as a threat by the actors. Thus, addressing
this challenge effectively and within the securitization process already under way requires a threefold development within the third
pillar, one that includes a broad and polymorphous audience being convinced, concurring, and acting back. Single individuals, people
constituting local communities and broader social groups, and national populations, as well as those comprising supranational ones,
are all part of it and they all share an equal amount of participatory responsibility in the threefold process mentioned above in order
for the securitization of climate change to be concluded. The completion of this cycle, negative in some senses (in terms of elevated
cost, harsher measures, and restrictive policies), should be considered a prerequisite before a de-securitization of the subject and a
return to the normal political sphere can become possible.
L – Human Security
Conceptualizing climate change as an issue of human security relies upon on
faulty narratives of threat construction.
Lucke ’20 [Franziskus von; Postdoctoral Researcher in International Relations at the University
of Tübingen. His research focuses on critical security studies, climate politics and climate justice,
and he has worked extensively on the securitisation of climate change.; “Chapter 5: Revisiting
the Securitisation of Climate Change and the Governmentalisation of Security”; 2020; Springer;
The Securitisation of Climate Change and the Governmentalisation of Security; Accessed
7/19/21; NT]
Apart from these emancipating qualities, however, seen through the lens of disciplinary power, human
security also
unleashes the concept of normation. This became particularly apparent in the German and US cases: the recurring
argumentation that the ‘poorest will be hit first and hardest’ helped to establish a juxtaposition of wealthy
and climate savvy people in industrialised states with the poor and unprepared in the Global South (Buxton et al. 2016, p. 11).
Discursively, this reinforces the hierarchy between powerful Western actors and vulnerable
populations of the Global South that have to be saved, controlled and disciplined by external
interventions (Methmann and Oels forthcoming; Oels and Carvalho 2012; Duffield and Waddell 2006; Chaturvedi and Doyle
2015, p. 44). It perpetuates a paternalistic relationship between industrialised and developing countries linked to
concepts such as the ‘West always knows best’ or ‘developmentality’ (Donnelly and Özkazanç-Pan 2014;
Lie 2015; Mawuko-Yevugah 2010) and reinforces the dependency of those countries on outside support and guidance.
Moreover, primarily pointing
to human security threats to people that live far away in countries that have
enormous political problems anyway, reframes climate change as a problem of poverty and
underdevelopment. Not the severity of climate change per se determines the level of the threat but the inadequate coping
capacity of the affected (Hardt 2017, p. 12). Similar to the sovereign discourse, this shifts the responsibility for the security
implications of climate change away from industrialised countries and locates it directly in seemingly
dysfunctional Southern communities (Hardt 2017, p. 95). It hence deflects attention away from
problematic behaviour at home. Examples are Germany’s disappointing climate mitigation record in the second half of
the 2010s (Dröge and Geden 2016; Geden and Tils 2013) or the US’ failure to implement any progressive federal mitigation
legislation. Instead, it
constructs climate change as a problem that can be cured by scaling up—or merely
renaming (Ayers and Huq 2009; CCCD 2009, p. 12)—existing development aid or by short-term interventions without investing
much into tackling the root causes in industrialised countries (Methmann and Oels 2015; Barrera and Schwarze 2004).
Additionally, human
security can function as a starting point for truly ‘disciplining’ measures such as
monitoring activities and attempts to transform behaviour deemed inappropriate for climate protection. Examples
are the scaling up of monitoring instruments of the German development sector or public awareness and educational
campaigns aimed at transforming individual behaviour towards the desired direction in Mexico. Compared with direct interventions
by sovereign institutions such as the military, this is a more
subtle way of exercising power but nevertheless can have
far-reaching and problematic consequences. As it relies on concrete conceptions as to what is appropriate behaviour or
what the best solutions for the climate problem are, it can overlook regional expertise and impose inappropriate solutions.
A disciplinary
representation of climate change hence partly legitimises Western-led climate and development
measures in developing countries that partly go against the priorities of local people (Lewis 2003; Dalby 2014a, p. 13). Especially
when it comes to mitigation, including the shift to renewable energies that has been popular in Germany, there is often a conflict of
goals between the aims of industrialised countries such as Germany and developing countries. The former try to abate climate
change by changing energy production, economies and behaviour of people in the Global South, which to a certain extent is an
excuse for not changing anything too fundamental at home (McMichael 2009). At the same time, poor people in developing
countries strive for fast economic growth to escape poverty and improve their living conditions (OECD
2010, p. 82), which often runs contrary to mitigating climate change. In addition, large-scale renewable energy
projects (e.g. dams, wind power projects and energy crop cultivation) can become immensely problematic for local
populations and meet fierce resistance, as examples from around the world (McMichael 2009, p. 254; Arungu-Olende 2007) and
from Mexico indicate (Interview 2014b; Burnett 2016).
Thus, even though a human security
focused securitisation directs the attention to the needs of individuals, it
nevertheless primarily empowers actors from the Global North and legitimises far-reaching policies that directly
affect Southern populations without granting the affected people much control over their scope and content (Lewis 2003; Boas
2014; von Lucke 2018; Oels and von Lucke 2015).
Linking Human and National Security
Beyond that, the US case provides examples for the
subjugation of human security to national security
conceptions and a resulting transformation of its core meaning. This underlines the common criticism that the human
security framework has ceased to live up to its emancipatory ideals and instead increasingly has been
reconfigured to support imperialist and interventionist Western agendas (McCormack 2010; Duffield
and Waddell 2006; Chandler 2004; Oels and von Lucke 2015; Burgess and Begby 2009). Thus, to ‘help the poor for the sake of
our own security […]’ (Ziai 2010, p. 157) has become an increasingly popular argumentation in industrialised countries.
While the German case has exemplified how this connects to the concept of normation, the specific articulation of the disciplinary
discourse in the US illustrates this even further. Alongside the dominant national security construction, human
security
the sovereign narrative. The discourse constructed
vulnerable groups in the Global South as potentially dangerous (Oels 2012; Methmann and Oels 2017) because a
deterioration of their living conditions would be a first step towards instability, conflict,
terrorism, mass migration and hence ultimately threats to US national security (see Buxton et al. 2016, p. 12).
considerations were repeatedly invoked to strengthen
This strengthened the exclusionary sovereign discourse and at the same time furthered the ‘security-development nexus’ (Pospisil
2009; Tschirgi et al. 2010; Stern and Öjendal 2010). Examples are the alleged need to plan for ‘complex emergencies’ or
catchphrases such as ‘networked security’. Although the cooperation between the military and aid organisations can contribute to
human security, it can also undermine the legitimacy of civilian operations and organisations and function as a door
opener for more robust military interventions (Christie 2010; Stern and Öjendal 2010; Hartmann 2010)
L - Markets
The 1AC’s use of markets to solve climate makes the violence of capital invisible
and more pervasive
Parr 2016 – teaches sociology @ U of Cincinnati, UNESCO co-chair of water
Adrian, “The how and for whom of green governmentality” in Green Growth: Ideology, political
economy and alternatives, Zed Books, p. 75-76
Inclusive green growth presumes economic growth is an a priori social good. The assumption
rests with the argument that each and every day the economy serves more and more people. Namely, economic
growth can be neatly aligned with a rise in living standards and a fall in poverty rates. In the words of World
Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim: We live in a time of great contrasts, when fewer than roo people control as much of the world's
wealth as the poorest 3. 5 billion combined. But we also live in a time when many developing countries have the strongest growth
rates in the word, which each year helps millions of people lift themselves out of extreme poverty." The
primary policy
tools used to achieve economic growth in the service of an inclusive green agenda include: ecotax reform, subsidies, green stimulus investments, investments in green infrastructure, eco-tourism
schemes, improved natural resource management, socially inclusive development, and research and
development that will address knowledge gaps. The suggested approach is integrative and systemic, using the principles of
efficiency and maximizing market solutions. Unsurprisingly, proponents of inclusive green growth view one of
the challenges to realizing significant efficiency gains as 'a lack of instruments to "monetize" the
benefits of conservation and efficiency and to reward sustainable consumption' .13 The solution to this is to
introduce more innovative financing tools and to substantially increase investments in economic
activities that improve natural capital. Emphasis is placed on the importance of public-private sector partnerships,
whereby the private sector is viewed as an 'active partner of governments', in addition to the institutionalization of local knowledge
and politics which has triggered a gamut of new political actors such as non-profit and non-governmental organizations,
communities and religious groups entering the political frame of economic policy making. l4 Despite ambitiously setting out to bring
social, economic and environmental concerns into balance by adopting a multi-scalar approach to governance that institutionalizes
local political actors, the
inclusive green growth model continues to push the neoliberal idea that the
role of government is to encourage economic efficiency and privatization. 15 Unsurprisingly, one of the
primary strategies of green growth is the privatization of the commons. By putting a price on what are otherwise
common pool resources such as water, forests and ecosystem services, the model puts its faith
in market mechanisms to solve social and environmental issues without defusing the circuitry of
structural violence driving social inequity and environmental degradation. Environmental degradation
and climate change are problems we share in common with people in different parts of the world, with other species, and future
generations. These are therefore potentially solidarity-building issues. Although proponents of inclusive green growth acknowledge
the common at the core of environmental issues, by
analyzing the situation from the vantage point of
economic efficiency and by using criteria such as surplus value, private property, and price, the commoning
condition of the problem is appropriated and privatized. In the name of saving the commons, inclusive
green growth takes the self-sufficient character of a commons and inscribes it with the law of
the market, hereby denying the commons its distinctly autonomous condition. Accordingly, the commons is rendered noncommon. In the process the violence capital inflicts on all life forms, a violence environmental
degradation and climate change forces out into the open, becomes invisible and inaudible once
more. It is at this juncture where the political significance of prioritizing economic growth and efficiency comes into the light of
day. Predictably, the assumption driving inclusive green growth is that economic growth is value
neutral. Namely, that it is an unquestionable good in and of itself. However, as Piketty demonstrates, economic growth is
not a reliable predictor of justice and equality and the reason is not just economic; it is political.
L - Middle Power
The aff’s solution to centuries of historical tension is capitalism and liberalism,
such a strategy is doomed to fail and continue US domination
Zhang 2015- School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, University of Bristol
Yongjin, "Regional international society in East Asia? A critical investigation," Global Discourse:
An Interdisciplinary Journal of Current Affairs and Applied Contemporary Thought Volume 5,
Issue 3, 2015, p. 360-373
Social boundaries between the regional and the global are further contested by the interpenetration of regional and global political
economy, not in the least because public goods in the economic realm are global not regional. Historically, not only did
‘asymmetrical accesses’ to American markets lock emerging market economies such as South Korea and Taiwan into the US
geostrategic orbit as they became dependent on US aid and its domestic market for finished goods. But also did the Cold War
promotion of economic cooperation between Japan and non-communist Asian nations under
the auspices of the US
hegemonic power foster the development of a triangular trade relationship in the Asia-Pacific, i.e.
the Japanese economy, Asian production networks initiated by Japanese corporations and investment, and the
US market, which created a structurally dependent relationship between regional economic
development and extra-regional markets (Arrighi et al. 2003; Katzenstein 2003). Regional production networks have
produced two effects on the constitution of the regional vis-à-vis the global. On the one hand, regional production networks have
clearly facilitated market-driven, bottom-up network-style regional integration in East Asia. On the other hand,
the export-led
growth strategy is made possible for East Asian developing nations precisely because of the
structural interdependence between East Asian economies and global market created in part by
regional production networks (Arrighi et al. 2003; Katzenstein 2003; Beeson 2014). Even when East Asia has been
increasingly knitted together by regional production networks, regional integration in terms of rapid growth of intra-regional trade is
still conditional upon the demand of extra-regional markets – the United States and the EU in particular. It is therefore telling how
much the global continues to penetrate the regional in East Asia. As Beeson and Breslin (2014, 105–106) notes, When we employ a
‘value chain’ or production network focus, it becomes apparent that private sector actors based in ‘developed’ economies continue
to play a decisive role in determining the way production is organized and the sort of activities that occur in different geographical
areas. This production has also largely been reliant on demand from the major markets of North America and Europe. So we can
argue that the real regional economic integration that has occurred through trade and investment flows in East Asia has (to date at
least) been largely predicated on and driven by extra-regional economic interests and actors. Conclusion The universalization of
primary institutions of the expanding European international society is pivotal in the historical process of the globalization of
international society. While this historical process dismantled the traditional social order in East Asia in the nineteenth century, it is
its culmination in the construction of the post-1945 order that sees nationalism and national self-determination norms rise to
delegitimate colonialism/imperialism as primary institutions of the classical European international society. The revolt against the
West both in normative terms and in the political struggles for national independence was instrumental in defining the legitimate
statehood and rightful membership in the making of the ‘post-imperial’ and postcolonial international society. In East Asia, as in
other regions of the world, the proliferation of postcolonial states is integral in the globalization of a system of juridically equal
sovereign states in international relations and the universal acceptance of sovereignty as a primary institution, with an emphasis on
sovereign independence and equality in international law. This historical process of the globalization of international society has at
the same time given East Asia certain new cognition as a putative region in power-political terms. The rise and fall of Japanese
imperialism, the entrenchment of the American power in East Asia and the emergence of China as a revolutionary power after 1949
– all combined – have produced complex regional power dynamics, which reverberate strongly today. The
(re)emergence of
East Asia as a region in contemporary global politics is, therefore, historically contingent on the
dynamic transformation of global international society. This historical understanding is important for the social
structural analysis conducted in this essay. Through the analytical lens of primary institutions, such analysis has demonstrated
significant variations in how postcolonial and revolutionary states in East Asia conceive and interpret sovereignty, non-interference
and self-determination and how they are practised at the regional level in East Asia. It has highlighted how capitalist
ideas
and economic practice embodied in the market as a primary institution at the global level have
been adopted, mediated and developed imaginatively and innovatively in East Asia through the
creative practice of developmental state. Such variations in interpretation and practice, it is argued, amount to
political articulation of regional contestations to, and significant localization of, sovereignty and market as primary institutions of
global international society. It has also interrogated the failure of indigenous great powers in the region, China and Japan in
particular, in playing a custodian role in shaping and maintaining a regional order in East Asia and how such malfunctioning of great
power management as a primary institution at the regional level invites the penetration of the global power, the United States,
which complicates the crucial questions of disputed membership, the problematic nature of social boundaries and contested
regional identity in understanding the existence and operation of regional international society in East Asia. This critical investigation
suggests, therefore, that in social structural terms regional variations in terms of the content of institutions and institutional
practices embedded in Western-global international society do exist, and they are not anomalous to but constitutive of global level
of international society. Does a distinct regional international society exist in East Asia today, then? Insightful as some analyses
conducted in this investigation might be, they are inconclusive. This
is not in the least because the existence (or not)
of any region is a matter of representation rather than ‘reality’. Arguments in this essay about distinctive
regional practice of primary institutions present at the global level, sovereignty in particular, are
counterbalanced by claims of crippled and underdeveloped indigenous great power
management that have stunted the evolution of a regional international society in East Asia.
Evidence of the existence of regional primary institutions such as the developmental state that
differentiates the regional from the global in political economy is challenged by the suggestions
of the mutual penetration regional production networks and global market. The existence of regional
international society in East Asia is at best contested.
L – Modeling/Heg
U.S. legal leadership enables a neocolonial agenda of global neoliberal
domination---this link is specific to their mechanism of boosting the prestige of
institutional arrangements in order to export legal norms and practices.
Ugo Mattei and Marco de Morpurgo 10, *Professor at the Hastings College of the Law and
the University of Turin, **M.Sc. Candidate at International University College of Turin and LL.M.
Candidate at Harvard Law School, “GLOBAL LAW & PLUNDER: THE DARK SIDE OF THE RULE OF
LAW,” April 2010, Bocconi Legal Papers, p. 7-8,
There is a clear pattern of continuity, not of rupture, between the current policy trend in the
international institutional setting and earlier practices, in particular colonialism. The Western
world, under current U.S. leadership, having persuaded itself of its superior position, largely
justified by its form of government, has succeeded in diffusing rule of law ideology as
universally valid, behind whose shadows plunder hides, both in domestic and in international
matters.
Present-day international interventions led by the United States are no longer openly colonial efforts.
They might be called neo-colonial, imperialistic or simply post-colonial interventions. Although practically all of European
colonial states (most notably Portugal, Spain, Great Britain, France, Germany and even Italy) regarded themselves as empires, the concept of ‘empire’ is
what best describes the present phase of multinational capitalist development with the USA as
the most important, hegemonic superpower, using the rule of law to pave the way for
international corporate domination.
Export of the law can be described and explained in a variety of ways. A first example is the imperialistic/colonial rule, or imposition of law by military rules, as during military
conquest: Napoleon imposed his Civil Code to French-occupied Belgium in the early nineteenth century. Similarly, General MacArthur imposed a variety of legal reforms based
on the American government model in post World War II Japan, as a condition of the armistice in the aftermath of Hiroshima. Today, Western-style elections and a variety of
other laws governing everyday life are imposed in countries under US occupation, such as Afghanistan and Iraq.
A second model can be described as imposition by bargaining, in the sense that acceptance of law is part of a subtle extortion11. Target countries are persuaded to adopt legal
structures according to Western standards or face exclusion from international markets. This model describes the experience of China, Japan and Egypt in the early twentieth
century, and, indeed, contemporary operations of the World Bank, IMF, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other Western development agencies (United States Agency
for International Development (USAID), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and so on) in the ‘developing’ and former socialist world.
A third model, constructed as fully consensual, is diffusion by prestige, a deliberate process of
institutional admiration that leads to the reception of law.12 According to this vision, because modernization
requires complex legal techniques and institutional arrangements, the receiving legal system,
more simple and primitive, cannot cope with the new necessities. It lacks the culture of the rule
of law, something that can only be imported from the West. Every country that in its legal
development has ‘imported’ Western law has thus acknowledged its ‘legal inferiority’ by
admiring and thus voluntarily attempting to import Western institutions. Turkey during the time of
Ataturk, Ethiopia at the time of Haile Selassie and Japan during the Meiji restoration are modern examples.
if the transplant ‘fails’, such as with the attempts to impose Western-style regulation on the Russian stock market, or as with many law and
development enterprises, it is the recipient society that receives the blame . Local shortcomings and ‘lacks’
are said to have precluded progress in the development of the rule of law. When the World Bank produces a
development report on legal issues, it invariably shows insensitivity for local complexities and suggests radical and
universal transplantation of Western notions and institutions. Recent examples of plunder disguised
by the rule of law rhetoric, and thus by the use of law as a façade of legitimacy, can be found in
the 2002 Argentinean crisis13, the extraction and management of oil in Iraq and elsewhere14 and in the
Interestingly,
intellectual property law, as conceived and imposed by the WTO (based on an ethnocentric individualistic conception of the
intellectual creation), denies any benefit to the real inventors (e.g. when they are a community with age-old traditions) and entitles
profits to Western corporate actors that have ‘stolen’ the idea by patenting what for others is
part of their widespread knowledge.15 This happens when ideas are stolen from other cultural traditions: because they do not have a status of
numerous situations in which
intellectual private property there, they can be legitimately patented by Western firms, where they do have such a legal status. Automatically, they then no longer ‘belong’ to
the group from whom they originated.
Hegemony is an ideological fantasy of US exceptionalism – their theoretically
scary impacts obscure the real consequences of unchecked hegemony which
have been untold suffering
Richard Jackson 11, Director of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, the
University of Otago. Former. Professor of International Politics at Aberystwyth University, The
World’s Most Warring Nation, www.e-ir.info/2011/07/02/the-world’s-most-warring-nation/
The history of US foreign policy is a violent and bloody one, although this is not necessarily the dominant
perception of most Americans. From the frontier wars of subjugation against Native Peoples to colonial
wars against Mexico, Spain and the Philippines, the Cold War interventions in Korea, Cuba, the
Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Grenada, Lebanon, Panama, Libya and elsewhere, the
post-Cold War interventions in Somalia, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Kosovo, and the post-9/11
interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya today, the US has an
unrivaled record of war and foreign military intervention. There are in fact, few periods in its history when the
US has not been engaged in war or military attacks on other countries. In addition, the US is the world’s largest
manufacturer and exporter of military weapons, and has a military budget several times greater
than all its nearest rivals combined. It is in fact, the most warring nation in modern history. It is
in this historical context that we have to try and understand its current military involvement in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, the Horn of Africa and Libya. Although it is sometimes argued by apologists
that these military actions are always defensive in nature rather than proactive and expansionist, and are the result
of real and serious threats to US security or the wider international system, the virtually impregnable security
position of the US, notwithstanding the 9/11 attacks a decade ago, makes this argument unconvincing. The reality is
that the size of the US landmass and population, the vast oceans to its eastern and western
borders and the friendly countries to its north and south, and the extent of its economic and
military power, means that there are no serious obstacles to the adoption of an isolationist
foreign policy or even the adoption of a pacifist role in international affairs. In other words, there is
nothing inevitable or predetermined about its long record of war and intervention. Explaining the
historical record of US foreign intervention requires a careful evaluation of both its strategic
interests and its ideological system, as it is the almost unique combination of these factors and the
way in which they underpin and interact with each other which helps to explain why the US
continues to be the most violent state in the international system today. Strategically, the US is today the
world’s dominant power. In order to maintain this hegemonic position in the international system, which is the
primary and preeminent goal of all US foreign policy (or at least, no major foreign policy initiative can seriously
contradict this first principle goal), necessitates a number of key measures, such as: maintaining military advantage
over rivals, which in turn requires a permanent internal military-industrial complex; a system of
allies and a military presence in bases stretched around the globe, especially in strategic regions like the Middle East and the
Horn of Africa; influence over or control of strategic resources such as oil; domination or at least
influence over the global economic and trading system; significant influence in international
institutions; and preventing the rise of serious challengers to its overall hegemony. At the same time,
the US has evolved since the founding of the republic a core set of ideological beliefs which are now deeply embedded
culturally and accepted by both the political elite and the wider society. Some of these beliefs are necessitated by, and
functional to, the military power of the US: maintaining a costly and permanent militaryindustrial complex capable of staying ahead of its rivals, for example, requires a supporting set of cultural
values which valorize military prowess, patriotism and sacrifice in war. These values are now part of the
military-industrial-media complex in which video games and movies, among others, serve as recruitment tools
for the military, narrative frames for interpreting foreign threats and as propaganda for generating
support for foreign military intervention. Importantly, this military-industrial-media complex has
come to generate its own material and political interests, in part because it requires actual wars
to reproduce and sustain itself. Other important ideological values include the strongly-held belief that the US has been
called by history (or God) to protect the so-called free world from major threats. Thus, it is believed that the US was first called to
defeat the threat posed by the Axis powers, then the communist threat, and today, the global threat of terrorism. This
ideological belief rests on the notion that the US is uniquely placed – by virtue of its military and
economic power, and its moral values – to ensure the safety of the civilized world; it is the ‘exceptional nation’
which must lead the world. Related to this, the US has come to believe that its core values of liberty and democracy are actually
universal values which is it bound to protect at home and spread abroad. As with its military values, these ideological beliefs are
ubiquitous in popular and political culture. It
is the combination of the US’s strategic interests and its
ideological dispositions in the past two hundred years or more which explains the frequency and geographical
distribution of its military interventions. In some cases, interventions have been launched primarily to protect perceived
strategic interests, such as the case of the first Gulf War in which Iraq took control of Kuwait oil reserves and appeared to seriously
threaten Saudi oil reserves. In other cases, the US’s strategic interests coincided with strong ideological imperatives, such as the
Libyan intervention today where the presence of significant oil reserves and the desire to create a pro-US regime in a strategic
region has combined with the US ideological value of spreading democracy and overthrowing a long-term dictator and US opponent.
The key point however, is that ideological values such as democracy promotion only rarely generate sufficient will by themselves for
military intervention, although Somalia and Kosovo may be considered exceptions (although there were strategic interests involved
in both cases). In many other cases, such as Rwanda in the 1990s and Syria today, such ideological imperatives are insufficient on
their own to generate US-led military intervention. At the same time, no wars can be justified or defended to the American public,
except by claiming that they fit US ideological values; US politicians cannot admit that they are ever at war solely to secure strategic
advantage. Of course, during some periods such as the cold war and to a lesser degree the
war on terror, US strategic
interests simply overrode ideological commitments to human rights or democracy promotion, as
it supported a series of brutal dictatorships in places like Latin America, Asia and Africa. In some
cases, the US even approved of mass murder, such as the Indonesian government’s suppression
of Communists in 1965 which killed 500,000 people, its support for the Pol Pot regime in
Cambodia, and its support for Latin American death squad activities in places like Chile and El
Salvador. In other special cases, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, US strategic interests override ideological commitment entirely
and little real effort is made to promote values-based policies. The war on terror, particularly the Iraq and Afghanistan interventions,
demonstrates the interplay of these two factors, with both strategic interests – dealing with the threat of terrorism, the securing of
Iraq’s oil and Afghanistan’s potential role as an access-point to Central Asian oil reserves, fashioning pro-US regimes, and the
construction of military bases in strategic regions to put pressure on countries like Iran – and ideological imperatives – bringing
liberty and democracy to countries wracked by human rights abuses – driving the interventions. Paradoxically, of course, the war on
terror, like many previous US interventions, has resulted in massive human rights abuses around the world and the denial of liberty
to millions, with torture, rendition, and the denial of civil rights commonplace, among others. At the same time, it has also
endangered US strategic interests: the attack on Iraq strengthened and emboldened Iran, destabilized Pakistan, and greatly
damaged the reputation and standing of the US in the Middle East and large parts of the Muslim world. In the end, the
culturally and politically embedded ideology of the US – its militarized patriotism – blinds its
leaders and public to the interests and consequences of its military interventions, and sustains the
likelihood of future interventions . Few Americans accept that its country’s wars have killed,
injured and displaced literally millions of people in the last few decades, most often for little or
no positive result in either strategic or ideological terms – that in fact the real-world
consequences of its interventions are virtually always the denial of its own stated values of liberty
and democracy. Fewer still question why the US is willing to sacrifice thousands or even millions of lives to secure its strategic
interests, or why the US population is so perennially vulnerable to ideological
appeals by leaders which mask the
deeper strategic reasons for violent intervention. While it is unlikely that its strategic interests will change
any time soon or that the military-industrial complex can be significantly reduced in size, there is
always the hope that new leaders might arise and peace movements might emerge which are able to
challenge, and perhaps even change, the militarized patriotism and deeply-embedded culture of violence which
makes the US the most violent state in the world.
L – Overfishing
Only an anti-colonial approach can solve overfishing
Jonsson 2019 - School of Law @ Orebo U
Jessica H, "Overfishing, social problems, and ecosocial sustainability in Senegalese fishing
communities," Journal Journal of Community Practice Volume 27, 2019 - Issue 3-4: Ecosocial
Work and Social Change in Community Practice
Destruction of fishing communities’ traditional sustainable living conditions and lifestyles is far
from being a local problem. The EU and other powerful countries play a decisive role in such a
destructive change of local communities in West Africa which force many youths of leaving their
communities and migrate to EU countries. This is problematic for the EU politicians who
complain about increasing migration and suggests that they are not aware of the role of EU
actors and policy in creating hardship in and driving migration from West Africa. Local
communities are subjected to powerful global forces, such as the EU, national postcolonial
governments in cooperation with international governments and organizations and powerful
multinational companies. Such a powerful alliance creating unbearable problems for many local
people, cannot be counteracted only by local actors, who are fighting an unequal struggle. Social
work could play a central role for a global mobilization for change in this area. Such mobilization
needs cooperation and alliance with local and global actors and awareness of the shortcomings
of the international organizations’ declarations and actions. In the same vein, we need a critical
perspective on the ongoing colonizing processes that reproduce inappropriate social work
approaches based on Western models.
New horizons are needed for an inclusive and anticolonial social work practice responding
appropriately to local concerns, such as those in West African societies, while critically aware of
the impact of international development policies on local communities (Jönsson, 2016). Local
social work could be supported by national structural reforms to eliminate overfishing in coastal
areas. Cooperation between the international social work associations (IFSW, IASSW, ICSW) with
the UN, in realization of the declaration of human rights and an equality-based sustainable
development should include people in fishing communities. Although local communities are
drained of their young population, who in many cases seek their future in European countries,
there are many locals who are working to make fishing communities a better place for the
young generation. This, however, needs international solidarity and national governments to
pay attention to a local and human catastrophe not only targeting many of such communities
but also the future sustainability of food production. The crisis of the oceans transports serious
consequences for the rest of the world in terms of biodiversity loss, livelihoods, fresh water,
clean air, rain, and protection against climate change. Commitments for international action to
protect Africa’s fishing communities and local fisheries are urgently required.
L – Water Wars
Unfounded depictions of water wars produce colonial violence through
deliberately dishonest narratives.
Octavio ’17 [Marielena; Georgetown University; “Water Securitization Reconsidered:
Intrastate Water Disputes in India”; 2017; Intercollegiate Issue 2017; The Yale Review of
International Studies; http://yris.yira.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/YRIS-IntercollegiateIssue-2017.pdf#page=46; Accessed 7/19/21; NT]
As previously mentioned, the securitization process contains
a structural/institutional mechanism (for example,
military personnel protecting water infrastructure or the exclusion of civil-society from decision-making processes),22 and a
preceding linguistic one, which includes the framings and narratives to justify securitizing
practices. Science often justifies these discourses, given the technical and managerial nature of water securitization:
“in the case of the environment the relevance of th[e] scientific agenda is evident in the attempts to legitimize
different competing claims with the authority of science.”23 There are two main issues with the over-reliance
on scientific authority in the context of water. First, while scientific knowledge and data are crucial for
establishing effective water management and water governance regimes, they paint an incomplete picture of the
sociopolitical context of water. Water is a resource with economic, political, social, cultural, and even
religious dimensions. Besides economic benefits (agricultural production, hydropower, etc.) water is also linked to political
goals (for example, self-sufficiency), social life (livelihoods, health, sanitation, etc.), and cultural and religious value (for example, the
Ganges in India). Thus, scientific data
can only go so far in analyzing water issues since it leads to a decontextualized approach that is ultimately counterproductive for the achievement of a just and equitable
solution.
Secondly, authority—including scientific
authority—is a contested concept, particularly in the context of the era of
“post-truth politics,” when facts and evidence are disregarded over bold rhetorical, often inaccurate, statements. Moreover,
authors can easily manipulate (or omit) data to fit within a hypothesis and often leads researchers to
confuse correlation with causation. An example of the latter is the scarcity-conflict thesis: while a
vast array of quantitative studies show an overlap between scarce resources and armed conflict, jumping to the
conclusion of scarcity being the sole trigger of conflict grossly oversimplifies what drives a country to
armed conflict. In the case of Syria, many isolate the drought as the main trigger for the uprising.
However, the first protests occurred in the governorate of Dara’a, where rainfall levels exceeded the
average in 2009 and 2010.24 Claiming the drought as the main culprit of the Syrian revolution, rather than the
government’s failure to respond to the humanitarian crisis ravaging the nation, oversimplifies and depoliticizes the issue and “diverts attention away from the core problem: the long-term
mismanagement of natural resources.”25 Consequently, science-backed securitization cannot
adequately respond to the issues it seeks to address because it de-contextualizes a resource which
functions within social, political, economic, cultural and religious realms.
The media has been particularly pervasive in spreading the water securitization discourse, in particular the “water
wars” narrative. Besides the fact that it is hard to find a case of a true water war, this narrative
perpetuates the idea that humankind is at the mercy of a capricious nature, and allows
government to shift responsibility elsewhere. If we push this rather fatalistic image to its logical extreme, then why
bother with global coordinated climate change action if humankind is always going to be subject to the unpredictable forces of
nature? This
narrative seeks to create a sense of urgency through fear and anxiety, which are not
necessarily motivators for action. Moreover, “the main causes of contemporary conflict are societal, not
natural (in the broadest sense of the term, i.e., including man-made). Conflicts are borne out of human choices and
mistakes.”26 It is hard to claim that climate is the essential factor explaining collective violence in the
Anthropocene—the current historical epoch where human activity changes the Earth and its processes more than natural forces.27
Employing this
narrative transforms governments into passive actors and victims of nature. This is particularly
problematic when governments are at the root cause of unrest and conflict, such as the Darfur case: “framing
climate change as a factor in the genocide in Darfur helps push to the background the political
and economic motivations for the fighting—and unwittingly could let the criminal regime of Khartoum off the hook.”28
The more nuanced version of the “water war” narrative—climate change as a “threat multiplier”—is
equally as problematic since it “ underlines the complexity of predicting the future impact of climate change, not
only on the environment but also on social and political unrest or conflict.”29 Regardless of these significant issues, government
officials continue to employ the water war narrative and utilize it to justify the securitization of water: the threat of a war warrants
the use of securitizing practices.
The underlying logic of water security is the need for insecurity to address human concerns and eco-political
issues.30 This allows decisions to be made on the basis of impulse, urgency, anxiety, and willingness to sacrifice,
which will produce countless unintended consequences for the environment. Security becomes reactive rather than
preventive, requires a “decisionist” attitude,31 justifies the use of force by creating a sense of urgency, and diminishes
the space for discourse by taking issues outside the realm of “normal politics.”32 Securitization also implies a zero-sum
rationality that greatly reduces the space for cooperation. Given these shortcomings, one cannot help but question if
water security, or the broader Environmental Security, is even useful in the context of water management (or environmental
governance). In fact, “to claim that climate change may have an impact on security is to state the obvious,”33 and while reframing
water in security language has brought new actors into the water arena and broadened awareness of water problems it has,
arguably, not fundamentally changed how water issues are approached. Oels argues that, if anything, the securitization of
the environment has led to the “climatization” of security: the introduction of “new practices from the field of
climate policy … into the security field.”34 In particular, water securitization has often tainted cooperation over
transboundary basins, yielding inequitable and unjust cooperative regimes because of its de-contextualized nature. A new
theoretical and analytical framework, that overcomes the issues of water securitization, may shed some light on how to ensure
effective cooperation over transboundary basins.
Problematic narratives of water security doom political action and worsen
injustices – turns case.
Octavio ’17 [Marielena; Georgetown University; “Water Securitization Reconsidered:
Intrastate Water Disputes in India”; 2017; Intercollegiate Issue 2017; The Yale Review of
International Studies; http://yris.yira.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/YRIS-IntercollegiateIssue-2017.pdf#page=46; Accessed 7/19/21; NT]
First, a
new analytical framework must move beyond what Selby and Hoffman (2014) call “scarcity
framings.” They identify certain paradoxes of these framings relevant to the water war narrative. First, nonrenewable resources (such as oil) are associated to conflict through abundance, while the most
renewable of resources (water) through scarcity.35 Second, scarcity and abundance are relative—“scarcity somewhere
implies abundance somewhere else”— and these framings are sustained by state-centric political
imaginaries and securitization discourses.36 Third, it is not resource quantity but the economic and the political
values associated to it that drive conflict: conflict can happen without any changes in resource supply.37 Thus, these
framings become geographically deterministic and shift focus away from the sociopolitical context of water disputes.
Lastly, these framings ignore how global dynamics can drive conflict: under-development and state failure, while
characteristics of developing states and societies, are often the result of their positioning and insertion into a highly uneven and
hierarchical world economy.38 Accordingly, the new proposed framework will not focus on water quantity but on water
access, distribution, and management.
Water securitization de-contextualizes water and this is often what leads to ineffective policies responding to
ensuing crises. Therefore, this framework will attempt to place water issues in their sociopolitical context by looking at both local
and global dynamics that may impact water access or distribution by drawing from Environmental Justice theory. Patterns of
environmental deterioration follow patterns of inequality. Additionally, environmental degradation
does not
only occur through the direct impact of policies from local central government but also through indirect forms of
global oppression. The latter is particularly important in post-colonial societies and for the global South, where neoliberal
policies, development, and insertion into the global market have transformed agriculture and peasant societies
through the commodification of land and labor. Additionally, while most of the consequences of global
environmental change are borne by the global South, most of the causes emanate from the global North.
Environmental Justice theory has allowed for a re-orientation of focus from the oppressed to the oppressor: “small farmers
might be degrading their environment because they had no choice … peasants worked harder and longer,
often degrading their land, in order to ensure social reproduction in the face of price squeezes.”39 Taking this into consideration,
this framework will encourage against imposing lifestyle changes on the most vulnerable, and point to the patterns of the North that
have led to widespread human and biosphere insecurity.
Another helpful
tool this framework will utilize is discourse analysis. By looking at the discourse employed in the
context of water disputes, the power asymmetries and the context of human vulnerabilities become clearer.
Moreover, the aforementioned “patterns of exploitation and appropriation” are actually legitimized through
discourses, in particular “discourses of climate crisis” (including the water wars narrative).40 The dominant
discourse will represent the views and the interests of the powerful and will determine the outcome:
“discourses … ultimately determine the willingness of policymakers and the public to act on pressing issues.”41
Therefore, this framework, by focusing on discourses rather than practices, will be able to analyze the sociopolitical
nuances of water disputes, and thus propose responses that are adequate, efficient, and just.
Portrayals of impending water wars privilege ahistorical constructions of water
scarcity that preclude ethical understandings.
Harrington ’15 [Cameron; Lecturer in the Departments of Political Science at King’s University
College and Brescia University College; “Toward a critical water security: hydrosolidarity and
emancipation”; 2015; Vol. 21, No. 1; Canadian Foreign Policy Journal;
https://doi.org/10.1080/11926422.2013.846269; Accessed 7/16/21; NT]
For the past three decades, the
story often told has been one of a “coming anarchy,” where a host of
environmental problems, in which water factors significantly, inevitably erodes the state’s capacity to
govern (Kaplan 1994, Homer-Dixon 1994, 1999, 2007, Klare 2001, Dwyer 2007, CNA 2007, DIA 2012). According to this type
of interpretation, this will eventually lead to an upswing of violence as states and groups fight over access to and
control of dwindling natural resources, while at the same time experiencing their effects as conflict
multipliers, coalescing with simmering ethnic and historical tensions.
The persistence of this type of thinking has led
to the conclusion that water will drive conflict in the
future, and is likely to lead to instability, state failure and increased regional tensions (DIA 2012, Ban 2008, Association of
American Geographers 2001). However, the continued reliance on familiar tropes of water scarcity leading to war and
conflict is problematic in a number of ways. First, it ignores the historical record, which displays a distinct
absence of water wars (Wolf 1998, De Stefano, Edwards, de Silva and Wolf 2010). Secondly, freshwater scarcity
and ecosystem degradation hold far more importance as an inevitable source of conflict than “21st Century oil.”
Water is more important than other resources, including oil. As Steven Solomon (2010, p. 367) puts it, “Oil is substitutable, albeit
painfully, by other fuel sources, or in extremis, can be done without; but water’s uses are pervasive, irreplaceable by any other
substance, and utterly indispensable.” Thirdly, focusing upon historically absent and hypothetical future
water wars
obscures the complex relationships individuals, communities and ecosystems have with scarce water sources,
relationships that defy simple classification as competitive and protectionist (Zeitoun, Mirumachi, and
Warner 2010). The result is that it diverts attention away from more pressing concerns related to the
sustainable management of water resources and the integration of holistic water practices ensuring equitable
distribution, which is fundamental to empowering individuals so that they may live a good life. Finally, it
reflects an uncritical allegiance to state-centric, traditional security approaches to managing security,
approaches that have been clearly ineffective for most individuals on the planet. Narratives that causally link water
scarcity and conflict reinforce the deeply embedded assumptions of just what security means (survival) and for whom it exists
(states).
Despite the tenuous links between resource exploitation and conflict, there has been a continued tendency
to situate resource wars as a prevailing fact of history and an inevitable focus for the future.
However, there are developments that point to alternative understandings of water in an international context. This article looks at
the theoretical development of the concept of hydrosolidarity and its potential institutional development in the actions of the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)-led policies of Global Water Solidarity, as one important alternative. Such
reorientations of water security may demonstrate the latent emancipatory potential found in water
security.
Robert Cox claims that
ontology lies at the beginning of an inquiry. We cannot define a problem in global
politics without presupposing a certain basic structure consisting of the significant kinds of entities
involved and the form of significant relationships among them ... There is always an ontological starting point
(Cox 1996, p. 144).
It is true that the continued frequency of popular warnings that privilege Malthusian concerns over dwindling water supplies and
increasing human needs reflect deeper-rooted philosophical allegiances. When a wide range of world leaders, including the past
three United Nations (UN) Secretary Generals, at one point or another, raise dire
warnings of impending violence
over water, they are reflecting long-held assumptions about the purpose and possibilities of international
security, itself symptomatic of much deeper beliefs. When the United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for Energy and
Climate Change, Ed Davey, warned an audience in 2013 that “water wars are just around the corner,” (Harvey 2013) he was not
simply reporting facts, but was signalling
a commitment to water security defined and held within a
traditional ontological interpretation of state self-preservation, political enmity and human
control over nature. Water security is, in this regard, illustrative of what Horkheimer and Adorno referred to as a
“corrosive rationality” that binds existence with repetition. In their reading, reason becomes locked in
instrumental terms, in the service of domination and control, rather than in progress or
emancipation. In modern terms, an idea of inevitability sets in because that which is sets the boundaries of possible
experience. These boundaries work (like mythology) to reflect and replicate the essence of the existing order –
characterized as cyclical motion, fate, domination of the world and the renunciation of hope (Horkheimer and Adorno
[1944] 2004, p. 20).
The starting point of this article, then, is an acknowledgment
that conceptions of security are conditioned by
larger understandings of being and reality, and that water security in particular is emblematic of
traditional allegiances within the subject of international relations that are resistant to change. It takes this critical
observation and extends it to examine the possibilities for emancipation in water security.
The place of emancipation in water security
Much of the water
security literature follows the same trajectory as the broader environmental security literature. It evokes
a picture of water as a dwindling natural resource that has the potential to act as a threat multiplier
in an age of climate insecurity and domestic upheaval in a warming world. This literature admits that
while it is difficult (perhaps impossible) to find a major conflict precipitated over water resources, water is
often an important variable in conflict and is emblematic of the increasing importance of environmental factors going forward in the
twenty-first century. Against this background, there
is a need to shift the trajectory of water security towards a
critical engagement with its emancipatory characteristics. Water can act as a progressive site for the
articulation of emancipatory policies based upon cosmopolitan ethics.
Rigorous, empirical analysis debunks the myth of water wars. The 1AC’s
fabrication is complicit in production of violent narratives privilege
fearmongering.
Harrington ’13 [Cameron; Graduate Program in Political Science, The University of Western
Ontario. Thesis for Doctor of Philosophy; “CHAPTER THREE: Water Wars and Environmental
Security”; 2013; Fluid Identities: Toward a Critical Security of Water;
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2884&context=etd; Accessed 7/19/21; NT]
The problem, as Aaron Wolf has pointed out, is a lack of evidence. Libiszewski and Wolf have both produced
extensive studies that conclude water scarcity has never been a cause of any Arab-Israeli war.202 A
critical review of the water wars literature reveals that many of the studies are actually more acutely
tied to “political tensions or stability rather than about warfare, or about water as a tool, target, or victim of
armed conflict – all important issues, just not the same as “water wars.”203
It would be an overstatement to say whether there is one conclusive answer to the “debate” over the likelihood of water wars. Yet it
is possible to conclude that there
is indeed a burgeoning literature that examines water from an altogether
different perspective from past interpretations. “Water peace” literature has grown in recent years, and
encompasses a major academic sub-field of water security. In what has grown to become a landmark study, Wolf’s
1998 article, “Conflict and Cooperation Along International Waterways”, found that there have been hardly any water
wars in all of human history. In findings derived from Oregon State University’s Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database
(TFDD), Wolf explained that a systematic study of the interstate interactions over water reveals a history
more replete with cooperation than conflict. Wolf, and his team of researchers, using a comprehensive dataset
that identified 412 crises for the period 1912-1994, found only four disputes where water was partially a
cause. They broadened the scope to include a total of seven “incidents” where water may have been an
independent variable influencing armed aggression, only to find that in three of these incidents no shots were
fired. Wolf concluded that “As near as we can find, there has never been a single war over water.” 204 Instead
of the interstate violence that has been consistently forecasted, the study, building upon earlier evidence compiled by
Wolf205 and Hamner and Wolf206, found that cooperation along shared waterways is historically far more common.
This has again been confirmed in subsequent findings by Wolf and others.207 Instead of wars over
water, which are not “strategically rational, hydrographically effective, or economically viable,” states
have endeavored to find common ground when it comes to shared waterways. Wolf’s team identified 3,600 treaties
that have been signed over different aspects of international water (400 in the twentieth century alone.) This
stands in stark contrast to the water wars literature that was commonplace in the early 1990s.
The data produced by TFDD has had a major impact on how water can be
seen alternative to the prevailing
discourses that place water scarcity in the context of war and violent conflict. Indeed, Phillips et al. write that:
“It is rare that findings within social science produce instant paradigm shifts. However, with the
surprising results from The Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database disclosing that there have hardly been
any ‘water wars’ in human history, the tables were turned almost overnight.”208
New emphasis on the
potential for water to bridge political and psychological divides has recently
emerged in the wake of the quantitative studies produced by Wolf and others. Many studies produced in the last decade have
emphasized the cooperative side of water politics.209 A few authors point to “discourses of cooperation”210 and
“rising spirals of benevolent relations”211 instead of once-familiar discourses of conflict or spirals of insecurity.
They contend that conflict over water – whether violent or not – is a rarity at the shared basin level. This new emphasis on
the counter-hypothesis – that water scarcity can lead people to cooperate – is representative of a larger trend
within environmental security studies. As chapter one of this dissertation showed, it is not without significance that the UN has
declared 2013 the International Year of Water Cooperation.
The speculative
theorizing often at the root of early forms of environmental security has become less commonplace
– at least when it comes to predicting future water wars. Instead, a teleological approach to the environment and
cooperation has assumed a much more prominent place in academic studies. This approach has emphasized the discourse of
cooperation and challenged sovereignty and the privileging of independent national development
priorities.212 This has contributed to the emergent fourth phase of environmental security literature, discussed earlier in this
chapter, which links together human, environmental, and gender security and peace research.213 Some, such as Spring, Brauch, and
Dalby are hopeful that this new phase in the literature will be more comprehensive, and better integrate physical and human
sciences in ways that “neither focus on states on the one hand, or environmental causes as a simple variable on the other.” This
new type of ecological thinking should focus on adaptability, resilience, and interconnection:
“understanding security in contrast to earlier formulations assuming central control and
violence as the essence of security.”214
Many of these authors are careful to temper any undue
enthusiasm for water to act as a magical panacea,
curing international conflict. The intent is rather to present a fuller picture of the complex interactions
that surround shared management of water resources. It is clear that water contains the potential to destabilize
international relations, but it seems far more appropriate to speak of the consequences related to its unequal access, rather than
competition over water resources.215 The authors writing on water as part of the new phases of environmental literature are more
reluctant to produce extensive conclusions about either the inevitability of conflict or the likelihood of cooperation. It is clear that
expanding the scope of analysis beyond conflict and war and including cooperation and negotiation has
allowed for a wider range of approaches to water security. These new approaches often incorporate different facets of
the relationship between water, conflict, and cooperation. Recent studies have highlighted the role of water regimes in
facilitating hydrosolidarity216, the potential for spillover effects of water cooperation217, the role of the poor and the
implications for water management institutions in future water related conflict218, and the coexistence of conflict and cooperation
in transboundary water interaction.219 This is only a small sampling to demonstrate the diversity of the latest stage of water
security literature. As was discussed at some length in the previous chapter, the reduction of a whole scope of environmental
security studies to
singular paradigms is a misleading discursive tactic that obscures a consistently
complex literature. Nevertheless there is some value in producing some synthesis of the literature because it can shed some
light on the new approaches that have arisen in response to previous empirical findings and theoretical advancements. It is clear
that there exists a highly complex and diverse literature investigating the myriad political and environmental issues associated with
the management of water. The debate over whether water wars will occur seems to have muted in recent years (at least in
academic circles), with a larger focus on how states cooperate over shared water resources. And while it is accepted that states
often cooperate in the field of water resource management, we should heed various warnings that there still remains rapidly
increasing demands for strategic access to water by certain co-riparian states, which is caution against complacency.220
L - Warming Refugees
Narratives about climate refugees depoliticizes warming while denying
migrants subjectivity- this results in mass-victimization and policies driven by
fear
Bettini 2012 Giovanni [Lund U Centre for Sustainability Studies]; Climate Barbarians at the
Gate? A critique of apocalyptic narratives on ‘climate refugees’; Geoforum; Volume 45, March
2013, Pages 63–72
The de-politicizing potential of such narratives is witnessed in the kind of subjectivity ascribed to the concerned people. The
apocalyptic narratives centered on ‘climate refugees’ depoliticize and deprive the concerned of
political subjectivity through a double movement: the figure of the climate migrant/refugee is
victimized and at the same time de-individualized.¶ On the one hand, as noted by Kate Manzo, “at the epicentre”
of climate change iconographies and narratives based on fear and apocalypse “stands the figure of the vulnerable being” (Manzo,
2010, p. 99). The centrality
of the figure of the ‘bare victim’ de-contextualizes and de-historicizes
the socio-ecological relations (at the intersection of multiple axes of power) that originate vulnerability and
the risk of displacement (see e.g. Doulton and Brown, 2009, Manzo, 2010 and O’Brien et al., 2007). Described as
destitute victim, the concerned is deprived of political subjectivity.¶ On the other hand, the construction of
the ‘vulnerable being’ does not emphasize her individuality. To the contrary, the vulnerable beings disappear into the
images of massive movements – the “rising tides” and “human tsunamis” from developing
countries. These imaginaries resonate with the dominant Western representation of refugees. As
noted by Johnson, while the refugee used to be imagined as a politicized individual fleeing persecution (often from the Soviet block),
today the dominant representation is that of masses leaving the global south: the individualities and agency of the people moving
disappear, overwhelmed by the images of mounting waves of the destitute from the south (Johnson, 2011). Such
a
construction of the (climate) refugee racializes and depoliticizes the figure of the refugee and
constructs the concerned as a non-political subject (ibid: 2011).¶ The combination of victimization
and ‘de-individualization’ reinforces postcolonial imaginaries: the silenced ‘Other’, with no
agency and driven by desperation, easily becomes the unpredictable, wild ‘other’ that threatens
“us” (Manzo, 2010).This disempowering ‘mass victimization’ resonates with various discourses: it
proves functional to “mobilize public support and concern for the plight of refugees within a
humanitarian discourse and at the same time to manage the threat of instability and difference
presented by the refugees’ condition of statelessness” (Johnson, 2011). In any case, such narratives
make the climate migrant/refugee into a destitute victim rather than a political subject –
regardless of whether they are to be feared (as in conservative discourses) or to be protected (as in a
humanitarian discourse). The construct of climate refugees alienates and marginalizes the concerned: someone else (a neutral
humanity) is defining how to speak about their future (McAdam, 2011 and McNamara and Gibson, 2009). No room is left for
contestation, and, as for any post-politicizing move, no struggling subject is present in the picture (Swyngedouw, 2010b). The depoliticizing impact of such representations and narratives is witnessed by the way the radical People’s Agreement deals with the
issue. The WPC qualifies the climate migrant/refugee as a destitute, voiceless victim that developed countries should protect,
“offering migrants a decent life [sic!] with full human rights guarantees in their countries” (WPC, 2010a). This is a matted and shy
shadow of the conflictual attitude that permeates the text. One does not hear the voice of any struggling subject, rather a call for
pity for a third subject. The revolutionary glance is inhibited and fades away.
AT: Perm
If we win a link it is proof the perm fails
Parr 2015 - Taft Research Center, UNESCO co-chair of water, The University of Cincinnati
Adrian, "The Wrath of Capital: Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics – Reflections,"
Geoforum, Vol 62, p 70-72
Using a neoliberal framework to craft solutions to climate change produces a vicious circle that
reinstates the selfsame social organization and broader sociocultural and economic structures that have led to
global climate change. The Wrath of Capital shows that climate change is not just an economic, cultural, or technological
challenge. It is a political dilemma. Rigorous thinking and broadening our understanding of flourishing and
emancipatory politics are important resources we can use to counter the narrow-minded view
that the free market will solve the challenges climate change poses. The central focus of The Wrath of
Capital is how ‘opportunity’ is put to work in climate change politics. Is it a moralizing or political operation? The conclusion I draw is
that thus far the neoliberal
framework of climate change politics has turned it into a moralizing
discourse. For as I show the discourse exposes a racist, sexist, privileged political subject who points the finger of blame in the
direction of underdeveloped countries overpopulating the earth, the Chinese polluting the atmosphere, ‘primitive societies’ in need
of ‘modernizing’ their economies and governments, and an inefficient and ineffectual public sphere that should hand the ownership
and management of common pool resources over to the private sector. All are moralizing arguments presented under the umbrella
of climate change solutions. It
is therefore important we recognize these are not political arguments.
Arguments of this kind do not view the ‘opportunity’ in question as a platform for transforming
otherwise oppressive, exploitative, and coercive power relations.
The perm coopts the alternative to maintain the squo, makes all of the impacts
inevitable
Anshelm 2015 – Prof @ Linkoping U
Jonas and Martin Hultman, Discourses of Global Climate Change, Routledge, p. 190-191
There is, however, an overlooked utopian feature in the environmental eco· modern discourse. To date, there have been numerous
studies about the history of environmental politics, especially with regard to how ecological modernization came into being, as well
as research about its spread in different areas (e.g. Mol and Sonnenfeld, 2000). But very few analyse the visionary and utopian
aspects that may explain how any such approach to politics can gain so much acceptance when it is described as a salvation from
contemporary problems that are presented as apocalyptic. The ecomodern utopia's combination of the desire for a lost paradise
with the promise of heaven meant that its proponents could argue that the chance for humanity to be saved was imminent. There is
a clear determinism in the Industrial Fatalist dis· course, which becomes visible when every critique is brushed away with arguments
of backwardness, earthen floors and poverty and puts the elements of time and progress in the hands of Liberal- Conservatives.
These types of utopian ideas can be described as "millenarianism". The millennial good time restores something of the glory of a
Golden Age, but it is also descri· bed as being at the end of time. Millenarianism is historically associated with Christianity's
messianic message. This has created a dynamic dimension to the forward-looking determinism that encourages the acts of a
selected few (Kumar, 1991), which is similar to the way that Sweden is described as being the frontrunner in climate-change politics.
A green economy or eco-efficient economy is a partial critique of the present society, a critique
based on scientific language. The solution can be seen as a form of millenarianism in the sense
that those in government create a distinct actor network that infuses hope and creates a way
out of the dilemma. The hope is infinite since it offers the prospect of the ultimate society, in the form of an eco-efficient
economy. In line with the ecologically modern discourse, an "eco-efficient economy" is presented as an utopia that launches a
couple of technological fixes, which means that contemporary society does not need to change fundamentally. Although the
description of an utopia always contains a critique of the prevailing society, it need not necessarily be a total alternative to it (Kumar,
1987). An
eco-efficient economy can instead be described as the opposite: a conservative utopia.
Society is merely extrapolated from the present to the future, with some technological fixes
added. Such utopias are characterized by the existence of a great faith in technology, although
detailed descriptions of technology are left out. The direction that the society is moving towards is not altered
although the pace of change is said to be increased (Segal, 1986). The image of conservative utopias is made
attractive as a result of their effectiveness, purity, absence of noise and harmonious conditions.
The government would be left to the experts, not citizens, which would create effective communities (Segal, 1986). The analysis of
Sweden as a frontrunner and the ideal eco-efficient economy demonstrates that the understanding of utopia as a system-change is
not valid. Such a limited understanding of utopia tends to reduce the possibility of certain types of utopias; conservative utopias
might be dismissed from analytical scrutiny. In the case of the ecoefficient economy, it is not about changing existing institutions,
behaviour or power relations, even if utopia in many other cases contains the call for radical change. Climate change is a much
contested field. We find that during the period that we studied, the dominant discourse, Industrial Fatalism, was heavily attacked for
not being able to manage the problem; simultaneously this discourse invested strong emotions in the image of Sweden as a
frontrunner country while making the lowering of carbon emissions and continued economic growth a possibility, through an ecoefficient economy. By
framing climate change as a problem for humanity, actors within the Industrial
Fatalist discourse matched their deep-anchored faith in large-scale technologies, such as nuclear
power, with comic apocalyptic scenarios in which they were in control. The comic apocalypse was cocreated with human solutions presented in a powerful way. Industrial Fatalist actors presented themselves as being able to manage
both the problem and the answer. This proposed solution was halted - to a large extent, globally - after Germany decided to
abandon nuclear power and Japan stopped all nuclear operations after the Fukushima disaster; at the same time, the UK and Finland
were prominent examples of the opposite (Wittneben, 2012). In Sweden, as of 2014, the LiberalConservative government still
supported the plan to swap old nuclear power plants for new ones and continue the dependency on uranium supplied by Ukraine
and Russia. The
post-political situation in which apocalyptic framing can occur simultaneously with
conservative action is possible because the apocalypse, through its comic presentation, is made
governable by humans and is met concurrently by big emotionally embedded planetary
engineering solutions that offer the assurance that the industrial capitalist world's ecological
system can handle climate change.
AT: No Link - We acknowledge suffering
The affirmative is a guise to further the squo – any acknowledgement of
suffering was just a token gesture
Wapner 2016- professor of Global Environmental Politics in the School of International
Service at American University
Paul, “Climate of the poor: suffering and the moral imperative to reimagine resilience” in
Reimaging Climate Change, Routledge, p. 138-141
Radical resilience contravenes Climate Inc. in that it understands and honors the political dimensions of climate suffering and uses
this understanding to craft more transformative responses to climate change. There is no question that suffering is a consequence of
climate change. It happens as temperatures soar, oceans rise, and storms strengthen, and people and other creatures endure the
negative consequences.
Radical resilience recognizes how politics comes into play in defining and
treating victims of climate suffering (as discussed above) and, in taking this seriously, devises responses that
aim to shift the power relations having to do with the lived experience of climate pain. Radical
resilience also, however, takes seriously the suffering that precedes and actually produces climate change in the first place. It
notices how existing economic, political, and cultural systems that fuel climate change generate
widespread pain across various social strata. They create and perpetuate severe inequalities, exploitations, and
injustices that are simply part of contemporary collective life. In this sense, radical resilience sees climate travails not
simply as the result of an alteration in the status quo (i.e. climate change) but a function of the status
quo. That is, climate suffering is not some effect emerging from a beneficent system, but the expression of an unjust and
exploitative system. Far from resulting solely from climate change, suffering also fundamentally drives it. Climate change is the
atmospheric expression of a system of suffering. In her most recent book, Naomi Klein helps explain this wider view of suffering. She
does so through her description of contemporary societies as "extractive." According to Klein, extractivism is a resource-depleting
model of economic growth and development employed by governments across the ideological spectrum wherein the earth and its
people are treated as objects to be used rather than honored, nurtured, or embraced: Extractivism is a nonreciprocal, dominancebased relationship with the earth, one purely of taking. It is the opposite of stewardship, which involves taking but also taking care
that regeneration and future life continue. Extractivism is the mentality of the mountaintop remover and the old-growth clearcutter. It is the reduction of life into objects for the use of others, giving them no integrity or value of their own - turning living
complex ecosystems into "natural resources," mountains into "overburden" (as the mining industry terms the forests, rocks, and
streams that get in the way of its bulldozers). It is also the reduction of human beings either into labor to be brutally extracted,
pushed beyond limits, or, alternatively, into social burden, problems to be locked out at borders and locked away in prisons and
reservations. In an extractivist economy, the interconnections among these various objectified components of life are ignored; the
consequences of severing them are of no concern. (Klein 2014, 169) Extractivism, thus understood, is the ultimate form of
exploitation. It marginalizes people, renders the nonhuman world as ontologically inferior, and objectifies life so that the powerful
can perpetuate and systematize legal, cultural, economic, and political conditions of privilege. Extractivism and its violences and
injustices sit at the center of climate change. All along the climate change chain - excavation, processing, transportation, and the
burning of fossil fuels as well as the buildup of atmospheric carbon concentrations - one finds debasement. Take mining. Many
people near coalmines, oil refineries, or hydraulic fracturing facilities are living with contaminated water, polluted air, and despoiled
landscapes, while distant others enjoy the advantages produced by such hardship. In these cases, the privileged displace the costs
and burdens of fossil fuel use to those who are too poor or otherwise political weak to avoid such pain. At work is not simply the
machinations of market economics but the moral arrogance of belittling those who live downstream. The same pattern pertains to
the burning of fossil fuels. Not only are most coal burning plants, oil refineries, and natural gas facilities far from affluent
neighborhoods, but, as mentioned, the poor disproportionately experience severe climate effects. Living on fragile lands and in
substandard structures and lacking the means to protect themselves from climate-related incidents, the poor are implicitly on the
receiving end of the buildup of C02 concentrations in the atmosphere. One sees this, by the way, not only within certain countries
but also between them. For instance, Nepal has contributed virtually nothing to current climate challenges. Almost all its power is
hydroelectric or biomass and its per capita energy use is, relative to other countries, infinitesimal. With 60 percent of its people
living on less than two dollars a day, a tenuous system of rain-fed agriculture, and a typography that has many living on fragile lands,
Nepal is the fourth most vulnerable country to climate disruptions (Maplecroft 2010). In recent years, the country has been ravaged
by landslides and mountain flooding (including glacier lake outbursts) due to erratic and powerful rains, scorching heat and droughts
in the plains, and intensified storms that have weakened and, in many cases, crippled much of its infrastructure - conditions that
many associate with climate change (see, for example, Yang 2013 ). Nepal is the victim of a climate extractive mindset (Wapner
2014). Extractivism is not simply about taking from the poor and politically weak, it also involves robbing future generations. Fossil
fuel reserves build up over geologic time yet the world is using them at breakneck speed with little regard about their availability to
future generations. To be sure, warnings about peak oil were certainly exaggerated but it is clear that fossil fuels are, for all intents
and purposes, finite. At some point in time - and it will certainly be after the world experiences runaway climate change - oil, gas,
and coal reserves will tap out. Using them in such profligate ways and in such enormous amounts is to unfairly extract them from
future generations. The same pattern, of course, holds for greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is already being felt
throughout the world but we know that current droughts, floods, and so forth only harbingers of a warmer world. As emissions
continue to rise, successive generations will be on the receiving end of intensified, climate-related disasters. By choosing to burn
fossil fuels (and cut down trees, graze cattle, and so on) present generations are making the choice to enjoy associated benefits
while transferring costs across time to future generations. They are mining the future. Climate extraction hurts not simply people
but also the more-thanhuman world. Mining fossil fuels rips apart landscapes, pollutes waterways, and thus literally destroys habitat
for plants and animals. Even the most environmentally sensitive quarrying degrades air, water, and soil. Extractivism takes its toll
deep into the earth's crust, far across its oceans, high into its skies, and into the very membranes of living beings that must suffer
contamination from the mining and burning of fossil fuels. Climate extraction also includes deforestation not only because forests
must be cleared to locate, remove, and transport shale oil, tar sands, and natural gas, but also because deforestation releases
roughly 3 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year and thus is part of the climate extractivist complex (Union of
Concerned Scientists undated). Like those humans living downstream from climate extractivist practices, nature is silent in its
suffering. The
production of climate change fundamentally involves power as an anthropocentric
mindset encourages humanity to treat nature with abandon. Politics operates not only at the causal end of
climate hardship for the more-than-human world but also, as should be obvious, in the consequences. Hotter temperatures,
changes in humidity, and newly emerging seasonal fluctuations are shifting biomes across the planet and undermining the ecological
base of many creatures. To be sure, some animals and plants can migrate across ecosystems in search of accommodating conditions.
But many others lack mobility and most are unable to cross highways, cities, and other manufactured features of the humanchanged landscape. In fact, many now identify climate change as a primary cause of species extinction and this represents a further
example of extractive practice (CHGE undated; Convention on Biological Diversity undated). Nonhuman species and those people
most vulnerable to displacement across time and space share the same status and condition. They are the voiceless, poor, politically
powerless, and disregarded of the world - the "global residuum," as Mike Davis (2006) puts it. Future generations, for instance, do
not vote, buy and sell goods, or otherwise lodge public preferences. Likewise, the marginalized, from whom industries grab
resources and who lack material protection, have little influence on public affairs. In fact, they are usually the victims of other
people's decisions. And of course nonhuman creatures not only find themselves undeserving of moral worth but also lack the
capacity for political expression. In all three cases, power differentials structure relationships and assume patterns of injustice. The
most disturbing thing is that these patterns, which reveal climate inequality, are not unique to fossil fuels or even environmental
issues in general. They are part of, and in fact intimately constitute, the contemporary world (Wapner and Matthew 2009).
Climate Inc., with mitigation and adaptation as its poster children, is either blind to or, for
convenience sake, ignores contemporary societal injustices and hardships. This is unsurprising given its
circumscribed aim to focus on climate protection but it also indicates how deeply extractivism and suffering are woven into
contemporary regimes. Power differentials and widespread pain are often hidden from view. They are part of, what Edward Said
calls, the "normalized quiet of unseen power" (Said 2001, quoted in Nixon 2011, 34). This correlates with Galtung's (1969) notion of
structural violence or, more recently, Nixon's (2011) understanding of slow violence. According to Nixon, slow violence is "violence
[that) is neither spectacular nor instantaneous, but rather incremental and accretive, its calamitous repercussions playing out across
a range of temporal scales" (Nixon 2011, 2). This is exactly what is happening as the privileged and underprivileged go about their
lives often unaware of the accretive brutality that courses through and imprints itself upon the very bodies of those living (or soon to
be living) downstream. Mitigation and
adaptation miss this wider, more intimate type of violence and
therefore suffering. So focused on the legitimate horrors of climate change, they ignore the
pervasive repulsions of contemporary life that produce climate change in the first place and that
mark the lives of those living on the frontlines of climate intensification. Mitigation and adaptation, as insurers of
the status quo, have little room to consider, let alone respond effectively to, climate suffering.
Suffering remains a residual category invisible to Climate Inc. yet capable of harboring injustices that perpetuate the engines of
climate change.
2NC – FW/Alt
2NC - Harrington
Critical imaginations of water open up new possibilities for equitable and just
understandings of security through cosmopolitanism.
Harrington ’13 [Cameron; Graduate Program in Political Science, The University of Western
Ontario. Thesis for Doctor of Philosophy; “CHAPTER FIVE: Toward an Emancipatory Security of
Water: Inclusion, Communication, and Cosmopolitanism”; 2013; Fluid Identities: Toward a
Critical Security of Water; https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2884&context=etd;
Accessed 7/19/21; NT]
Water literally and metaphorically flows through everything; our struggle to properly manage it
shows us the deeply troubled relationships that we have with nature and with each other. We
cannot divorce water from issues like food production, population growth, climate change, species extinction,
urbanization, development, gender disparity, social inequality, and a host of other social processes.
Responding to these challenges requires an integrated and holistic approach that takes stock of the
nature of the problems as arising from, to paraphrase Adorno and Horkheimer, “the administered totality of
modernity.” Critical theory can in this regard, contribute an awareness of the self as an active
recipient and participant in the replication of a modern world dependent upon an instrumental
logic of reason and the commodity form.
The growing global water crisis creates enormous problems and important opportunities. Up to eighty
percent of the global human population faces a high risk to water security.430 That staggering number should
give us long pause and compel us to construct alternative theories that can make better sense of the
problem and begin to act in ways that comport with ethically valid principles and do so in a sustainable
fashion. The aim of this chapter has been to do just that. By pursuing emancipation as the ultimate goal of security, it
coincides with a young but growing tradition in security studies. Emancipation frees us to think about security away from
traditional exclusionary means of enmity and conflict. It is argued here (and elsewhere) that the concept of
emancipation offers humanity a means by which we might pursue a practical commitment to
ensuring that life on this planet not only continues, but that it gets better. Roy Bhaskar may have put it best when he
wrote that emancipation is “a special qualitative kind of becoming free that consists in the self-directed
transformation from an unwanted and unneeded to a wanted and needed source of
determination.”431 In the context of water security, emancipation helps to bind our knowledge of
the interconnected nature of the problems with a theoretical commitment to “reimagining the future
in genuinely liberating ways.”432
This chapter constructed a vision of an emancipatory security of water by
focusing on three components that could shift
traditional water security towards ethical and holistic means. It identified inclusion, communication, and
cosmopolitanism, as the central foundations of what could become an emancipatory theory of water security. Each
component is able to offer specific insights into the various deficiencies of approaching water security along traditional, business-asusual lines. Focusing on inclusion
creates new possibilities for marginalized water stakeholders to voice their
own concerns and wishes in a manner that respects the unique experiences of water insecurity. It also presents a
multifaceted view of water security, critically upsetting the prevailing narrative of most water
management strategies that hold an instrumentalist view of nature, and a statist understanding of
international security. Focusing on inclusion in critical water security also requires us to adopt a constitutiverelational understanding of identity that avoids essentialized notions of the self and other so as to
pave the road for free and open-ended forms of communication.
This leads to the second component of an emancipatory security of water that highlights the important role that communicative
rationality plays in ensuring that alternative voices are engaged in open-ended discussions. While consensus may or may not be
reached, the important thing to highlight is that the
process of communication – the reflexive use of
communicative rationality – encourages the creation of deliberative spaces whereby a broader range of
actors, including the most marginalized members of society, are given enhanced access. This has
important effects on realizing the potential emancipation of individuals and encourages a more
sustainable use of world water resources.
The last component necessary for building an emancipatory security of water is a commitment to cosmopolitanism.
Cosmopolitanism signals a commitment to a universal scope of moral concern, so that all
individuals across the world share equal moral worth.433 Three main ideas were developed to construct a critical
theory of cosmopolitanism useful for the pursuit of emancipation in water security. They highlighted that, 1) all people are
morally equal; 2) arbitrary forms of power/domination are unjust and must be avoided and; 3) dialogue
and inclusion over matters of public importance are crucial. Combined, all three ideas formed to create critical
cosmopolitan imaginings that can propel water security towards new horizons that emphasize
shared vulnerabilities and opportunities for integrated approaches that equitably and sustainably manage scarce
water resources. There are signs layered in contemporary water approaches that signal such cosmopolitan possibilities. It is these
possibilities that the next chapter examines.
Developing new understandings and discourse surrounding water is a
prerequisite to meaningful policy change.
Harrington ’13 [Cameron; Graduate Program in Political Science, The University of Western
Ontario. Thesis for Doctor of Philosophy; “CHAPTER FIVE: Toward an Emancipatory Security of
Water: Inclusion, Communication, and Cosmopolitanism”; 2013; Fluid Identities: Toward a
Critical Security of Water; https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2884&context=etd;
Accessed 7/19/21; NT]
The benefits of linking the concept of emancipation with water have already been mentioned in earlier chapters. However, a more
explicit attempt will be made here to point to the important junctures where relationships over
water display
emancipatory alternatives to traditional discourses of security. There are significant implications that arise
from this. By identifying the junctures where water coalesces with marginalized individuals and
communities to help articulate different interpretations of security, it becomes possible to
decentre the analytical and prescriptive situation of the state, thereby suspending assumptions
about traditional hierarchies of values and issues in international security.330 This, it is argued, has both analytical
and normative value. In terms of analytical benefit, the critical approach elaborates a wide range of
relationships that individuals and communities exhibit over shared waterways. This creates better
analyses of “water security” by making it clear that traditional approaches - with their focus on
state and system level interactions – are not sufficient for explaining the existing and potential effects of
freshwater scarcity on individuals and communities. Political responses and approaches to the issue of water scarcity would
indeed be well served to take heed of the elaboration of critical water security found in this chapter. Given that many new and
innovative approaches to water management depend upon holistic values and rely upon
interdependent, cross-sectoral cooperation (Integrated Water Resources Management – IWRM - being only one,
albeit controversial example), the non-statist and cosmopolitan ethics at the heart of critical security analyses seem
exceedingly prescient and appropriate for study.
As myriads of studies
show, the global environmental situation in the early twenty-first century displays crises on
a scale not yet experienced in human history. 331 The interrelated nature of the epochal, structural, and decisional crises,
require new and radical responses that push development of a world security. It is in such political
arrangements, underscored by ethical attachments, that we are best able to achieve ‘security’
without depriving others of it.332 A water security developed to meet both human and
environmental needs, through a form of cosmopolitan ethics, is one component of a global response to shared
threats and vulnerabilities. It adds to a growing literature that seeks to identify alternatives to security characterized as statist,
militaristic, and exclusionary, and to shift dominant discourses and practices of security in emancipatory directions. This chapter and
the one that follows it contribute to these dual aims by demonstrating that progressive
change in water management
policy must consistently rely upon the opening up of dialogic space to include multiple actors engaging and
contesting the dominant values that privilege business-as-usual. It is through this diffusion of
power to marginalized individuals, so often left out of discussions of security, that it becomes possible
to remove the arbitrary, oppressive, structural constraints that limit human potential and
contribute to the processes of environmental degradation.
2NC – Discourse
Policymaking DA – accountability instills responsibility for the justifications that
shape water policy.
Williams ’20 [Jessica M; Post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Civil Society and Governance,
Faculty of Social Science, The University of Hong Kong. LLB in Law from the University of Exeter,
Master of Science (International Relations) from Cardiff University, Ph.D. in Social Sciences from
the University of Hong Kong.; “Discourse inertia and the governance of transboundary rivers in
Asia”; March 2020; Volume 3; Earth System Governance;
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esg.2019.100041; Accessed 7/19/21; NT]
Discourse comprises the group of ideas, concepts and categories that are produced, reproduced and
transformed in a certain nexus of practices. Social and physical relations are given meaning in this manner.
Discourses are context dependent and cannot be separated from the social practices within
which they are fashioned (Jӓgerskog, 2002; Mirumachi, 2015). To create material change, social agents first
need to work on a discursive level by creating significant and stable meanings to the territory
within which they are competing (Rear and Jones, 2013).
Discourses can become sanctioned. This essentially means that they become unquestioned and
dominant. With resources such as water, issues such as nationalism can become intertwined in the
sanctioned discourse. As a result, decision makers may not always implement the most seemingly
rational policies (Jӓgerskog, 2002). Assumptions that dominate the sanctioned discourse will act to
constrain the options available to policymakers and in doing so signal policy outcomes (Dayton, 2000; Gerlak and
Schmeier, 2014).
Thus, changes
in the sanctioned discourse can indicate changes in policy direction. However, identifying
discourse change is difficult. Change can occur slowly, over a long time period, or be sudden and dramatic. What initially
appears to be change may just be a continuation of a larger story or the same discourse in an alternative form. Thereby,
discourse can appear to change when in reality it has co-opted elements from another discourse.
Normative concepts, such as ‘sustainable development’, are particularly susceptible to being co-opted (Christoff, 2013).
Exogenous events or crises
that confront the sanctioned discourse can effect a change in discourse.
Pressure from foreign governments or financial/donor institutions may incentivise a shift in discourse to align with
a certain perspective. Actors may also intentionally try and effect change through discursive strategies. Such
strategies include constructing narratives and counternarratives, exclusion strategies, as well as
employing normative power and delegitimising tactics. The success and extent of change is
dependent on the power, position and resources of those seeking to effect the change, and the level of change being
sought (Leipold and Winkel, 2013).
Discourse can be used to consider how issues reach and stay on the political agenda and become
policy. Discourse can show how broader interests underlying policies are shaped into physical
consequences, which then indicates policy direction. The way discourse is formulated shapes how the
problem or issues around which it is constructed are framed, interpreted, discussed and analysed. Therefore, it
implies the favoured solutions, how policies are to be implemented and their potential success (Crow-Miller, 2015).
Policy documents also instruct what needs to be done, what stands to reason and what is
unquestionable (Apthorpe and Gasper, 2014; Bacchi, 2000).
Issues are not seen as political problems unless they are constructed as such by influential actors or society (Hajer,
1995). The framing of policies can immediately close off some responses while making others seem selfevident. It is also rare for a problem to be ‘solved’. Instead it can be removed from the discourse or discussed as
if it were a different problem. Policies may be utilised to this effect to constrain the impact of reform initiatives (Bacchi, 2000).
The argumentative approach to discourse holds that policymaking
reflects competition over meaning. Therefore,
policies are the result of competing interests that strategically utilise discourse and is, therefore, a
social phenomenon (Taylor, 2004). Policy discourse is thus the group of ideas, concepts, frames and definitions that provide
meaning to a real-world phenomenon and structure it as a policy problem (Hajer, 1995, 2006). Policy creation, change and
continuation are held as an interactive process of discursive struggle between actors.
Policymaking is considered the competition over meaning, with policies being the result of competing interests that employ
discourse strategically (Taylor, 2004). Policy creation, change and continuation are
interactive processes of discursive
struggle between actors. Through argument, actors position themselves or try to impose their views on
to others during negotiations (Fischer and Forester, 1993). Institutions can be mobilised and solutions sought once a problem
definition is established (Hajer, 1995). Within policymaking, discourses are essential in finding settlements
between conflicting interests and this assists in regulating underlying social conflicts (Taylor, 2004; Hajer, 1995). Here,
discourse is concerned with redefining a social phenomenon in a manner that allows a solution to be identified (Hajer, 1995).
Discourse can move policies up or down the political agenda through depoliticising or securitising
moves (Zeitoun et al., 2011). Depoliticising the policy process acts to distance policy makers from the policy's
impacts thereby removing responsibility for the policy's outcome. Foucault (2009) utilises the concept of ‘political
technology’ to illustrate how issues that are essentially political are removed from policy discourse and reframed in neutral
scientific language. The role of expert knowledge in designing institutional procedures is essential to this
process (Shore and Wright, 1997).
When policies become highly politicised, they become securitised and are regarded as high priority issues
that constitute an issue of national interest and essential to state sovereignty. As a result, exceptional measures
are, or may be, legitimised (Buzan et al., 1998; Allan and Mirumachi, 2010). The securitising actor's ability to convince
the audience and elicit a certain action/reaction is decisive to the securitisation process (Mirumachi, 2015).
Once a common understanding of a threat is formed between the securitising actor and the audience,
securitisation is held as successful (Trombetta, 2011). The main objective of a securitising discourse is to allow potential
violations of rules that would not otherwise be accepted. Threats do not have to be real or in existence for a
securitising act to occur (Stritzel, 2007; Mirumachi, 2015).
Inertia DA – countering securitizing discourse via debates usurps hegemonic
narratives.
Williams ’20 [Jessica M; Post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Civil Society and Governance,
Faculty of Social Science, The University of Hong Kong. LLB in Law from the University of Exeter,
Master of Science (International Relations) from Cardiff University, Ph.D. in Social Sciences from
the University of Hong Kong.; “Discourse inertia and the governance of transboundary rivers in
Asia”; March 2020; Volume 3; Earth System Governance;
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esg.2019.100041; Accessed 7/19/21; NT]
In the present paper elements of institutional theory, policy
networks and analytical governance are used to
complement discourse theory. This leads us to propose the conceptualisation of discourse inertia. In terms of discourse,
inertia is considered to represent the persistent promotion and dominance of a perception of reality.
This leads to the continuous reproduction of certain storylines and elements of a discourse. Sanctioned
discourses, often ones that are institutionalised, are thought more likely to achieve or display inertia due to the
involvement of path dependent tendencies and powerful entrenched interests.
Discourse is considered to be dynamic, even where discourse inertia is present, as discourses must
constantly be represented and reinforced. Once an actor's, or a group's, discourse becomes dominant, it is
fiercely defended. Subsequently, dominant discourses are constantly reinforced and embedded. This can lead to certain
narratives becoming entrenched within both institutions and political and social practices, thus reaching an ideational status. These
privileged narratives become taken for granted and self-reinforcing, making them prone to discourse inertia. More
shallow narratives can function over privileged narratives to achieve an interest or align with an outside commitment. These
narratives are more fluid and flexible and are, therefore, easily manipulated.
The concept of discourse inertia reflects how a discourse may persist and resist pressures for change. It contributes to our
understanding discourse dynamics, dissonance and governance. Discourse
inertia may aid in understanding the
persistence of a certain policy pathway, despite evidence of its ineffectiveness or the presence of more suitable
alternative approaches.
Discourse inertia is illustrated by utilising and extending Den Besten et al. (2014) ‘discursive-institutional
spiral’ (Fig. 1). The discursive-institutional spiral demonstrates how discourses evolve. A spiral exists between actors,
their ideas, subject areas and institutional initiatives. Moments of institutionalisation start each loop of the spiral, which
then leads to discussion and debates that draw in new actors. The more actors that become involved, the
more likely that new ideas and concepts will be introduced. The expansion of actors and ideas subsequently leads to
institutionalisation, which narrows the discourse. Certain ideas are excluded and actors are empowered or
disempowered. Institutionalisation then begins the next loop of the spiral as well as the inception of new ideas and rise of critical
discourses. Power can be exercised
process (Den Besten et al., 2014).
by excluding or including actors or ideas in the discursive-institutional
This concept is extended through the proposal of a narrowing discursive-institutional spiral. Here, a process akin to
institutional path dependency occurs within the spiral, which restricts the entry of new actors and ideas into the discourse. As a
result, the evolution
and expansion of the discursive-institutional spiral is limited (Fig. 2 and 3). Certain discursive
elements that become institutionalised may be self-reinforcing along subsequent spirals. These elements
may consistently exclude other elements and actors. This can further limit the ability of new actors to access the
discourse, which reduces the introduction of alternative ideas
Communities of Practice DA – uncritical acceptance of discourse embeds
problematic practices that disrupt implementation.
Kreuter ’21 [Judith; Research associate at the chair for International Relations, PhD thesis,
Technische Universität Darmstadt; “Chapter 3: Ideas and Objects, Meaning and Causation—
Frame Analysis from a Modernist Social Constructivism Perspective”; 2021; Springer; Climate
Engineering as an Instance of Politicization: Talking Tomorrow’s Technology—Framing Political
Choice?; Accessed 7/14/21; NT]
Discourses play a significant role in this process of construction of meaning: “The
world is not objectively accessible,
but instead is imparted through language through discursive processes and symbolic interpretations” (Uther
2014: 60).2 This means that much of the meaning-construction of social reality, which the brand of social constructivism
espoused here relies upon, is done through what many authors call discourse. The frames that are studied in this analysis
are considered as elements in discourse. Discourse, here, is understood, following Maarten Hajer, as “an ensemble of ideas,
concepts, and categories through which meaning is given to social and physical phenomena, and which is produced and reproduced
through an identifiable set of practices” (Hajer 2006: 67). This captures the simultaneous constructedness and constructiveness of
the social meaning of material objects: Through
language and practice humans both capture the meaning material
objects have, and change or reproduce this meaning. Similarly, Dryzek defines discourse as “a shared way of apprehending
the world. Embedded in language, it enables those who subscribe to it to interpret bits of information and put them together into
coherent stories or accounts” (Dryzek 2005: 9). This means that meaning
is constructed in discourses in “supra-
individual and rather unconscious” ways (Methmann et al. 2013a: 6).
At the same time, human
actors, in this study, will not be considered as entities subordinate to a super-human structural power
and constructing (see Uther 2014: 55).
Following her approach, actors are considered to be the central active agents in any meaning-making situation, and thus
not helpless pawns in the flow of discourse: “The actor is not passively subdued to the discourse, as, for example, the subject
of discourse. Actors, according to Uther’s discussion, are both constructed
of Foucault, but it actively participates in shaping the discourse through its own interpretive achievements” (Uther 2014: 66).3 This
two-fold characterization of actors as both constructed and constructing is captured by practice theory. The terms ‘practice’ and
‘discourse’ are considered to not be antithetical to each other: Practices are “meaningful patterns of action, which, in
being performed more or less competently, simultaneously embody, act out, and possibly reify background knowledge and
discourse in and around the material world” (Adler and Pouliot 2011: 4). Thus, (non-linguistic) practices are understood to interact
with (linguistic) discourses and in this interaction construct or deconstruct meanings. Other authors reconcile linguistic and nonlinguistic elements of meaning-construction by subsuming both under the term ‘discourse’(see Anshelm and Hultman 2015: 11;
Methmann et al. 2013a: 6) As Dryzek (2006: 3) argues, “discourses are a matter of practice as well as words, for
actions in the social realm are always accompanied by language that establishes the meaning of action” (see also Adler 2008: 198). I
assume, in line with these authors, that meaningful action—or practice—and meaningful talk—or discourse—construct or
deconstruct the ideational meaning of an object. Further, I assume that practice is meaningful action which acts out certain
meanings about the world, thus making it causally relevant.
Practice theory provides tools to put actors center stage as practice as meaningful action depends on the existence of an actor. Adler
and Pouilot describe practice theory as an “invitation […] to conceive of the social as bundles of ideas and matter that are
linguistically, materially, and intersubjectively mediated in the form of practices” (Adler and Pouliot 2011: 14). Practices as
“meaningful patterns of action” (Adler and Pouliot 2011: 4) can more specifically be defined as a type of action, which, in turn, is a
type of behavior. As Adler and Pouliot (2011: 5) describe: “[A]ction is behavior imbued with meaning. Running in the streets
aimlessly is mere behavior, running after a thief is an action endowed with meaning.” For an action to be a practice, it needs to fulfill
additional criteria: “Practices[…] are patterned actions that are embedded in particular organized contexts and, as such, are
articulated into specific types of action and are socially developed through learning and training” (Adler and Pouliot 2011: 5).
Accordingly, a practice
is behavior endowed with meaning, “embedded in an organizational context, repeated over
time and space, constituted by knowledge […], and articulated as part of a complex set of other social performances
[…]” (Adler and Pouliot 2011: 6). The knowledge in question is in part tacit, and it not only constitutes practices, but is also bound up
in them. Adler and Pouliot call this ‘background knowledge’: “expectations,
dispositions, skills, techniques, and
rituals that are the basis for the constitution of practices and their boundaries” (Adler and Pouliot 2011: 17). This
background knowledge “does not create uniformity of a group of community, but organize[s] their differences around pervasive
understandings of reality” (Adler and Bernstein 2005: 296).
Ontologically, practice theory is understood by its proponents to provide a way out of the dichotomy of agency versus structure, or
to conceptualize the two-fold characterization of actors as both constructed and constructing (see above). The agency-structuredichotomy describes an analytical problem similar to the one of hen and egg: Should agents inside of the structure be understood to
have final causal power over phenomena in the social world, or is it the structure, which was in turn constructed by agents, that
finally influences what happens? For example, should developments in global climate policy be accorded to the UNFCCC (structure)
or to efforts of the government of small island states (actor)? According to the structuration theory by Giddens (1984), actors and
structures determine and influence each other. Practice theory can give a more detailed insight into the workings of this reciprocal
constitution:
[P]ractices are both individual (agential) and structural […]. When ‘disaggregated’, practices are ultimately performed by individual
human beings and thus they clearly are what human agency is about. […] Recursively, in and through
practice, agents
lock in structural meaning in time and space. (Adler and Pouliot 2011: 16)
Adler argues that these agents, these
‘carriers’ of social structures across functional and geographical boundaries are not necessarily states
or societal networks, but ‘communities of practice’ […] – like-minded groups of practitioners who are
informally as well as contextually bound
by a shared interest in learning and applying a common
practice. (Adler 2008: 196)
In the analysis of the discursive construction of CE, the tool of the Communities of Practice (CoP) approach is applied. The CoP
approach allows for the analysis of actors which transcend national borders, such as transnationally active scholars, researchers and
scientists as well as political and economic actors, all of whom can conceivably influence the social construction of CE—both of its
ideational meaning and its causal materiality. The focus in this study lies on academic actors as a community of practice. It needs to
be kept in mind, however, that communities of practice can be characterized as both actor and structure:
Communities of practice are intersubjective social structures that constitute the normative and epistemic ground for
action, but they also are agents, made up of real people, who – working via network channels, across national or
organizational lines, and in the halls of government – affect political, economic, and social events. (Adler 2008: 199)
The Epistemic Communities (EC) approach (see Haas 1992; Adler and Haas 1992), an approach “considered to be the most
influential” (Beck 2015: 286) in the debate on the role of academic and other experts in global governance, can, according to Adler,
be understood as the description of the role of a very specific type of community of practice (Adler 2008: 199). This approach
provides the background for the explication of one of the central ontological assumptions of this study, namely that the academic
discussion is particularly relevant in the construction and enactment of the legitimacy or illegitimacy of CE as measure to address
climate change.
To sum up, the moderately idealist social-constructivist ontology defining the understanding of reality in this study means that
specific communities of practice can—in interaction with other factors—constitute the meaning of an object and, by
enacting this meaning through practice—again, in interaction with other factors— cause material change in the
configuration of objects in the world. For example, a community of practice constituting the “normative and epistemic ground for
action” (Adler 2008: 199) on cyber security such as the German Chaos Computer Club regularly constitutes the meanings of objects
such as virtual networks or computer viruses by
defining, for the former, their vulnerability to attack, and, for the latter,
their threat potential. This is done, for example, in interviews or reports. The community also enacts these meanings through
practice, e.g. by interacting with federal offices and agencies in order to change the material configurations in our reality according
to the meanings applied to objects, e.g., changing the material basis of digital infrastructures in order to make them more resilient.
In this study, the academic community researching CE constitutes the community of practice that is most interesting as it is
assumed to play a significant role in the early construction of the legitimacy or illegitimacy of CE as a
measure to address climate change.4 This community constitutes the legitimacy or illegitimacy of these approaches
through framing them, for example in academic publications, which present a form of practice as these publications carry the
framings of CE into the public, thus enacting these framings. However, it is important to note that this framing is, in most
publications, not the main intention of the respective authors: Other than epistemic communities in their original
conception, the group of academics researching and discussing CE approaches is not united in a common policy endeavor. The main
intention of this diverse group of actors is the publication and discussion of research results. I claim, however, that even this
disinterested activity can, when it concerns a set of physical objects that remain to be materially developed, influence
the legitimacy or illegitimacy of these objects—in this case, CE approaches—even if this was not the intention of
the actor.
2NC – Framing
Urgency DA – short-term thinking limits out critical interrogation and distorts
analysis.
Bilgin and Morton ‘4 [Pinar; Professor of International Relations at Bilkent University. Ph.D.
in International Politics from the University of Wales, Aberystwyt; Adam David; Former lecturer
in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Lancaster University; “From ‘Rogue’
to ‘Failed’ States? The Fallacy of Short-termism”; 2004; Vol. 24, Issue 3; Political Studies
Association; https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.1467-9256.2004.00217.x; Accessed 7/19/21; NT]
Calls for alternative approaches to the phenomenon of state failure are often met with the criticism that
such alternatives could only work in the long term whereas ‘something’ needs to be done here and
now. Whilst recognising the need for immediate action, it is the role of the political scientist to point to the
fallacy of ‘short-termism’ in the conduct of current policy. Short-termism is defined by Ken Booth (1999, p. 4) as
‘approaching security issues within the time frame of the next election, not the next generation’.
Viewed as such, short-termism is the enemy of true strategic thinking. The latter requires policymakers
to rethink their long-term goals and take small steps towards achieving them. It also requires heeding against
taking steps that might eventually become self-defeating.
The United States has presently fought three wars against two of its Cold War allies in the post-Cold War era,
namely, the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Both were supported in
an attempt to preserve the delicate balance between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold
War policy of supporting client regimes has eventually backfired in that US policymakers now have to
face the instability they have caused. Hence the need for a comprehensive understanding of state
failure and the role Western states have played in failing them through varied forms of intervention. Although some
commentators may judge that the road to the existing situation is paved with good intentions, a truly strategic
approach to the problem of international terrorism requires a more sensitive consideration of the medium-to-longterm implications of state building in different parts of the world whilst also addressing the root causes of the
problem of state ‘failure’.
Developing this line of argument further, reflection on
different socially relevant meanings of ‘state failure’ in
relation to different time increments shaping policymaking might convey alternative
considerations. In line with John Ruggie (1998, pp. 167–170), divergent issues might then come to the fore when
viewed through the different lenses of particular time increments. Firstly, viewed through the lenses of an incremental
time frame, more immediate concerns to policymakers usually become apparent when linked to precocious
assumptions about terrorist networks, banditry and the breakdown of social order within failed states. Hence relevant
players and events are readily identified (al-Qa’eda), their attributes assessed (axis of evil, ‘strong’/’weak’ states)
and judgements made about their long-term significance (war on terrorism). The key analytical
problem for policymaking in this narrow and blinkered domain is the one of choice given the
constraints of time and energy devoted to a particular decision. These factors lead policymakers to bring
conceptual baggage to bear on an issue that simplifies but also distorts information.
Taking a second temporal form, that of a conjunctural time frame, policy
responses are subject to more
fundamental epistemological concerns. Factors assumed to be constant within an incremental time
frame are more variable and it is more difficult to produce an intended effect on ongoing processes than it is
on actors and discrete events. For instance, how long should the ‘war on terror’ be waged for? Areas of policy in this realm
can therefore begin to become more concerned with the underlying forces that shape current
trajectories.
Shifting attention to a third temporal form draws attention to still different dimensions. Within an epochal time frame an
agenda
still in the making appears that requires a shift in decision-making, away from a conventional
problem-solving mode ‘wherein doing nothing is favoured on burden-of-proof grounds’, towards a risk-averting
mode, characterised by prudent contingency measures. To conclude in relation to ‘failed states’, the latter time
frame entails reflecting on the very structural conditions shaping the problems of ‘failure’ raised throughout
the present discussion, which will demand lasting and delicate attention from practitioners across the
academy and policymaking communities alike.
Governmentalization DA – failure to question irresponsible scholarship
culminates in violent forms of management.
Lucke ’20 [Franziskus von; Postdoctoral Researcher in International Relations at the University
of Tübingen. His research focuses on critical security studies, climate politics and climate justice,
and he has worked extensively on the securitisation of climate change.; “Chapter 1: Introduction
and Theoretical Framework”; 2020; Springer; The Securitisation of Climate Change and the
Governmentalisation of Security; Accessed 7/19/21; NT]
The above-described reconceptualisation of power and governance puts a new light on the concept of securitisation. Contrary
to what the original framework implies (Buzan et al. 1998), securitisation processes do not consist of given
subjects that utter speech acts independently from the overall discursive framing of the situation
(Hansen 2000, p. 303). In fact, the subjects of security (e.g. securitising actors) cannot be thought of as existing
prior to securitisation but are a product of the power relations ingrained in the securitisation
process itself (Burgess 2011, p. 49). Ultimately, securitisation can be seen as an alternative way of
exercising political power, and Foucault’s governmentality approach can help us to unpack this relationship.
The starting point is the idea of a ‘governmentalisation of the state’ since the eighteenth century, which implies that
top-down, sovereign power ceases to be the dominant way of ruling societies and is accompanied by other variants such as
disciplinary and governmental power (Foucault 2006b, p. 163). This
refocuses the attention of the state away from
securing a territory by conventional security institutions such as the army, the police or intelligence services towards
fostering the well-being of the population using a triangle of three different power forms and various ‘apparatuses’
or ‘mechanisms’ of security (Dean 2010, p. 29; Foucault 2006b, p. 161; Elbe 2009, p. 62). Instead of direct force,
coercion or the issuing of laws, the exercise of power rests on statistical knowledge about the population and
methods to discretely influence certain variables in the background (Foucault 2006b, pp. 90–97; Dean 2010, p. 29).
This also leads to a blurring of the formerly much stricter boundaries between ‘normal’ politics and
‘extraordinary’ security practices. On the one hand, security becomes a technology of government, a
way of ‘rendering things governable’ and thus changing how populations can be governed (Oels 2011, 2013; Opitz 2008,
p. 2017). On the other hand, security practices and theoretical concepts themselves undergo a transformation and
become less extraordinary and more multifaceted. Examples are new security concepts such as human security,
environmental security, gender security or risk (Hardt 2017, p. 43). It is exactly this double transformation that marks
the connection between the governmentality approach and securitisation theory. Elbe describes this as the
‘governmentalisation of security’ that has its origins in the 1980s and which means that security does no longer only
draw on a sovereign form of power but incorporates disciplinary and particularly governmental forms of
power as well (Elbe 2009, pp. 9, 64, 71, 78).
The origins of this transformation of security lie
in changing societal features and connected political and
scientific debates that required new forms of government (Collier 2009). In this process, the importance of traditional
security technologies declines, and they are combined with less direct and top-down forms of security based
on the power triangle. Thus, the governmentalisation of security as well contributes to the blurring of (normal) and
extraordinary or security politics. Security institutions and actors are progressively legitimised to help in fostering
the welfare of the population outside the narrow military realm (Elbe 2009, p. 64). The field of environmental and
especially climate politics illustrates this development. It shows the double movement of a ‘securitisation’ of nontraditional issues and a ‘climatisation’ (Oels 2012; Maertens 2018) of traditional concepts of security (Trombetta 2011; Corry
2012; Floyd and Matthew 2013; Hardt 2017), which I term as the ‘bidirectional’ qualities of securitisation.
Following the premise of the governmentalisation of security means that we cannot conceptualise securitisation as mainly resting on
sovereign power and its direct, extraordinary and supposedly negative effects—as done by the Copenhagen School (Opitz 2008, pp.
219, 220). Instead, to adequately account for the transformation of security, we
should broaden the analytical
approach and allow for different forms of securitisation that draw on different forms of power. The process of
securitising an issue in this sense is an instance of governing, a process of rendering things governable
through the lens of security and the application of different forms of power. As the term ‘governance’ in this
reading of securitisation implies, securitisation processes are not a priori considered as something extraordinary;
rather they constitute a specific way of governing, which may or may not entail extraordinary effects. However, this does not mean
to entirely equate normal politics or governance with security. Instead, the core premise of securitisation theory still holds:
designating something as an existential threat is different from a mere politicisation because it
generates a sense of urgency, increases attention and eventually can narrow down the deliberative
process. Security can act as a catalyst for the exercise of any form of political power and eventually can render the situation in a
certain way and thus constitute a powerful ‘security truth’ (Burgess 2011, p. 39). Yet, based on a governmentality reading, this
process becomes much more multifaceted, with different conceptions of security and power involved and different possible
consequences of securitisation processes.
Alt – Rethink Security
Vote negative to rethink security.
Burke et al 2014 - Associate Prof and Reader in International and Political Studies at UNSW
Australia
Anthony, Katrina Lee-Koo, and Matt McDonald, Ethics and Global Security, Routledge, p. 19-21
A final point is necessary on the relationship between security and ethics as we conceive it, by way of introduction to this book.
To
develop a cosmopolitan ethics of security is not simply a case of applying "cosmopolitanism" to
a particular issue area in global politics (security), but rather, rethinking how we understand and
practice security. What limits existing accounts of the relationship between ethics and security is
the tendency to ignore or downplay the particular politic of security: its centrality to the political
legitimacy of the key actors in global politics; its capacity to define the core values of communities, and the
manner in which they might be protected or advanced; its capacity to mobilise particular political responses or
the actors undertaking them. -Fins is particularly applicable to discourses of "human security'', for example, and to some extent,
critical engagement with security grounded in concerns with emancipation (Booth 2007). It is for these reasons that security
is
often seen to belong to the realm of "high politics": the most important objective of states,
wherein the naming and relationship of "security" and "threat" designates political priority and
can trigger extraordinary (and frequently illiberal and antidemocratic) responses, such as the violation of human rights
or international law. This political function of security makes an analysis of the ethics of security more
urgent, in part because of what is at stake in debates about security (definitions of community and values,
and responsibilities to the self and others, for example). But this politics of security also complicates the simple
application of cosmopolitan thought. In our view, what is needed is sustained engagement with the
"politics of security" that argues for moral progress, while taking seriously the dangers of
securitization and the apparent constraints placed upon the articulation of radical security
alternatives. When taking account of the politics of security here, we particularly focus on the 'function of
representations or discourses of security in defining group identity, enabling particular policy or legitimating
particular actors as security providers' (Browning and McDonald 2013). Engagement with the politics of security in this way has
tended to come from theorists ofs ecurity in the post-structural tradition. For such thinkers, representations of security define
political community or integrate individuals into an abstract notion of political community or national values (Burke 2008a; Campbell
1998a; Weldes 1999).
Security, in this sense, can become a form of governmentality that shapes and
moulds individuals for political ends. David Campbell's (1992, 1998a) analysis of the function of Cold War discourses of
the communist threat in the United States is perhaps the most obvious case here. For Campbell, national security
discourses served to define American identity in a narrow and highly, politicised way. In the
process of constructing external threats to which the state ( in this instance) positions itself as the
actor capable of providing security, those with power can exclude dissenting voices and political
alternatives, and shut down needed debates about policy. For the so-called Copenhagen (or "securitization")
School, security can be understood as a social construction, brought into being through "speech acts" that define particular
dynamics, actors or things as existential
threats. In the process, these issues are elevated above the realm of
"normal- politics and into the high politics arena of security, where they are dealt with through
urgency and secrecy. While its proponents do not deny the possibility that such developments may be progressive,
ultimately their preference is for desecuritization: the removal of issues from the security agenda. This is most frequently based on
the claim that security has an illiberal logic, limiting the possibility for dialogue and locating responsibility for providing security to
those with power. But such a sedimented view of the logic of security can also apply to its meaning. For Ole Wxver (1995), at the
heart of the concept of security 'we still find something to do with defence and the state' ( see also Berki 1986; Neocleous 2008).
These alternative conceptions of security will be examined in more detail in the Chapter 1. They suggest something distinct about
the study of security that makes it qualitatively different from other issue areas or "promises" of government. In this, we would
agree, and reaffirm the need to take seriously the politics of security. But if these critics have most explicitly engaged with the
politics of security and its dangers, their proposed response to the dangers of securitization—resisting or escaping security and its
logics is problematic (Dillon and Reid 2009; Dillon 1996; W;,ever 1995). For these scholars, security is something that should be
resisted, escaped or challenged. We think such critics go too far. They are right to identify the dangers of an unthinking embrace of
security as a site of progress, and right too in drawing attention to the ways in which the promise of security for some can all too
easily be defined on the basis of the continued suffering and marginalization of others, both within a particular political community
and beyond. Yet, in acknowledging the pathologies of a dominant security discourse, and in failing to articulate a progressive
alternative, they mistake this discourse for the timeless essence of what security means and does, paradoxically reinforcing its
centrality in international relations. In rejecting the possibility that a range of actors can and do enact progressive notions of
security, they deprive marginal actors and communities of a site of contestation and change. This pessimism has been contested in a
range of " positive. " critical accounts of security (Booth 2007; Burke 2013a; Floyd 2011; Nunes 2012; Hoogensen-Gjory 2012;
McDonald 2014; Roe 2012). What
is needed, then, is an approach that is at once attuned to the dangers
of embracing security—given its history of contributing to exclusionary practices and the status quo—while refusing
to give up on defining a cosmopolitan conception of security oriented towards an integrated
global society, and the rights and needs of the least powerful and most vulnerable. In a related way,
we are concerned to see global security as a major priority that can be addressed as a part of
the normal (not exceptional) practice of government and civil society action that are democratically
and internationally accountable. In part, this is because exceptionalist practices have tended to reinforce
nationalism and alienation, privilege the security of the few and undermine it for the many, and gravely
damage global cooperation and consciousness. When international organisations become involved in global
security governance, it is imperative that their practices and objectives either reflect the global
interests and international norms painstakingly developed over decades, or seek to improve them in the
cause of a just global security order that supports human dignity and flourishing.
AT: Framework - CO2 Ag Arg
Their framework is one that encourages CO2 ag debates and a continuation of
broken politics, we must find a new way to debate climate policy
Eubanks 2015 - Professor Emeritus Rhetoric and Composition @ Northern Illinois U
Philip, The Troubled Rhetoric and Communication of Climate Change, Routledge, p. x-xii
I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s when everyone was worried about nuclear annihilation. In my grade school, we crawled
underneath our desks and covered our heads with our arms to prepare for the atomic apocalypse. As young as I was, I realized that
this might not be enough to shield me from an H-bomb. Nonetheless, no one-neither kids nor adults- found the premise of the
exercise absurd: that if the world was going to be destroyed, we knew what was going to destroy it. It never occurred to us that the
demise of human civilization might not come from any form of war but instead from an unintended consequence of prosperity. And
here we are. Because of human activities that would seem to be far easier to manage than nuclear war, the world is engaged in an
urgent debate about whether or not it has a future. A great majority of scientists have raised an alarm about rising temperatures
and the all-but-certain devastation to follow. If the worst possibilities come to pass, books like this one won't matter very much for
very long. The world as we know it just won't be here. Nonetheless, the subject of this book is far from trivial.
We cannot
begin to grapple with the looming climate crisis unless we address the problem of public
argumentation. As we face what may be the greatest existential crisis in human history, I want us to ask ourselves anew: How
should we argue when nothing could matter more than winning the argument? As a general proposition, I am not inclined to think
of argumentation in terms of simply winning or losing. I share that disinclination with many other scholars of writing and rhetoric.
We avoid talk of winning and losing for a good reason. Most of us imagine a world filled with arguments waiting to be made, a world
in which the best argumentation moves us little by little toward ever-elusive truths-a world in which argumentation is essential, but
no particular argument needs to prevail. In fact, many of us think it would be a mistake to hope for any particular argument to win,
or even try to win, because good arguments lead to even better arguments in a messy but ultimately constructive process. Taking
part in this process is how we live ethically and meaningfully; it is how we make a better world. That is not lofty idealism, either.
Many times, it is both wiser and more realistic to think that argumentation- and persuasion of all kinds-ought to proceed according
to Zeno's paradox: The best we can hope for is to move halfway toward an endpoint, then halfway again, and halfway again, never
to arrive. That view requires us to respect others' ideas and to question our own judgments. However, when
it comes to
climate change, the notion of endless debate seems to be not just dissatisfying but also
dangerous. Some arguments must get settled. Some arguments need to be settled the correct way. Straightforward
victoryseeking argumentation would seem to be the right tool for the job. But that, of course, is the kind of
argumentation that already dominates the public sphere, and it is- not just in my estimation-working
very poorly. It has led not to victory or consensus but to stalemate and polarization. Indeed, what we
are witnessing is a dismal case study in the failure of win-lose argumentation. The facts support one side and not the other. They
have been established meticulously, expressed clearly, and disseminated widely. And yet the debate continues unabated. I am
aware of the potential oversimplifications that my just-the-facts framing of the problem might inspire. Over the past few decades,
scholars of the rhetoric of science have worked hard, and convincingly, to show us that the scientific "fact" is not as stable and selfevident as people commonly believe (Bazerman; Ceccarelli; Fahnestock; Knorr-Cetina; Latour and Woolgar; Myers). Science, it turns
out, is as rhetorically complicated as every other human endeavor-perhaps more so because it so successfully conceals its vagaries
within apparently objective procedures and language. Yet even if we adopt a clear-eyed view of the complicated ways that scientific
knowledge is developed, we still have to recognize that, in the end, science deals with the physical world: that not all scientific
judgments are equally valid. Among climate scientists, the idea that human activity is causing the Earth to warm dangerously is not
the least bit controversial. The challenge is gaining broad acceptance of that fact among the general public. On the way to
acceptance, scientists' findings about climate change must pass through the crucible of public argumentation . And what a crucible it
is. As Leah Ceccarelli points out, climate change is one of many issues coolly agreed upon by scientists but hotly disputed in public
argumentation. She calls these disputes "manufactured controversies" ("Manufactured"). But manufactured or not, they shape
public opinion, even among those who are not fundamentally against science or, as I will show in this book, not especially
unreasonable. In other words, we face what I call a daunting argumentative situation. In the chapters that follow, I describe what
has gone wrong with our argumentative situation. I argue that the
debate is plagued by a collection of mutually
exacerbating problems that make the climate change debate more intractable than most of us
already believe. Indeed, the debate is intractable in ways that render our usual responses largely ineffective. The problems, in
brief, are these: • Although we usually see the climate change debate as a disagreement about science itself, both sides espouse
nearly identical attitudes about science and objectivity, and neither recognizes the influence of its own predispositions on its
attitude toward science. Although we often see opposition to climate change as a willful refusal to acknowledge facts, recent
transformations in public attitudes toward facts and authority encourage us to confuse reasonable and unreasonable doubts. That
confusion makes it difficult-not just for climate skeptics-to accept many public claims of fact. Although we
usually see the
climate change debate as a perversion of proper argumentation, it actually proceeds as
argumentation typically does. Rather than arguing to correct error, all of us typically argue to
preserve our intuitions. That allows basic human frailties, such as motivated reasoning and confirmation bias, to interfere
with our judgments. Although we usually see the climate change debate as a competition between political and economic interests,
the divide between pro and conwhich is to say left and right-is much deeper. In the United States and in much of the West, we are
self-sorted into opposing ideological camps. These camps adhere to deeply held moral foundations, which are evident in
predominant conceptual metaphors and metonymies, including the key figures that shape people's attitudes toward the Earth itself.
Changes in the way we communicate--driven partly by technology and driven partly by a new emphasis on visual
communication-make attention rather than truth the commodity that is most desired. And in the course
of vying for attention, all of the factors that tend to undermine rational deliberation are amplified. Any one of these factors might by
itself make the climate change debate difficult. But taken together, they create a situation that makes the worst of argumentation
not only possible but likely. The fact is, the current argumentative situation is not very encouraging. But it's not yet time to give up
hope. In the end, I will offer some suggestions about how we ought to argue when "winning" matters. I do not insist that my
suggestions are the only possible ones. However, I do insist that we
need to think anew about what we expect
from arguments about climate change and how we should undertake them.
Empirically their framework has failed – we must roll the dice on the alt
Milkoreit 2016 - Senior Sustainability Fellow, Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives
Manjana, “The promise of climate fiction: imagination, storytelling, and the politics of the
future” in Reimaging Climate Change, Routledge, p. 188-189
Political decision-making on climate change faces major imagination challenges - envisioning possible
and desirable futures based on available scientific data, understanding possible pathways of change in interacting socialenvironmental systems, and understanding how today's decisions might affect different pathways of change and ultimately the
future humans will experience.
Such imaginations are not only hard, they also hardly ever happen in the
minds of political decision-makers today. It is a cognitiveemotional skill that needs to learned and practiced. This
chapter has explored the potential power of climate fiction - a growing literary genre that deals with climate change - to stimulate,
aid, and enrich the political imagination. I have argued that rather than offering novel solutions, climate fiction stories provide subtle
and complex lessons concerning the intricate relationship between climate, society, economics, and politics. There are six possible
effects of reading climate fiction on the individual and collective imagination regarding climate change: 1 meaning-making and
learning; 2 mental simulation of (novel) solutions; 3 exploring values and ethical dimensions of climate change; 4 emotional time
travel; 5 complex systems thinking; and 6 reaching diverse mass audiences. My discussion of three specific works of climate fiction Kingsolver's Flight Behavior, Atwood's MaddAddam triology and Turner's The Sea and Sumer - touched on some these, especially (1)
and (5). None of the novels selected for this analysis has a happy ending, which raises important questions concerning the impacts of
dystopian versus utopian writing. Dystopian novels might make it more challenging for the reader to envision positive and desirable
futures. They can also generate a host of difficult, negative emotions, reinforcing the scientific doomsday messages that have had, at
best, a mixed record in mobilizing people for change. At the same time, dystopian stories can offer valuable reflections concerning
today's social challenges and the long-term implications of the decisions we make, both individually and collectively. At the very
least they can help us understand what kinds of futures we want to prevent, motivating us to contemplate steps in more desirable
directions. The ideas I have explored in this chapter are an invitation to scholars working at the boundary between social science,
arts, and humanities to start exploring the phenomenon of imagination and the impact of climate fiction on climate politics
empirically. Beyond this research awaits the question whether and how insights about imagination and climate fiction can be used
to design or improve existing decision-making and governance processes, maybe through participatory methods or targeted
interventions into a deliberative system. At the very least, I hope that this foray into cli-fi demonstrates the benefits of using the
imagination in artistic ways to shake-up habitual thinking and create room for novel explorations into how to respond to climate
change. Naomi Klein has recently argued that addressing
climate change requires changing everything - our
economic, technological, governmental, and cultural systems. If she is even half right, we need to move
beyond Climate Inc. strategies. Cultivating an appreciation for cli-fi and mining cli-fi's insights for lessons and inspiration
supports such an exploration. It allows us to get out of the bind that Einstein defined when he
supposedly said, "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we
created them."
Ethics First
If we win that the aff is unethical, we win the debate
Burke et al 2014 - Associate Prof and Reader in International and Political Studies at UNSW
Australia
Anthony, Katrina Lee-Koo, and Matt McDonald, Ethics and Global Security, Routledge, p. 173-4
Ethics is not an "optional extra" to discussions about or practices of security. Any attempt to define
security involves inherently ethical choices about whose security is in need of preserving, about what priorities should be given to
particular referent objects or in confronting particular threats, and about where the boundaries of ethical and political community
ultimately lie. Rather
than proceed as if the worlds of security and ethics are separate ones, we
need to be clear about the ethical assumptions and implications of particular security
conceptions and practices. From here, we can begin to identify those security perspectives and
practices that might be ethically defensible or progressive and consider the conditions under
which they might come to be articulated, supported and institutionalized. This is precisely what this book has
attempted to do in a specifically global context. Dominant approaches to and practices of security in international relations, we have
argued, have always been built on a limited moral edifice—the fiction of a universal strong nation-state and the straitjacket of the
social contract. Aside from the nonnative limits of such approaches, detailed in Chapter 1, this conception of the strong state as
security guarantor in an anarchic international system is increasingly inconsistent with the realities of world politics. It is clear that
the key future and contemporary challenges of global politics—those major threats to international security—do not defer to the
spatial imaganaries of the nation-state. And states themselves increasingly recognize the transnational nature of many of the most
pressing security threats and the imperative of cooperation in response. While outlining the limits of traditional approaches to
security and exploring the ethical assumptions and implications of a range of other security discourses, this book has also made a
case for a cosmopolitan
approach to global security. Such an approach orients around the three
principles outlined in the Introduction to this book: a global security responsibility in which all security
actors work towards enduring security for all; a future security responsibility in which security
actors consider the impact of their decisions, choices and commitments through time; and a
global categorical imperative of security, in which security actors act as if the principles and consequences of their
action will endure across time and space. We have made the case that such an approach is the most ethically defensible approach to
security in global politics, underpinned by cosmopolitan principles of non-discrimination. Nation-states, in this schema, should be
viewed as legitimate security actors to the extent that they serve as agents of global security. This does not, as outlined in Chapter 6,
preclude the celebration of forms of identity below the state. It does suggest that discrimination against, or reduced ethical
consideration towards, nonmembers, can never be justified. At points, this cosmopolitan conception was extended further, as in
Chapter 4, where we outlined the need for recognition of the rights and needs of other living beings. We ultimately believe a
strong ethical case for principles of cosmopolitan nondiscrimination can be mounted in the
context of global security. But if such an approach has normative appeal, it is also becoming a practical necessity (see Bray
2013). Simply put, it makes little sense to think of states as self-contained "referent objects" in the context of the most pressing
security threats in the international arena, and states themselves are unable to unilaterally address these threats. This applies to a
long list of global security challenges: climate change, population movements, WMD proliferation, disease, poverty, human rights,
humanitarian assistance, regional conflict, and economic management. These dynamics cannot now if they ever could—be
effectively addressed within or by an individual state alone, no matter how powerful. They require genuine and sustained
international cooperation by a range of actors and in a range of institutional settings, and this in turn requires the embrace of a
global sensibility oriented towards a "global community". Yet in exploring these issues, we self-consciously and deliberately
addressed key dilemmas of interpretation and practice across the issue areas chosen, dilemmas that complicate a simple embrace of
a cosmopolitan perspective. How can we balance the responsibility to provide security for the vulnerable with the need to preserve
an international order, especially in zones of complex insecurity? How do we conceptualize a role for force as a tool for global
security while working towards its eradication? How can we begin to orient our security considerations towards other living beings
or the not-yet-horn? How can we find ethical solutions to the use of terrorism while recognizing the profound injustices that
sometimes motivate it? How can we emphasize principles of cosmopolitan non-discrimination whilst recognizing the importance of
more particular forms of community and identity? How can we consider what might seem an unchallengeable cosmopolitan practice
humanitarianism in the complex and unequal practical circumstances in winch it is carried out? This volume did not shy away from
these questions, instead addressing them directly. While they present complex dilemmas for any attempt to orient towards a global
security perspective, they also serve to remind us of the inherent challenges associated with applying abstract ideas to an imperfect
and acutely complicated world.
Rhetoric Focus Key
A focus on rhetoric is necessary to develop the tools to break down
neoliberalism
Schneider et al 2016 – Associate prof of public policy and administration @ Boise State U
Jen, Steve Schwarze, Peter K Bsumek, and Jennifer Peeples, Under Pressure: Coal industry
rhetoric and neoliberalism, Palgrave, p. 176-177
However, cultural critics and advocates alike would be wise to remember that the house that neoliberalism built was in fact built-it is a construct, if a
very powerful one. Neoliberalism
may be embedded, but it is not natural or inevitable. We must find
and seek out examples of alternative social, political, and economic arrangements. One lesson
that seems clear is that the house that neoliberalism built was not built in a day-its ideas and
discourses were fomented and nurtured for many years before neoliberal political and
economic coalitions were able to cloak themselves as disinterested and populist. To that end, we
offer our identification of coal's rhetorical strategies as a heuristic for rhetorical invention, and
we call others to join in this kind of work. By identifying and naming the rhetorical strategies that
attempt to advance fossil fuel interests through neoliberal ideology, such work can generate a
shared vocabulary for scholarly criticism and public resistance not only in relation to the coal industry but also in
relation to the broader project of neoliberalization. Perhaps it is also worth remembering that in the US, it was during
periods of sustained progressive governance (Progressive Era, The New Deal, and the Great Society), or at times when the ideas that enabled and
sustained those political coalitions remained more or less intact and continued to hold sway (such as during the Nixon Administration) when some of
the most significant environmental policy reforms were enacted. Thus, it is with an eye toward envisioning (environmental) rhetorics that might
contribute to the deconstruction of neoliberalism's house, and with another eye on building a new house, that we have engaged in this critical project.
Change will not happen overnight, but it will certainly not happen if it is not nurtured. In this way,
analysis of environmental rhetoric helps identify provocative possibilities for critique and
advocacy. Each of the strategies identified in this book suggests these possibilities. As our analysis in Chap. 2 demonstrates, opponents of
environmental regulation have been making apocalyptic claims about the implications of environmental regulation from the start of the modern
environmental movement. And, time after time, these claims have proven to be overstated and overwrought. By pointing this out, advocates
not only debunk such claims, but can also call into question the ideological underpinning and
enabling rationality of the argument. In short, there actually are alternatives to unfettered markets and neoliberal rationality.
Polluting industries have been regulated in the past without apocalyptic outcomes. The environmental argument can engage neoliberalism's positive
project by advancing a robust alternative of its own, emphasizing alternative social arrangements. We
see much to be hopeful for in
the rise of the localism, "maker," and "post-carbon" movements, which-though embedded in
larger economies-offer visions for collective organization that are richer and more meaningful
than some ofneoliberalism's more hollow promises.
AT: Our Discourse Good
Their discourse will get coopted—prefer the alt lone
Burke et al 2014 - Associate Prof and Reader in International and Political Studies at UNSW
Australia
Anthony, Katrina Lee-Koo, and Matt McDonald, Ethics and Global Security, Routledge, p. 176
Another set of objections might focus on the extent to which the approach articulated here is a novel one. For Mary Kaldor (2013),
for example, a commitment to cosmopolitanism in security conceptions and practices could be viewed as consistent with the
precepts of human security, itself built on liberal ethical principles. And for others, the link between security and emancipation
articulated i n so-called "Welsh School" o r "Aberystwyth School" approaches t o security might be seen to sufficiently capture the
cosmopolitan approach articulated here, not least as all three authors have broadly endorsed Booth's work in other contexts ( LeeKoo 2(107; Burke 2007, 2013a; McDonald 2012b). Certainly,
the human security approach can he read as a
powerful form of critique of existing security theories and practices, focusing on the perverse choices in
traditional approaches to ignore the realities of insecurity faced by many of the ( poorest) people of the world. Yet this
discourse has arguably been co-opted by existing political institutions, often in a manner that
finds to accommodate the nature of the original critique (McDonald 2002). The Canadian
Government's embrace of human security, for example, has been limited to the 'freedom from fear'
agenda, and has focused on the question of organized violence. Such an interpretation risks
leaving aside the profound global and structural arrangements and axes of insecurity that
frequently drive direct violence and constitute important axes of insecurity in their own right
(Christie 2010). The emancipatory security discourse is more compelling in this sense, revolving as it does around a concern with the
rights and needs of the most vulnerable and their empowerment in the context of profound structural constraints (see Booth ed.
2005; 2007). There is much about this approach that we would endorse in this book. Yet even while recognizing the political
significance of security, this
approach inadequately accounts for the politics of security: the question of
what security does, how it orders social relations, how it serves as a site of contestation
between competing actors and discourses, and how it enables particular sets of practices and institutions (see
Browning and McDonald 2013). In this book we have argued that an effective cosmopolitan account of global
security must come to terms with these dynamics, including the dangers of securitization, while
recognizing that the meaning and logic of security is not set across time and space.
AT: Utopianism
Utopian goals feed pragmatic solutions, but prior rethinking is necessary
Anshelm 2015 – Prof @ Linkoping U
Jonas and Martin Hultman, Discourses of Global Climate Change, Routledge, p. 94
What was visible in contemporary political debates in Sweden was mostly an anti-utopian
utopianism, a conservative utopianism, in which the claim to pragmatism served to repress its utopian
character. The consequence of this was the continued possibility of rejecting challenges and alternatives as "utopian" while
placing the ideological/utopian claims of one's own position beyond scrutiny. One argument for the importance of
utopianism was its inevitability, that is, by legitimizing the process of holistic thinking about the
"good" society, it enabled the content of different "utopian" visions to be brought to the table.
The green socialists argued critically against the hegemonic capitalistic system in their portrayal of a future ecotopia. Their
description of utopia was characterized by the image of a future human community in which conflicts were no longer present.
Utopia does not appear bizarre or uninteresting, but attract its readers with scientific terminology, logical necessity and emotions
(Manuel and Manuel, 1979). As Bloch argued, utopian visions of the future and concrete actions for a better world underpin the
human propensity to long for and imagine another life. Crucially, however, this longing cannot be articulated other than through
imagining its fulfilment (Bloch, 2000). If utopia is understood as the expression of the desire for a better way of being, then it is
perhaps a secularized version of the spiritual quest to understand who we are, why we are here and how we connect with each
other (Harvey, 2000). Reality
must include the horizon of future possibilities; utopia as forward
dreaming is not esoteric culturally, or a distraction from class struggle, but an unavoidable and
indispensable element in shaping the future. Utopia, in this sense, does not require the imaginative
construction of whole other worlds. It occurs as an embedded element in a vast range of human practice and culture
(Bloch, 2000). Green socialists in Sweden proclaimed that it would require collective political action and opinion formation to bring
about climate-friendly decisions. This process could be extra-parliamentary and consist of occupations and boycotts, but it could also
consist of appeals, mass demonstrations and the creation of local pockets of people who were striving towards climatefriendly
lifestyles. Closely related was the notion that the discourse included both strong rationalist and romantic images of a climatefriendly society. The rationalist idea, that the way to achieve a climate-friendly society was through massive public investment and
government-planned programmes, actually dominated the discourse. Large-scale government action programmes, comparable to
the mobilization for war, rationing schemes and reconstruction that took place during the Second World War, were preferable. Side
by side with this rationalist idea was the eco-socialist image of a climate-friendly society characterized by localization of the
economy, cooperative forms of ownership, decentralization, small-scale self-sufficiency and self-determination.
AT: Alt = Nihilism
The affirmative is nihilism, not the alt
Parr 2015 - Taft Research Center, UNESCO co-chair of water, The University of Cincinnati
Adrian, "The Wrath of Capital: Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics – Reflections,"
Geoforum, Vol 62, p 70-72
Some reviewers have disputed the book for lacking concrete solutions (Stoekl, 2013 and Pearse, 2014). Others regard my
conclusions as pessimistic (Cuomo and Schueneman, 2013: 699), stating the message I leave a reader with is one of general futility
(Miller, 2013: 1). I understand the criticism but I would disagree adding that I
tackle the nihilistic condition of climate
change politics describing how it empties the political promise of futurity out of climate change
discourse. What is nihilistic, in my view, is presenting a neoliberal worldview as a universal
instead of appreciating it is merely a construction and as such it is refutable. Recognizing this,
describing how it works, and understanding its contingent character is for me a political strategy.
2NC – !
! – Malthusianism
Reinforcing neo-Malthusian notions of scarcity causes military interventionism
along racial and gendered lines.
Ojeda et al. ’20 [Diana; Assistant Professor, Instituto de Estudios Sociales y Culturales, Pensar,
Pontificia Universidad Javeriana; “Malthus’s specter and the anthropocene”; 2020; Vol. 27, Issue
3; Gender, Place & Culture; https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2018.1553858; Accessed
7/19/21; NT]
While LaBruzzo’s plan failed (and he was immediately removed from his Committee post), it bears noting that his coercive proposal
was put forth within a context in which climate change is increasingly framed in hyperbolic terms. Climate
change
discourses say that life as we know it is threatened at a scale that was, in prior decades,
unfathomable; that this is an immediate and overwhelming threat; and that the consequences
of not acting expeditiously are untenable. In the context of such crisis-driven scenarios, strategies that might
constrict individual reproductive rights are articulated as a necessary sacrifice.
Climate change rearticulated through a neo-Malthusian lens also opens the door to militarized
interventions. These are as much masculinist approaches to conflict as they are ones that spin decidedly on
(often deeply racialized) gender norms (Enloe 2000). Betsy Hartmann, for instance, illustrates how militarized
international strategies for reducing population growth especially in Africa are motivated by fears both of overly
reproductive young women and of young men as potential terrorists. Interestingly, both images reflect
neo-Malthusian fears, here of overly-reproductive, resource-degrading women and of men who turn to
violence in the face of imperiled environments. The result is the development of what Hartmann (2014) refers to
as MARA, or the ‘Malthusian Anticipatory Regime for Africa.’ MARA ultimately acts as a “gendered rationale for Western
humanitarian and military interventions” into Africa particularly by Western actors (757). In this schema,
with the health of both the planet and global political stability at stake, extraordinary
interventions—including military interventions— are justified. As Hartmann notes, the growing War on Terror in
Africa is supported by the perceived urgency of preemptively addressing climate conflict.
Katz (2008) too points to the
problematic effects of the rationale behind militarized responses and the
criminalization of the victims of environmental harm—including storms like Hurricane Katrina likely made more
severe by climate change—instead of focusing attention on their immediate needs. It is important to note that
this move fits into a much larger masculinist response to environmental challenges that privileges a
disembodied, top-down approach and reinforces coercive means of surveillance and control.
This is one of developing militarized responses to climate change (Gilbert 2012) and to environmental challenges more broadly,
what amounts to a growing commitment to green militarization (Lunstrum 2014).
It is worth mentioning that discourses
of overpopulation prove useful for elites who seek to avoid
responsibility for fueling conflict, as explanations linking population growth, scarcity, and conflict provide
leaders a sort of ‘natural’ alibi. This unfolded in the elite-orchestrated and state-sanctioned conflict in the
Darfur region of Sudan. Dismissing its historical roots in British colonial rule and vast economic, political
and regional inequality, Darfur’s conflict has been framed by the UN and mainstream media as the
result of increasing competition over natural resources (Hartmann 2014; Verhoeven 2014). Population fears are
productive precisely because they play into class-based, gendered and racialized assumptions
regarding the reproductive activity of ‘Third World’ women, as well as men, and their progressively degraded
environments.
T/C – Climatization
The securitization of climate science recreates flawed scholarship and
reinforced problematic understandings of water resources.
Wine ’20 [Michael L.; Postdoctoral Fellow, Geomorphology and Fluvial Research Group, Ben
Gurion University of the Negev.; “Climatization of environmental degradation: a widespread
challenge to the integrity of earth science”; 2020; Vol. 65, Issue 6; Hydrological Sciences Journal;
https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2020.1720024; Accessed 7/19/21; NT]
Scientific climatization occurs when the role of climatic drivers in eliciting an observed state is overstated as
part of the normal business of science. This overstatement can occur readily due to the often-high
correlation between climatic and non-climatic drivers, growing awareness of anthropogenic climate change,
and a persistent propensity for disciplinary investigation of inter-disciplinary problems. Instances of
scientific climatization may occur when an idealized conceptual model is adopted (Abbott et al. 2019b), the
effects of model uncertainty are neglected, a disciplinary team of scientists studies an
interdisciplinary problem, or when incisive attempts to falsify the climatic thesis are overlooked. As
a consequence of climatization, hydrologic process understanding is impaired until the misattribution has been
corrected. The consequence of this misattribution then is a weakened scientific basis for water
management. However, once scientific climatization is corrected, it often results in a more robust
scientific literature.
Securitization-aligned climatization bears many similarities to scientific climatization, with the exception
of impairment of freedom of expression of affected scientists through encouragement and
coercion (Wine 2019d) by a securitizing state actor.9 This coercion arises from the great expense involved in
solving hydrologic problems – often water scarcity or water quality degradation – in comparison
to the substantially lower expense of attributing those problems to climatic factors outside of the
government’s control. As a result, instances of securitization-aligned climatization may be characterized by secrecy regarding
key hydrologic data (Momblanch et al. 2019a, Wine 2019e), questions of reproducibility (Abbott et al. 2019a), or
conclusions by scientists domiciled in securitized states that differ from those of scientists whose freedom of expression
is protected (Wine 2019d), even on the basis of similar results. In contrast to scientific climatization, which following correction
tends to lead to improved scientific understanding, this
is not the intent of securitization-aligned climatization.
By persistently funding, encouraging, and coercing a particular view, this perspective tends to
persist in the scientific literature. The result of this persistent securitizing state-sponsored climatization is ambiguity
regarding the state of the hydrologic science, with all that that implies for water policy.
T/C – Serial Policy Failure
Securitized climate discourse results in serial policy failure and worse forms of
violence.
Abrahams ’19 [Daniel; Former Research Associate in Environmental Studies, Ph.D. in
Geography from the University of South Carolina and Master’s in Public Policy from Johns
Hopkins University.; “From discourse to policy: US policy communities’ perceptions of and
approaches to climate change and security”; 2019; Vol. 19, No. 4; Conflict, Security &
Development; https://doi.org/10.1080/14678802.2019.1637080; Accessed 7/19/21; NT]
The use of climate-security discourses in advancing political action on climate change more generally
faces a paradoxical challenge. Though it would seem framing climate change in terms of
national security – perceived as an issue relatable to a conservative audience – this assumption has
been challenged, both by research participants and in literature examining political framings of climate change. For example,
Myers et al. argue that when climate change is framed as a security issue, as compared with an issue of ecology or
public health, it is more likely to elicit anger from those who doubt or dismiss the scientific consensus of anthropogenic
climate change.70 In this way, while the connection between climate change and security offers a message on climate
change that appears compelling to non-traditional or uninterested actors, that message appears to be
ineffective, even actively disagreeable, especially if coming from the environmental community.71 This
paradox warrants further consideration in its implications for both mitigation policy that is informed by
climate-security discourses and the risks of securitisation of climate change policy.72
Without greater evidence to clarify the questions of how to adapt and build resilience in a conflict-sensitive manner, there
is a
significant risk that policy will continue down a path of ineffective programme promotion,
uneven motivation for engagement and strategic mobilisation of poorly understood conflict risk
for political ends. At the same time, ineffective programmes might themselves trigger or exacerbate
conflict.73 Finally, framing climate-security solely in the idea that climate change is a threat multiplier
risks ignoring themes in peace-building literature that note the potential of leveraging climate change
adaptation as a peace-building tool, and the importance of climate change and natural resource management in
post-conflict settings.74 Such outcomes are unnecessary, but distressingly likely, in the absence of
more nuanced discursive framings.
AT: Dem Peace Theory
Democratic peace theory encourages some of the worst atrocities in history
Burke et al 2014 - Associate Prof and Reader in International and Political Studies at UNSW
Australia
Anthony, Katrina Lee-Koo, and Matt McDonald, Ethics and Global Security, Routledge, p. 41-2
Liberal approaches therefore explicitly address ethical questions in their consideration of security. In particular, they engage directly
with complex questions associated with the nature of the nonnative framework of an international society and the means through
which those norms might be strengthened, defended or advanced. There is recognition here that the moral universe does indeed
extend beyond nation-states to the international sphere as a whole, even while disagreements exist about the depth of
universalism. There is something of a lowest common denominator tendency within liberal thought in this sense. In particular, the
tendency towards preserving agreed minimal international standards does have the effect of prioritising concerns of order over
justice.
The focus on nominal standards also tends to encourage a focus on the laws of war rather
than inquiring deeply into war as an institution or the complex sources of violence in the state
system; likewise challenges to vulnerable outsiders associated with global environmental change or the structure of the
international economic system remain invisible. The focus on states also creates ethical limitations; for some
the reverence for the "good state" has the potential of validating the state system in ways that
obfuscates movements towards a genuine global sensibility or fundamental responses to global
problems (Burke 2013b; Fishel 2013). If an ethical minimalism is one danger or limit of liberal approaches, so too is a maximalist
conception of what constitutes a good state. This applies to the so-called democratic peace thesis, which
suggests that liberal democratic states are less likely to go to war with each other (see Russett 1994; Doyle 1986). The endorsement
of this mode of governance arguably encourages
a commitment to the spread of liberal democratic
political systems in ways that risks imposing an external (and Western) conception of the "good'',
even potentially through the use of force. For some critics, this liberal vision of security was evident
even in the conunitment to regime change in Iraq in 2003, with the Bush administration invoking liberal principles of freedom
and democracy to justify that intervention. Again, the tendency to validate states and the state system risks
legitimising those actors with the capacity to define and implement universal standards of
"acceptable" behaviour. This is particularly prominent in critical and post-colonial critiques ofliberalism and liberal
conceptions of security (Hynek and Chandler 2010; Neocleous 2008). There is much in the liberal account of security that finds
purchase in contemporary practices of world politics, from the norm of the "responsibility to protect" (R2P) to practices of
peacekeeping and intervention, and international cooperation on issues as disparate as climate change and the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction (WMD). However, if
security hinges on the preservation of the normative
structure of international society, tensions over what the norms of that society are create
ethical ambiguity about a liberal vision of security. In essence, the pluralism of the liberal vision of
security, combined with a tendency to validate states and the state system, contributes to a
situation in which the most powerful actors are disproportionately able to define the nature and
scope of the international society in need of protection. In attempting to develop a security framework with
immediate relevance to the concerns of policymakers, liberals risk allowing those policymakers to define the "good" and the
practices undertaken in its name. In turn, this enables those actors with an immediate interest in the preservation ofthe
international status quo disproportionate power to determine the possibilities and limits of international society. From our
perspective, given
the failings of its key institutions to deal effectively with global security threats
such as climate change, refugee flows and (growing) global economic inequality, this tendency
to reinforce the status quo is unacceptable.
AT: Environ Sec Good
Environmental securitization ensures the militarization of the environment
Burke et al 2014 - Associate Prof and Reader in International and Political Studies at UNSW
Australia
Anthony, Katrina Lee-Koo, and Matt McDonald, Ethics and Global Security, Routledge, p. 32-4
Ethical questions and debates loomed large over such attempts to broaden the security agenda. The attempts to broaden this
agenda to include issues such as environmental change were driven by normative commitments to addressing such problems,
underpinned by the idea that with their designation as security threats would conic increased political profile, attention, funding and
priority for these " neglected" issues. Indeed authors advocating the "broadening" of security in this way frequently emphasized the
opportunity costs of the billions of dollars spent by states on armies and tools of war relative to more important priorities such as
official development assistance or renewable energy (Mathews 1989). It is no coincidence, in this sense, that a range of authors
arguing for the redefinition of security to include environmental concerns were affiliated with environmental NGOs or think-tanks
aimed at mobilizing responses to environmental change (see Hartmann 2009; McDonald 2013a). There
is much that is
intuitively appealing about the attempt to lift issues such as environmental change onto the
security agenda as a means of challenging the traditional association of security with the state
and war, not least given the problematic priorities underpinning this discourse of security. Yet, while working from
assumptions about the mobilizing power of security, these accounts failed to reflect on the
politics of security itself. As Daniel Deudney (1990) asked, is it wise to assume that "security" has this
progressive effect; that promoting environmental issues to the realm of security won't bring
with it a militarization of such problems and logics of exceptionalism? Such a failure to systematically
examine what security does is problematic: it opens "broadeners" up to the criticism that theirs is a project
that potentially invites illiberal political practices and institutions to hold sway over the
management of pressing transnational political problems like climate change and environmental
degradation. In a more fundamental sense, the "broadening" agenda also risks leaving security power and legitimacy where it is.
There is a danger that without redefining who security is actually for, issues such as
environmental change might come to be seen as security threats to the extent that they are
solely understood as threats to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the nation-state. Not
only might we fail to challenge the statism of contemporary global politics, but we risk encouraging perverse
responses to problems such as environmental change. States might recognize climate change as a threat, but if
such a response is oriented towards realist strategic concerns, states with relative self-sufficiency may build
physical barriers (even walls) around their borders to protect against an influx of so-called "
environmental refugees" a scenario anticipated in a 2003 Pentagon report on the national security implications of climate
change (Schwartz and Randall 2003). These issues are discussed in more depth in Chapter 4. In our view, security ethics is best
honoured by more fundamentally questioning the meaning, structure, and ends of security. If
we simply add poverty,
environmental change, or disease to the list of challenges to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the
state, we leave other key constituent elements of security in place, and enable existing security
providers to embrace and potentially co-opt this "broader agenda", blunting more radical
critiques of the association of security and the state system. Indeed it is probably no coincidence that
recognition of the "broader range of threats" to security has found its way in to security statements and agenda of existing
institutional security providers.
AT: Growth Decoupling GHGs
Growth is not decoupling from emissions, only the alt can solve
Taminiau 2016 – post-doctoral fellow @ the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy
Joe and John Bryne, “Reconsidering growth in the greenhouse: The Sustainable Energy Utility
(SEU) as a practical strategy for the twenty-first century” in Green Growth: Ideology, political
economy and alternatives, Zed Books, p. 240-241
The blending of virtue with technological and management capability inserts the logic that every
improvement in technological and managerial application delivers a normative benefit. Effectively, the
commodification of the environment can be seen as a pursuit of making climate change itself
efficient: the carbon price now becomes the dominant guiding mechanism whether climate
change mitigating actions should be performed as marginal decision-making processes determine
whether the reduction of one more unit of emission reductions is efficient. This notion was coined 'efficient global warming' by one
of the authors.2i These considerations expose a critical weakness in growth-based strategies: the relationship between society,
nature and economy- other than commonly represented 'triangles' of sustainable development which suggest economic activity,
nature and society have independent components - is one of fundamental integration. In order
to account for the
fundamental nature of 'planetary boundaries',26 a principle of sufficiency thus needs to be
inserted beyond which growth in an absolute sense is no longer pursued. The empirical record
for absolute decoupling - impact decreases in absolute terms even as economic growth continues - however, is far from
robust. 27 Evidence of relative decoupling is unsurprising as profit-maximization strategies
continually seek to gain additional value from each unit of input, but absolute decoupling
represents a more fundamental notion: limiting expansion to stay within absolute, non-market
boundaries of the natural system. Studies on environmental dependency suggest that the empirical record to support
decarbonization or dematerialization along lines of 'absolute decoupling' is weak.28 Additionally, a growing body of
literature continues to critique the position that economies can grow their way out of
environmental harm to the point where the position has become largely untenable.29 Indeed, it appears that only economic
crisis has been able to materially affect the rising pattern of global greenhouse gas emissions. However, investigations into the
effects of such downturns on global emissions suggest that the effect is not only short-lived but also marginaJ.i0 Cornucopian
promises of equality, therefore, rationalize the weakening of the fundamental nature of ecological limitations and their social
inequality consequences. In fact, absolute restraint in line with ecological limits is considered irrational unless market efficiency, in
the form of for instance a carbon price, dictates such change. The
fundamental and ethical character of
ecological limitations is further eroded as technological and managerial capability improves.
Equality as a construct of growth therefore fails to materialize as business-as- usual extrapolations demonstrate the unworkable
energy and environmental future of the modern energy regime.3'· 32 The need for a different pathway is apparent.
AT: Neolib Inev
Rhetoric positing neoliberalism as inevitable naturalizes violence
Schneider et al 2016 – Associate prof of public policy and administration @ Boise State U
Jen, Steve Schwarze, Peter K Bsumek, and Jennifer Peeples, Under Pressure: Coal industry
rhetoric and neoliberalism, Palgrave, p. 175-176
At the beginning of this chapter, we suggested that speculations about the future of coal often come with an air of inevitability. Procoal advocates see continued reliance on coal as inevitable, considering coal's abundance, affordability, and embeddedness in our
social, economic, and politi- cal systems. Likewise, coal's opponents observe the increasing tempo of regulatory announcements,
coal corporation bankruptcy filings, and insti- tutional divestment commitments, as well as the rise of natural gas, and begin to
speculate about the inevitability of coal's demise. Even these lim- ited examples provide further evidence for how inevitability has
become an important trope both in pro-coal advocacy (Rafey & Sovacool, 2011 ) and in neoliberal discourse (Gilbert, 2005).
The
trope of inevitability only reinforces the troubling aspects of neoliberalism for environmental
com- munication, as it attempts to rationalize a state of affairs in which human agency and the
possibility of choice has been foreclosed. It is for this reason that we encourage further examination of environmentalist claims regarding the "inevitable" decline of coal, especially given the industry's relative success in resisting regulation
to this point. Furthermore, we find the rhetoric of inevitability a curious strategy for climate activists.
While it may sustain a sense of hope among move- ment actors who find themselves confronting seemingly insurmountable
resistance from the fossil fuel industry, it begs questions of agency and strategy: How, precisely and concretely, will
this resistance be overcome? Such has been the central rhetorical and political problem for environmen- talists since the early
1990s, and the urgency of the climate issue demands focused, strategic thinking about this problem (Cox, 2010).
The rhetoric
of inevitability puts climate activists at risk of foreclosing examination of how they might
articulate their concerns with other voices seeking fundamental changes to economic and
political systems that are increasingly influenced by neoliberalism. Our approach suggests that the
contradictions of coal's corporate advocacy present an opportunity for iden- tifying alliances and broader coalitions with those who
wish to challenge the confluence of money/ speech and the dominance of corporate voices in the public sphere. Likewise, our
analysis suggests that the coal industry is perhaps most vulnerable on issues of economics and morality that stretch well beyond the
traditional "environmental" focus of messaging by environmental NGOs and pressure groups. That is to say, the primary
contradictions in coal's corporate advocacy and in neoliberalism more broadly involve issues ranging from corporate subsidies and
regulations, to free speech and democratic participation, to morality and social justice. However, cultural critics and advocates alike
would be wise to remember that the house that neoliberalism built was in fact built-it is a construct, if a very powerful one.
Neoliberalism may be embedded, but it is not natural or inevitable. We must find and seek out
examples of alternative social, political, and economic arrangements. One lesson that seems
clear is that the house that neoliberalism built was not built in a day-its ideas and discourses
were fomented and nurtured for many years before neoliberal political and economic coalitions
were able to cloak themselves as disinterested and populist.
AT: Realism
Realism fails in the context of warming – it will opt for a continuation of
business-as-usual
Falk 2016 - Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice, Emeritus at
Princeton University
Richard, “Climate Change, policy knowledge, and the temporal imagination” in Reimaging
Climate Change, Routledge, p. 56-57
There is a final observation relevant to taking account of possibly grave risks relating to future catastrophe. The response to the
advent of nuclear weaponry is a prime example of the hegemony of negative temporality, and should serve as a kind of instructive
experience for the climate change debate and movement. With respect to nuclear weaponry, scientists are essentially irrelevant
except to create a dire picture of what a post-nuclear world might be like, which may induce a certain degree of caution in
policymaking circles, but does not give guidance as to making the central choice between "deterrence" and "disarmament" (Lifton
and Falk 1986; Falk and Krieger 2012; Nye 1986). In my view a comparable failure to that of climate change exists on the part of the
policy community to address properly future risks posed by the threat posed by nuclear weaponry, but its essential character is
different than that bearing on climate change due to the greater relevance of the interaction between temporal categories of
present and future. Instead
of "scientific certainty" those that make security policy are guided by an
epistemology that is best known as "political realism" drawing on views of the past, premised on history and a
skeptical view of human nature. It bases its policy logic on interpretations of human nature and historical
experience that correlate security primarily with physical strength, military capabilities, political distrust,
and the susceptibility of human reason to expectations of gain and loss. The major premise of political realism lifts a
line out of context from the ancient Greek historian, Thucydides: "The strong do what they will, the weak do what they must"
(Thucydides 1954).10 In this regard nuclear weaponry can be rationally accommodated, and even prudently sought after, as a means
to increase security against some of the threats that arise within a framework of sovereign states. Thinkers such as John
Mearsheimer (1984-5) and Kenneth Waltz ( 1981) believe that we should be thankful for the presence of nuclear weapons as
probably responsible for the avoidance of World War III. In this regard, there is no way to resolve the argument between those who
favor deterrence and those who seek disarmament by an appeal to prudence in relation to addressing future risks as what is at stake
are contradictory conceptions of prudence. As
with climate change, I believe we are addressing a
fundamental question of the appropriate epistemology in relation to somewhat indeterminate
future risks. 11 Unlike climate change where a precautionary approach to knowledge would provide an appropriate guide to
policy, for nuclear weapons I would argue for the adoption of a moral epistemology that unconditionally prohibits certain forms of
behavior including genocide, torture, and weaponry of mass destruction whatever the instrumental justifications that can be
advanced (Thompson 1982). It is true that the adoption of such a moral epistemology does not entirely eliminate the policy problem
as it can still be argued from the perspective of use that the contrasting risks of possession and abolition are incalculable. In
response, I agree with E.P. Thompson that the threat to use such weaponry is itself genocidal if not omnicidal, and therefore any
kind of benefits from deterrence are tainted by the nature of the threat being made. In this regard it should be recognized that from
the perspective of international law and morality threats can be as unacceptable as actual uses of force (Falk 2013).12 Admittedly,
this somewhat begs the question as it is not clear that mere possession of the weaponry entails a threat to use (International Court
of Justice 1996). Despite this degree of ambiguity, the case for reliance on a moral epistemology in a globalizing world seems
indispensable if there is to be created the kind of global political community that will become capable of upholding the human
interest as well as processing the interplay of national interest calculations (Johansen 1980). Discussion of the analogous concerns
with respect to the status of nuclear weapons is intended to convey the differing ways that temporality in these two instances of
ultimate concern is relevant. In
relation to climate change, since the underlying causes of harm and risk
are associated with intrinsically benign behavior, restrictions need to rely on a precautionary or
prudential epistemology that is sensitive to present harms, unevenness of perception and
experience, and the prospects of increasing costs and uncertain thresholds of irreversibility. In
contrast, the role of nuclear weapons rests on threats and acts that are intrinsically criminal, and the elimination of this weaponry by
prudent arrangements for phased disarmament relies on the authority of a moral epistemology. To assess the disarmament
arrangement advocated and implemented does depend on a more prudential calculus as distinct from the categorical rejection of
nuclear weaponry as instruments of protection or security. Positive
temporality for nuclear weaponry
concentrates on the means to attain the desired end, whereas for climate change the focus is
how to adjust the means in light of competing values and risks.
AT: Pragmatism
Pragmatism fails – we must rock the boat to avoid the impacts of the 1AC
Falk 2016 - Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice, Emeritus at
Princeton University
Richard, “Climate Change, policy knowledge, and the temporal imagination” in Reimaging
Climate Change, Routledge, p. 63
Despite such hopefulness, this essay, as an exercise in climate imagination, is less interested in fantasizing unlikely occurrences than
in posting warnings about the constraints of Climate Inc. Current
efforts to address climate change are
animated by, and further lock us into, the straightjacket of negative temporality. Negative temporality proposes
that climate change is a distant threat, substantiated by weak science, and thus not urgent or significant enough to require
immediate, dramatic policy responses. It
encourages a politics of postponement so as not to rock the boat
of a world order constituted by sovereign states concerned fundamentally with their territorial, short-term, national interests
rather than global or even regional imperatives. Saturated by such a narrow and skewed view, often the most one can do is engage
in wishful thinking. However, as this chapter has tried to suggest, one
can also work to dismantle the conceptual
perversions that privilege spatiality and thus negative temporality. Such criticism demands
imagination to recognize limitations and identify opportunities.
AT: Science Good
Science is on our side, we must transition away from neoliberalism
Anshelm 2015 – Prof @ Linkoping U
Jonas and Martin Hultman, Discourses of Global Climate Change, Routledge, p. 93
The eco-socialist discourse promoted the image of climate science as an authority which
revealed the destructiveness of industrial capitalist society and compelled extensive and immediate changes in
basic economic structures, relationships, lifestyles, transport and energy systems, and forms of production in contemporary
capitalist society. The
impetus for radical social change was said to no longer come from the social
sciences, but from the journals such as Nature and Science, and from some of the world's most
trustworthy climate scientists. Hopes were pinned on an alliance between the global scientific elite and local opposition
groups with strong commitments to the global environment, similar to that seen in the late 1960s and 1970s. In the 1970s and
1980s, an eco-socialist image of an environmental utopia, an ecotopia, was imagined and practical work was done to bring it to life.
In an ecotopia, humans were part of the environment, economic growth was criticized, a decentralized democracy was proposed
and small-scale technology drove development (Kumar, 1991; Pepper, 2005). It was a version of utopia that was created in response
to an era of criticism of the industrial modern discourse of centralization, large-scale technologies and capitalism (Kumar, 1987).
Eco-socialism's historical materialist analysis located the causes of contemporary environmental
abuse in the workings of the economic mode of capitalist production, and the institutions and
world view that undergirded its functioning. Eco-socialism argued that environmentally
unsustainable development was inherent to capitalism, therefore it must be abolished and replaced
by democratic socialism (De Geus, 1999). With eco-socialism, it was argued, people could end their alienation from nature and from
each other, which was the root cause of environmental degradation. In the wake of the climate-change debate, numerous practical
examples, theoretical elaborations and utopian visions were presented as transition paths towards a sustainable future (Bailey and
Wilson, 2009; Darley et al., 2006). In Sweden this type of eco-socialist utopian thinking was very rare. In contrast to an apocalyptic
and harsh critique of the current economic system, there were very few actors who appeared (or were allowed to appear) on the
public scene in Sweden expressing ecotopian, transitional visions.
AT: Securitization Good
Security studies has failed to prevent massive acts of violence, proving it’s
ineptitude
Burke et al 2014 - Associate Prof and Reader in International and Political Studies at UNSW
Australia
Anthony, Katrina Lee-Koo, and Matt McDonald, Ethics and Global Security, Routledge, p. 1-2
With its world wars, cold wars, proxy wars, colonial wars, guerrilla wars, civil wars, drug wars, and new wars, not to mention its
genocides, nuclear weapons, economic crises, gender-based violence, refugees, famines and environmental disasters, the twentieth
century was a century of chronic and endemic insecurity. What will the
twenty-first century become? It certainly has not
started out well. Its first
decade alone saw aircraft smashing into New York's World Trade Center, a new global war on
near-death of the nuclear non-proliferation regime, the Indian Ocean and Japanese tsunamis,
Cyclone Nargis, the war in Iraq, genocide in the Sudan, and three brutal wars in Palestine and
Lebanon. The picture beyond that does not improve when we add global stalemate on climate change, mass slaughter in the
Congo, Islamist terrorism in Pakistan and India, a craze for walls and "border protection", and strategic anxiety about Iran,
North Korea, the rise of China, and a future of drone, cyber and space war. All of these examples
have been riven with moral anxiety and exemplified particular ethical choices: whether to use poison
terror, the
gas against enemy forces to protect one's own; whether to bomb populated areas to shorten a war or degrade an enemy's industrial
capacity; whether to develop and deploy weapons that can destroy cities in a few seconds and kill millions; whether to use
starvation as a weapon of war; whether to support Islamic extremists in a proxy war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, in
the face of warnings about how they were likely to turn on their masters afterwards; and when
that time came, whether to fight such extremists by systemic violations of the international laws
of war and human rights. The debates over these issues reflect many things: their inherent
moral complexity, competing ethics and norms, and a global interest in their rightness and longterm impact. None of these ethical questions and dilemmas are new, but the field of security studies has been
slow to address them, and it has not established a tradition of morally desirable, but as
strategically necessary, and with this objective, we develop ethical guidelines for the decisions and policies of all
security actors. We list these principles here in Box 1.1 below, and explain them in the section entitled 'Key Principles of a
Cosmopolitan Security Ethics.
AT: State good
A state focused politics is guaranteed to fail – instead we should focus on ethics
that make global security possible
Burke et al 2014 Anthony [Associate Prof and Reader in International and Political Studies at
UNSW Australia], Katrina Lee-Koo [Senior Lecturer in IR at U of Queensland], and Matt
McDonald [Senior Lecturer in IR at U of Queensland]; Ethics and Global Security; Routledge; p.
29-32
As a number of theorists have argued (Walker 1992; Baldwin 1997; Waever 1995), the way that security is thought about and
practiced in international relations is bound up with the institution of the state. For
traditional theoretical accounts of
security, of course, the state is the only unit, referent or agent of security worth considering, and its security can
be viewed as synonymous with the security of the people whose lives take place within its
territorial borders. But even for those accounts critical of contemporary security practice, the state looms large over
any attempt to think through alternatives to existing security practices. For liberals, the problem of
security in international politics is one of ameliorating the worst excesses of state violence through an institutionalised recognition
of the strategic benefits of interstate cooperation (Milner and Morayscik 2009; Keohane and Nye 1997). For critical theorists, a
radical critique of state security and the need to refocus on people as the core unit of analysis (Booth 1991; McSweeney 1999) still
necessitates engagement with the state as an agent of security and the crucial question of how its resources and capabilities can he
redirected to the concerns of a global society. And for some sociologists, while many contemporary security practices cannot be
defended, the nation-state still retains a crucial role. For Loader and Walker (2007: 4), for example, nation-states serve the critical
function of defining community identity, and security can be seen as a "public good" that reflects the values of that community. In
this sense, scholarship
on security reflects the dominance of a "Statist" ontology in international
relations scholarship more broadly. However, there is nothing inevitable about the umbilical
association between security and the state, in analytical or normative terms. Historically, the meaning of security
has shifted between a focus on the individual and collectivities (Haftendorn 1991; Rothschild 1995; Waver 2002; Constantinou 2000)
and the state is just one of a number of institutions that have attempted to build their legitimacy on the promise o f providing for
the protection or well-being of its constituency (see Williams 1998). And as post-colonial critiques suggest, the close association of
security and states is based largely on Europe's history of state formation, characterised by 'a strong identification of the security of
the state with the security of its citizens' (Krause and Williams 1996: 320; see also Grovogui 2007; Muppidi 1999; Barkawi and Liffey
2006). In normative terms too,
the idea of the state as an appropriate unit of community is undermined
by the relatively common disjunction between nation and state, and by radical and, at times, violent
contestation over the boundaries of that community. This contestation should remind us of the need to
interrogate or at least reflect on the state as the appropriate unit of community, and security, in global politics. And the moral
legitimacy of a state system writ large is of course also called into fundamental question by the
empirical realities of refugees and displaced persons; the scale of human rights abuses carried
out by states against their own populations; and the failure to mount an adequate response to
global problems such as climate change. Here, the failings of states and the globalization of
contemporary insecurity provide a powerful rationale for moving beyond the nation-state when
thinking about security. The dominance of the state in thinking about security in international relations is grounded in the
powerful narrative of the ''social contract". In the political philosophy of Hobbes and Locke, the modern sovereign state emerged as
a practical alternative to an ungoverned (and somewhat mythical) "state of nature" through the guarantee of order and security it
could make to those it governed. Hobbes termed this sovereign figure the Leviathan: a 'mortal god' whose 'body-politic'
represented, and contained, all the bodies of the people within it (Burke 2007a: Ch. 1, 2013a: 17-18). For post-war classical realists
of the 1940s and 1950s, this Leviathan was the guarantor of individual protection m an otherwise dangerous environment.
Morgenthau (1948) and Niebhur (1959) engaged with this directly, contrasting the moral world that was possible through this
Hobbesian/Lockean bargain with the amoral world beyond the state's borders, and defending a Statist ontology on precisely moral
grounds (Williams 2005). For these theorists, the state provided the possibility of ethics and morality in a brutal state of nature.
Paradoxically, however, genuine
engagement with and defence of the state on moral or
communitarian terms in realist thought has become less prominent over time, even while the
scale of the transnational threats—which cannot, by definition, be dealt with by states alone—has grown. As the state
system of the post-war era solidified, neorealists such as Waltz (1979) sought to excise morality from questions of interstate
relations. They suggested that the world inside states was irrelevant to the dynamics of world politics, and that state interests
themselves were detemiined by the distribution of power within that system. As such, while the realist project itself was built on the
foundation of the social contract, this 'moral purpose' (Reus-Snit 1999) was elided, ignored or even contrasted disapprovingly with a
positivist concern with material power distribution. While much of the realist and neorealist conception of security has been
challenged in recent years, the centrality of the state in thinking about security continues to cast a powerful shadow over the way
security is thought about and engaged with. Here, the
'system of existential alienation that is the social
contract and the anarchic world of power-seeking states' (Burke 2010: 97) continues to frame the
way we think about and practice security in international politics. Even the most ambitious of liberal security
projects, for example, the norm of the " responsibility to protect", does not ultimately challenge the social contract. Rather it tries
to reframe it as a source of moral "good" within global politics by restraining the abusive power
of the sovereign by emphasising state obligations to protect the lives and basic security of its
people. Genuine commitment to this norm would ensure fewer human rights violations and potentially minimize refugee
movements, yet it remains inconsistent with a global sensibility necessary for responding effectively
to global problems. It also fails to expose and challenge those structures of the international
system (ideational, political and economic) that create and constitute profound insecurities for much of
the world's population ( Fishel 2013). At its best, an international order in which states were genuinely committed to the
provision of rights to all of their population—in other words, in which state leaders lived up to their part of the social contract—
would be an order with far fewer instances of harm than the contemporary international order. But a state system oriented in such
a way can only really be defended on short-term, pragmatic grounds, not long-term or moral ones (Linklater 2011: 5). The problem
of recognising forms of community that can and do exist below and above the level of the state, the problem of responding to
genuinely transnational sources of threat, and the imperative of overturning the structures of violence inherent in the international
system all remain within this schema. In developing a coherent relationship between security and global ethics, we argue in this
volume that what
is needed is more than a pragmatic intellectual project with a moral twist. We
need to do more than attempt to speak to policymakers on their terms with a view to slowly
civilizing the actions of the state. A more profoundly cosmopolitan approach is needed one in
which communities are empowered to define and achieve their own security within a system of
global responsibility, states change their policy to serve global ends and cede sovereign
freedoms to do harm, and construct global cooperative institutions and practices that provide
security to all without discrimination (Burke 2013a, 2013b).
AT: Warming Kills all
There is nothing cosmopolitan about their approach to warming evidenced by
their discourse which is used to maintain the status quo
Burke et al 2014 - Associate Prof and Reader in International and Political Studies at UNSW
Australia
Anthony, Katrina Lee-Koo, and Matt McDonald, Ethics and Global Security, Routledge, p. 108-9
Increasingly, attention in both the scholarly and policy worlds has turned to the threats environmental change poses to international
security. In many ways this reflects the
increasing prominence of climate change in debates about
environmental security: an issue that necessarily transcends the nation-state. In this discourse, the
environment is again understood in broad terms, potentially encompassing transboundary
resource management or global environmental change. And such issues are viewed as threats to international
security to the extent that they challenge the key norms of international society, whether defined in terms of the imperatives of
international order or global justice. This approach has been most prominently embraced by international organisations (UNEP
2007; Moon 2007), and reached its high point with UN Security Council discussions in 2007 and 2011 on the international security
threat posed by global climate change (Oels 2013). These ( divisive) debates
focused on the idea of climate
change as a possible threat multiplier that contributed to or exacerbated conflict and interstate
tension, along with the role of the "international community" in responding to it. In terms of its ethical commitments, an
approach that focuses on an international society and its nonnative basis clearly extends ethical
responsibility beyond the communitarian commitments of a national (environmental) security
discourse. How far this ethical commitment extends is, however, ultimately dependent on the nonnative basis of that
international society (Dunne 1998; Bellamy and McDonald 2004). This reflects similar tensions to the liberal
security paradigm outlined in Chapter 1. To reiterate, key distinctions between a focus on order and justice, mapping on to
the pluralist-solidarist divide in international society theorizing, suggest different moral universes and different forms of political
response to climate change. While
a focus on order might limit attention to environmental security
issues to those that pose a threat to sovereignty (defined as non-intervention) and international
stability, a focus on justice might enable some attention to environmental change that
undermines human rights or creates broader harms. This tension is no more resolved or resolvable in practice,
with key differences in the nature of international society and the role of international institutions in defending, that society playing
out in UNSC debates about climate change. Clearly, more of a role for international organisations as agents of international security
is assumed, from coordinating cooperation on environmental issues themselves through UN instruments to orchestrating,
international environmental management through the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and, more recently, the UN
Security Council (Rasmussen and Birk 2012). However, such
an approach still tends to orient towards the
preservation of the status quo—even while allowing some degree of hope for the management
of transboundary or global issues (Smith and Vivekenanda 2007; Busby 2004). It is frequently the
maintenance of international stability, rates of economic growth and existing political
institutions that are seen as being important to preserve here. While international instruments managing
global environmental problems might emerge or be strengthened in positive ways, existing international political and
economic instruments have proven themselves inadequate to the task of responding effectively
to environmental change at best or created/furthered that change at worst. It also tends to
downplay the role of political and economic inequality within that system that creates
inequalities in the level of vulnerability to environmental change and capacity to respond. As
Andrew Dobson has argued ( 2005: 259), the language of interdependence that often underpins this
discourse is frequently problematic, implying a rough parity of cause, effect, vulnerability and
responsibility.
AT: Warming Reps Good
Environmental securitization ensures the militarization of the environment
Burke et al 2014 Anthony [Associate Prof and Reader in International and Political Studies at
UNSW Australia], Katrina Lee-Koo [Senior Lecturer in IR at U of Queensland], and Matt
McDonald [Senior Lecturer in IR at U of Queensland]; Ethics and Global Security; Routledge; p.
32-4
Ethical questions and debates loomed large over such attempts to broaden the security agenda. The attempts to broaden this
agenda to include issues such as environmental change were driven by normative commitments to addressing such problems,
underpinned by the idea that with their designation as security threats would conic increased political profile, attention, funding and
priority for these " neglected" issues. Indeed authors advocating the "broadening" of security in this way frequently emphasized the
opportunity costs of the billions of dollars spent by states on armies and tools of war relative to more important priorities such as
official development assistance or renewable energy (Mathews 1989). It is no coincidence, in this sense, that a range of authors
arguing for the redefinition of security to include environmental concerns were affiliated with environmental NGOs or think-tanks
aimed at mobilizing responses to environmental change (see Hartmann 2009; McDonald 2013a). There
is much that is
intuitively appealing about the attempt to lift issues such as environmental change onto the
security agenda as a means of challenging the traditional association of security with the state
and war, not least given the problematic priorities underpinning this discourse of security. Yet, while working from
assumptions about the mobilizing power of security, these accounts failed to reflect on the
politics of security itself. As Daniel Deudney (1990) asked, is it wise to assume that "security" has this
progressive effect; that promoting environmental issues to the realm of security won't bring
with it a militarization of such problems and logics of exceptionalism? Such a failure to systematically
examine what security does is problematic: it opens "broadeners" up to the criticism that theirs is a project
that potentially invites illiberal political practices and institutions to hold sway over the
management of pressing transnational political problems like climate change and environmental
degradation. In a more fundamental sense, the "broadening" agenda also risks leaving security power and legitimacy where it is.
There is a danger that without redefining who security is actually for, issues such as
environmental change might come to be seen as security threats to the extent that they are
solely understood as threats to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the nation-state. Not
only might we fail to challenge the statism of contemporary global politics, but we risk encouraging perverse
responses to problems such as environmental change. States might recognize climate change as a threat, but if
such a response is oriented towards realist strategic concerns, states with relative self-sufficiency may build
physical barriers (even walls) around their borders to protect against an influx of so-called "
environmental refugees" a scenario anticipated in a 2003 Pentagon report on the national security implications of climate
change (Schwartz and Randall 2003). These issues are discussed in more depth in Chapter 4. In our view, security ethics is best
honoured by more fundamentally questioning the meaning, structure, and ends of security. If
we simply add poverty,
environmental change, or disease to the list of challenges to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the
state, we leave other key constituent elements of security in place, and enable existing security
providers to embrace and potentially co-opt this "broader agenda", blunting more radical
critiques of the association of security and the state system. Indeed it is probably no coincidence that
recognition of the "broader range of threats" to security has found its way in to security statements and agenda of existing
institutional security providers.
The securitization of the environment works to reinforce the squo – makes
their impact inevitable
Burke et al 2014 Anthony [Associate Prof and Reader in International and Political Studies at
UNSW Australia], Katrina Lee-Koo [Senior Lecturer in IR at U of Queensland], and Matt
McDonald [Senior Lecturer in IR at U of Queensland]; Ethics and Global Security; Routledge; p.
98-9
If any issue lends itself towards a critique of the ethical choices and limits of traditional approaches to
security, it is environmental change. Until recently, the " environment- was not seen as an issue relevant to the study or
practice of security, despite the obvious fact that the natural world provides the conditions for human existence. Where
environmental issues are seen as relevant to security, these are often viewed through the lens
of national security. This is the case even though ecological zones and national borders do not usually coincide, and even
though unilateral state action is insufficient for responding to global environmental change. In discussions of the
environment-security relationship, environmental issues are often viewed as relevant to the
study and practice of security if triggering armed conflict or related threats to national sovereignty such as large-scale
population displacement. At its most ethically perverse, measures to redress environmental change are
viewed as threats to the economic security of states. This highlights a more general problem. if security is
approached as the preservation of the status quo whether defined in terms of the territorial
integrity of the state or the preservation of international order it becomes harder to respond
effectively to environmental change worsened by taken-for-granted elements of national and
international governance. Simply put, international economic and political governance
arrangements (the neoliberal economic system and the interstate system) are failing in their capacity to arrest
processes of environmental change at best, and, at worst, are driving these processes of global
change. In many ways, then, environmental change represents something of an "easy" case for the global security framework
developed in this book. Some environmental issues, and responses to them, can only be approached at the global level. And
dominant national security discourses encourage inadequate and in some cases perverse responses to environmental change.
However, dynamics of global environmental change do not necessarily represent the easy case for a cosmopolitan approach to
security that they may initially suggest. Complex questions arise about whether a cosmopolitan approach can come to terms with
obligations to future generations and other living beings; about how we might mobilize responses to global security threats in a
world of states; and even about how the "environment" itself is understood and approached. And of course for many,
linking
security and the environment is fraught in a political sense, either because the language of
security does not increase the urgency or priority attached to environmental issues ( McDonald
2012a; Waver 2011), or because it risks endorsing problematic actors and responses to issues of
environmental change (see Deudney 1990; Kakonen 1994). This chapter tackles these issues directly, building a case for an
approach to environmental change that focuses on the global level, that recognizes obligations to future generations and other living
beings, and that emphasizes the responsibility that everyone has to act as global environmental stewards. This case for a global
security perspective, however, is preceded by a discussion of the ethical assumptions and implications of attempts to link the
environment and security in theory and in practice. Here we
suggest the need for attention to how the
"environment" itself is understood, and to the key question of whose security is seen as worth
protecting or advancing in the context of environmental change in particular. In the latter section of the
chapter we focus on global climate change in illustrating the utility of our global security perspective.
AT: Security K
2AC – L
AT: Biodiversity
Securitization of biodiversity is good – only according it requisite attention can
reverse its existential threat
Bliss 20 [Cebuan; PhD candidate with the Environmental Governance and Politics Group at the
department of Geography, Planning and Environment. Her research seeks to explain
relationships between animal and biodiversity governance systems, assessing the synergies and
trade-offs using an Integrative Governance framework; 6-2-2020; “From bombs to biodiversity:
why we need a conceptual shift in security”; Political Ecology Network;
https://politicalecologynetwork.org/2020/06/02/from-bombs-to-biodiversity-why-we-need-aconceptual-shift-in-security/; Accessed 7-21-2021; BM]
The Copenhagen
School’s concept of securitisation is a response to their dissatisfaction with traditional, narrow
definitions of military security which were prevalent during the Cold War. They argue for a broadening of the concept
of security and established a new framework for analysis, one which considers issues of increasing prominence,
including economic and societal security, and the environment (Buzan et al., 1998). Thus, it is a useful
framework with which to comprehend the threat of biodiversity loss to human security. For Buzan
et al., security is ‘a kind of stabilization of conflictual or threatening relations, often through emergency mobilization of the state’
(1998, p4). Securitisation entails moving beyond the normal politicisation of an issue, where ‘speech acts’ are used to frame an issue
as an existential threat. In other words, the issue is urgent, and its magnitude requires extraordinary measures. The key elements to
be considered are ‘who securitizes, on what issues (threats) [and] for whom (referent object)’ (Buzan et al., 1998, p32). While there
were some scholars, even in the late 1980s, arguing that biodiversity
loss could be conceptualised as a security threat (Myers,
1989; Tuchman Mathews, 1989), the possibility and necessity of its securitisation has not been analysed. This may be
in part because evidence on the extent and consequences of biodiversity loss has only recently come to the fore.
With the second United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal outlined as ‘Zero Hunger’ and dire warnings issued
about the current rate of species loss (IPBES, 2019), it is essential that policy-makers comprehend
the existential risk that biodiversity loss poses to food, and consequently human, security. Food security
as defined by the 1974 World Food Summit is: ‘the availability at all times of adequate world food supplies of basic foodstuffs to
sustain a steady expansion of food consumption and to offset fluctuations in production and prices’ (UN, 2018a). However, despite
the efforts of recent years, the number of undernourished people has increased, after decades of decreasing (UN Security Council,
2018). Securitisation and the environment In People, States and Fear, Buzan outlines the need for a broader conception of security
(Buzan, 2007). To count as a security issue, threats
and vulnerabilities ‘have to be staged as existential
threats to a referent object by a securitizing actor’ (Buzan et al., 1998, p5). This actor can endorse emergency measures
which may go beyond normal rules of engagement. Expanding on this, Floyd questions under what circumstances securitisation can
be deemed morally right or just. She argues that three
criteria need to be fulfilled simultaneously to ensure the
securitisation is morally right: 1) there must be an objective existential threat as defined by a powerful
actor which defines and responds to them (which endangers the survival of the referent object); 2) the referent object
must be morally legitimate, in that it is required for human well-being (normatively assessed as the satisfaction of human
needs such as adequate nutrition or a healthy environment); and 3) the security response must be appropriate to
the threat in question (2011, 428). With regards to food security, biodiversity loss, particularly the loss of genetic variety, is
significant as low diversity reduces resilience and increases vulnerability to shocks (McGowen et al.
2017). Cramer et al. argue that linking these two and finding synergies between them could ‘generate multiple benefits for social,
ecological, and economic development’ (2017, p1257). Securitisation is
a method to create that link and alert
states to an existential threat, prompting collective action which may be impossible without the
opportunity to pursue emergency measures, as sanctioned by extreme security threats. Biodiversity loss: an
existential threat Ultimately, biodiversity is essential to our life on earth, providing food security, as well
as medicines, fuel and sustaining livelihoods (UNEP, 2018). Therefore, it is necessary that biodiversity loss
be conceptualised as a security problem. It is a worsening transnational issue which affects all who live on this planet.
Consequently, the coordination and cooperation of states is essential to tackle such an urgent, global
problem and it could be considered as morally right to do so, according to Floyd’s criteria outlined above. Photo credit:
James Calalang By using the discourse of securitisation to shift conceptions of what constitutes a
security threat, governments (and other important actors, such as the UN Security Council, Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) and G20 Agriculture Ministers) enhance their authority to implement measures to prevent
and reverse biodiversity loss to ensure food security. This would go beyond standard policies, as securitisation allows for
extraordinary measures. These measures would likely be counterintuitive to modern, mono-cultural agricultural methods because
‘biodiversity losses…can compromise ecosystem functionality and resilience in agriculture’ (Tscharntke et al., 2012, p55). In other
words, humans rely on a very small number of species for food, which lowers our resilience. If any of these is compromised due to
disease, conflict or climate change, we expose ourselves to greater risks of food insecurity. Biodiversity
loss has not been
accorded the attention it requires. International cooperation and emergency measures are long
overdue and required to stem further losses and enhance resilience to food insecurity. Conceptualising this
as a security threat is one of the surest ways to achieve this. Buzan et al. explicitly state that ‘the environment has to survive;
therefore, this issue should take priority over all others, because if the environment is degraded to the point of no return all other
issues will lose their meaning’ (1998, p36). Securitising in the Anthropocene At the turn of the millennium, the Secretary General of
the United Nations, Kofi
Annan, extolled ‘respect for nature’ and stated that: ‘new security challenges
require us to think creatively, and to adapt our traditional approaches to better meet the needs of our new era. But one
time-honoured precept holds more firmly today than ever: it all begins with prevention’ (Annan, 2000, p44). The sixth
mass extinction characterising the Anthropocene and resulting loss of biodiversity diminishes
human resilience and increases food insecurity. A problem of this magnitude warrants nothing less
than adaptive and preventative measures; it is morally right according to Floyd’s criteria. Cristiana Paşca
Palmer, Executive Secretary of the CBD, states that ‘governments must send a clear message that safeguarding
biodiversity and the health of the planetary ecosystems is fundamental to our survival and the social and
economic well-being of everybody, everywhere’ (UNEP, 2018). Despite such calls, and the consensus that we
are facing a food security crisis, I suggest that biodiversity loss has, for the most part, not been securitised. Given the
urgency of the situation, desecuritisation is not an option. Ultimately, ‘security is about survival’ (Buzan et
al.,1998, p21). From an anthropocentric stance, the survival of humanity, indeed, depends on biodiversity. Its
loss poses an existential threat and a conceptual shift allowing it to be treated as such would
allow actors such as states to pursue measures to mitigate the loss of biodiversity and ensuing food
insecurity.
AT: Climate Change
Securitization of the climate is inevitable and legitimize discussions that force
pragmatic action.
Säll ’21 [Anna; Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences,
Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Government.; “The securitization of climate change in
the United States: A case-study of the Biden-Harris administration’s first hundred days in office”;
Spring 2021; Uppsala University; http://uu.divaportal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A156174; Accessed 7/14/21; NT]
In President Biden’s speech at a joint session of congress just before the end of the first hundred days in office, he said,
“the
climate crisis is not our fight alone; it’s a global fight. […] if we act to save the planet, we can create
millions of jobs and economic growth and opportunity to raise the standard of living to almost everyone around the
world”. 232 This quote summarizes the presented analysis of the Biden-Harris administration’s discussion on climate change to
some extent. The climate change is presented as a global threat, though the transition generates a great
opportunity for growth and the creation of jobs. As has been shown in the previous section there is identified securitization
moves on the climate crisis of the Biden-Harris administration. Furthermore, the administration presents a need of urgent
action. Though, the presented solutions should not be interpreted as extreme solutions, as described by the
CS. If the climate change issue was presented as the only prioritized issue, it would be legitime to stop all emissions overnight, even
if that would lead to unemployment, scarcity of food, water and electricity which could cause human suffering and even death. The
approach of the Biden-Harris administration could instead be described as pragmatic. Already in Biden’s inaugural
speech he pointed out several challenges that the United States were facing, climate change was one of these. As one senior
administration official said, “our view is that we
don’t have that luxury to choose between those challenges”.
crisis is prioritized as a security issue though among the other challenges identified by
the Biden Harris administration, like the economy and the COVID-19. However, Trombetta’s conclusion, described in the chapter
on previous research, that securitization of the climate first and foremost is about prioritizing, is not
233 In this way the climate
questioned by this analysis. By the securitizing moves on the climate crisis, the administration clearly prioritizes the climate issue. It
should be noticed that the political context matter. When President Biden was sworn in as President, the United States were facing
the devastating consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, an economy in crisis and a troubled democracy after the storming of the
Capitol. In
this political setting, it could be difficult to talk about and take action against climate
change if it was not presented as a security issue. Therefore, the securitization moves on climate change
could be interpreted as a way to legitimize the prioritization of the climate on the administration’s political agenda.
Furthermore, the proposed solutions of the Biden-Harris administration to tackle the climate crisis can be seen as ambitious, though
they are not going outside the political processes. The conclusion of Trombetta, to view securitization of the climate as a prioritizing
act rather than an issue about extreme measures could thereby be supported by the analysis of the Biden-Harris administration.
The Biden-Harris approach
to tackle the climate crisis is to acknowledge the urgency and security
aspects caused by the changing climate, at the same time as the transition is generating opportunities for labor
and prosperity. This does not comply with the paradox discussed by Trombetta. No overlapping
securitization has been observed in the securitization moves by the Biden-Harris administration since the politics to
tackle climate change is described as an opportunity rather than a threat. Trombetta referred to the Bush
administration as an example of the overlapping securitizations, since the Biden-Harris administration has another
approach of securitization moves on climate without the paradox there is a difference between the
two administrations. The conclusion of Scott, that since the introduction of climate security in the UNSC resulted in a
reduction of treating climate as a matter of security in diplomatic circles, is questioned by this analysis
since the administration has introduced climate as central for United States’ diplomacy. Including the
presentation of the climate change as an existential threat at the Leaders’ Summit on Climate hosted by President
Biden and the active role of Kerry at international high level meetings. Therefore, this thesis argues that Scott’s conclusion is
incorrect in the case of the United States under the Biden-Harris administration.
This analysis has shown securitization moves
including a planetary danger and in the administration’s
presentation of climate as an existential threat the whole world is identified as a referent object. This
is in contrast to the research of Diez et al. in which it was argued that the discourse in the United States
was influenced by territorial danger from the mid-2000’s and the securitization at the planetary level was no longer as
prominent. Therefore, another kind of securitization moves have been identified in the Biden-Harris administration.
Furthermore, since the climate is integrated in the Interim National Security Strategic Guidance and the speech made of Secretary
Austin at the Leaders’ Summit this analysis has also identified securitization moves at the in a military setting, which was not
identified in the study of Thomas.
Securitizing climate change through the frame of human security places
effective demands on the state and builds consensus for change.
Jamshidi ’19 [Maryam; Assistant Professor of Law, University of Florida Levin College of Law;
“The Climate Crisis Is a Human Security, Not a National Security, Issue”; 2019; University of
Florida Levin College of Law;
https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1962&context=facultypub; Accessed
7/19/21; NT]
The concept of human security avoids these disadvantages while preserving the benefits of
securitizing climate change. Initially articulated by the U.N. in 1994, human security has two main
components.31 First, it requires that states protect people from chronic dangers, like hunger,
disease, oppression, and environmental degradation.32 Second, it demands that governments
work to reduce substantial disruptions to people’s daily lives.33 This “durable” approach emphasizes
the inter-relationship between various components of security, including economic, food, health, environmental, personal,
community, and political security.34 A human security framework places the onus on governments to
work towards achieving all these elements of security.35 This obligation extends to meeting the human
security needs of the international community, more broadly.36
Rather than blunting the benefits of a security frame, human security strengthens them by connecting
security directly to people’s survival and flourishing. As a result, a human security paradigm is
likely to sustain and even increase public attention to security-related issues, as well as the institutional
focus and resources that come with it. It also rectifies national security’s many shortcomings. This includes
challenging assumptions that security is best and most effectively achieved through unilateral executive
action. Of course, human security does not entirely prohibit these sorts of activities, which are reflected in various laws facilitating
presidential engagement on climate change. Nevertheless, it challenges assumptions that the president should always have
exclusive authority over national security matters. It
suggests, instead, that security is something intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, as well as grassroots civil society actors, social
movements, and influential individuals, have a role in creating and sustaining.37 To facilitate this public
involvement in national security decisionmaking, human security privileges government transparency over
secrecy.
Significantly, human
security can help mitigate national security’s civil and human rights problems. In the
permissible for security’s sake.38
At times, governments have even used national security to justify emergency measures typically
disallowed in liberal democracies because of their threat to individual liberty.39 Under a human
security approach, by contrast, human and civil rights are paramount.40 Focusing on the rights of
national security context, derogations from these rights are often considered
people, both as the objects and providers of security, challenges the notion that states of
emergency and other suspensions of liberal, democratic norms are the best or only way of achieving
security.41
As for national security’s strategic limitations, a human
security approach yields three distinct benefits. First,
unlike national security, human security de-emphasizes military strategies and emphasizes
investment in development initiatives. In particular, it promotes reductions in military budgets and
reallocation of funds to development work. Though human development and security are distinct, poverty and
social inequality undermine the physical, material, and political wellbeing of individuals.42 In many
countries, like the United States, military spending eats up resources necessary to tackling these pressing
issues.43 By linking security to sustainable development, rather than to the military’s might, human
security points dollars toward the former.44
Second, human
security facilitates the integrated, interstate solutions necessary to address climate
change. When it comes to tackling the climate crisis, experts agree that richer states must shoulder more of
the economic burden and provide a range of support to poorer states.45 Domestically, a similar redistribution of
resources is necessary to realize environmental justice and ensure the most vulnerable are
protected from climate change.46 These cooperative strategies are precisely the sort of activities supported by
human security, which emphasizes the connections between people and their responsibilities to one
another.
Third, human
security’s people-centered approach provides a basis not only for top-down, but also
bottom-up approaches to climate change.47 Addressing climate change requires both government regulation and
decentralized action by citizens. As Naomi Klein has argued,
[t]here is a clear and essential role for national plans and policies—to set overall emission targets that
keep each country safely within its carbon budget . . . . But if these transitions are to happen as quickly
as required, then the best way to win widespread buy-in is for the actual implementation of a great
many of the plans to be as decentralized as possible.48
Of course, to
be meaningful, a human security approach to climate change must be reflected in government
policy. Even with a change of administration, achieving that goal will require overcoming multiple challenges. They include
confronting intra-government actors invested in taking a military-first approach to climate change;
building substantial political will within government to take public demands about climate change’s
securitization seriously; and ensuring those demands remain rooted in a cosmopolitan notion of
human security, rather than a nationalistic or nativist one.
AT: Economic Analysis Bad
Economic analysis is the only pragmatic solution
Nyborg 2012 – Prof of Economics @ U of Oslo
Karine, The Ethics and Politics of Environmental Cost-Benefit Analysis, Routledge, p. 113-114
What we need to secure environmental protection is, I believe, incentives and institutions; we need green taxes, tradable emission
permits, subsidies to local communities protecting rare biotopes, subsidies to development of new climate-friendly technologies. We
may need prohibitions, nudges, institutional rules, institutional reforms. To protect the environment, we should focus our attention
on the factors affecting actual behaviors of consumers, firms, local communities, and governmental agencies in their everyday
activities. Neither
cost-benefit analysis nor any other method can provide ethically neutral
measures of how important an environmental change is for society. This is true even if we consider only
small changes that do not substantially affect the income distribution or relative prices. How important something is for society is,
essentially, a normative question.
Normative answers require normative premises. An analysis based on
specific normative premises cannot, at the same time, be ethically neutral. Still, policy choices must, of
course, be made. To do that, one needs to enter into ethical and political discussions. Ethics and politics are
important and deserve serious, competent, and thoughtful attention. It is not obvious, however, that the person best suited to take
care of those considerations is the project analyst. In a democracy, there are usually others who have been elected by voters to do
precisely that. It
is my belief that economic analysis can be more useful if, rather than explicitly ranking
it is limited to the task of being systematically descriptive. The
central question for the analyst is then not which project is best, but rather what information is
most important for decision-makers. Will the environment be forgotten unless one attaches a price tag to it? That is, of
projects according to their social desirability,
course, possible. If one really believes that monetary valuation increases the probability that decision-makers will take
environmental considerations into account, this is a strong argument for monetary valuation. Nevertheless, this reasoning may be
overly optimistic about the influence of such price tags. If
decisions were made solely on the basis of aggregate
willingness to pay as estimated in cost-benefit analysis, placing price tags on the environment
would be crucially important. But there is little evidence that decisions are made mainly on the basis of aggregate
willingness to pay. And after all, why should a price tag be expected to matter if no one has to pay the price written on it?
AT: Environmental Conflict
Security discourse surrounding environmental degradation brings about
awareness of crises that brings about action and resources dedicated to their
reversal.
Kumari 12 [Parmila; LLB Law and International Relations Masters, University of Birmingham
and University of Nottingham; 1-29-2012; “Securitising The Environment: A Barrier To
Combating Environment Degradation Or A Solution In Itself?”; E-International Relations;
https://www.e-ir.info/pdf/17235; Accessed 7-21-2021; BM]
This belief was widely held up until the end of the Cold War, after which the security concept was adjusted to new dangers and
concerns. These new threats were not coming from ‘another state’, nor did they involve the killing of people by weapons. One of the
considered dangers became environmental degradation, which was ‘exposed’ by national and international organisations, scientific
communities and the public’s progressive access to information through the internet(Brauch 2008:10). Environmental
degradation is “the processes by which the life-sustaining functions of the biosphere are disturbed”. This includes climate
change, biodiversity loss and depletion of fisheries and forests. There are two aspects to
environmental degradation; firstly it concerns resource scarcities, which include the scarcity of “natural
capital contributions to the economy” and secondly, the negative consequences of accumulation of
waste in hydrological, soil and food cycles because of the biosphere’s decreasing capacity to
absorb it (Barnett 2001:14). In this way environmental degradation came to be seen as a security threat where the ecosystem
and its ability to sustain certain life forms was at stake (Brauch 2008:6). Deudney argues that just because environment degradation
causes the loss of lives, does not mean to say it should be securitised. Disease, old age and accidents take lives, yet they are not
considered matters of security. If everything that causes a decline in human well-being is framed as a security threat, then “the term
loses any analytical usefulness and becomes a loose synonym of ‘bad’” (Deudney 1990:307). There are two issues that stem from
this. Firstly, environmental security concerns the “vulnerability of people to the effects of environment degradation”, and so is a
specific aspect of environmental degradation (Barnett 2001:17). It is not a catch-all concept because it excludes other environmental
issues like sustainable development (Barnett 2001:23). It refers to what is bad for people more than what is simply bad. The second
problem with Deudney’s analysis is that old age, disease and accidents cannot really be equated with environmental degradation. To
a certain extent these three problems are a natural part of human life. However, environmental
degradation is caused
by people. Climate change has been brought about by an increase in co2 levels because of human
activity, and its associated sea level rise can displace populations living along coastlines. Bangladesh,
for example, is especially vulnerable to floods (Mathews 1989:174). In any case, any disadvantages of
‘loosening’ of security may not outweigh the possible benefits. Securitising the environment
attracts the attention of high-level decision makers and results in the mobilisation of resources
(Detraz and Betsill 2009:303) because “security encapsulates danger much better than concepts like
sustainability, vulnerability or adaptation” (Barnett 2003:14). It is also ideal in that it facilitates
communication between a diverse range of interests, which is important since environmental
degradation impacts more than just one party (Barnett 2001:136). Consider the following scenario. Continued
population growth means greater pressure on governments to provide adequate food, housing,
jobs and healthcare. The task is all the more difficult for developing countries, where funds previously going to resource
conservation are redirected to meet basic needs. Scarcity of resources due to lack of resource conservation is bad news
for these countries’ economic performance, as resources are the natural capital contributions to the economy. This
could lead to political instability and conflict, pushing people out of their homes to seek refuge across
borders. These refugees will create extra demand for food and place new burdens on the land in the
place where they settle (Mathews 1989:162-168). This is one of many paths down which population growth can take states,
but the point is that resource scarcity in one area can spread its effects across borders. This is especially so now
due to economic interdependence. If the effects of environmental degradation do not respect borders/areas, then this presents a
case for cooperation with all those people in the world that are affected. If securitisation achieves high awareness and facilitates
communication from various interested parties, then it seems worthwhile. In this way securitisation may allow
the
meaning of environmental security to be stood and pronounced not just from one place, but
from many. The amalgamation of these standpoints may just lead to the closest thing possible
to a neutral one.
AT: Geoengineering Link
Geoengineering is inevitable – the plan ensure that is has oversight and avoids
their hyperbolic claims
Nicholson 2016 - Dr. Simon Nicholson is the director of the Global Environmental Politics
program in the School of International Service and Assistant Professor of International Relations
@ American U
Simon, “Reimaging climate engineering: the politics of tinkering with the sky” in Reimaging
Climate Change, Routledge, p. 127-128
My own view is somewhat different. In
engaging with the world as it is, rather than as one might wish it to
be, it is essential to realize that climate engineering is far too enticing and powerful a notion to
be shoved aside. Climate engineering is not going away. No new taboo will be erected that forces the climate engineering
genie entirely back into its bottle. Desperation is too strong a motivator. And so for me the question is not climate engineering or no
climate engineering. The question becomes, are there forms of climate engineering, and ways of conducting the conversation about
climate engineering approaches, that can bring out the best in humanity's climate response? Climate engineering is emerging as a
the struggle is not just over whether or not climate engineering is a good
idea - a bipolar, "to geoengineer or not to geoengineer" debate. Instead, it is a more complex, nuanced struggle,
which has to do with the role of engineering within the broader set of responses to climate
change, and the particular character of engineering options that might see development or deployment. It will require
extraordinary vigilance to ensure that climate engineering technologies are not advanced as some kind of false solution. The task
ahead is to push the climate engineering conversation in productive rather than destructive
directions. This can best happen to the degree that climate engineering is subjected to careful,
early, and well-crafted social oversight. The need for active civic engagement with climate engineering Climate
engineering is not some fiendish plot hatched by a group desperate to ward off real action on
climate change. It could well serve the same function, though, by distracting us from other, more beneficial actions. Climate
key site of political struggle. But
engineering certainly fits neatly with current dominant ways of understanding and responding to climate change, by telling us that
climate change is a discrete and manageable "problem" that can be tackled via technological means. And yet, at the same time,
climate engineering is not something that can be written off or ignored. I have asked here, can any
engagement with climate engineering be productive? The answer is, it depends; it rests on how the conversation is engaged. The
argument set out above is that consideration of climate engineering is now inevitable, so that the task of those interested in climate
politics and political action becomes to ensure that the climate engineering conversation is a productive one. As
the chorus of
voices calling for consideration of climate engineering continues to grow in size and volume, as
it is bound to do, it will become ever more important for a wider array of actors to engage
productively in the conversation. Climate engineering is not some aberrant, marginal response
to climate change. It is, instead, the expected response of a culture that partly looks to
technological solutions to complex societal challenges. Other approaches exist. These need to be heard to guide
the direction of climate engineering research and incorporate such forays into the broader challenge of addressing climate change.
AT: Food Wars
Totalizing rejection of food as a security problem marginalizes billions facing
hunger as an existential threat.
Shepherd 12 [Benjamin; Center for International Security Studies, University of Sydney,
Australia; 2012, “Thinking critically about food security”; Security Dialogue, 43(3) 195-212; DOI:
10.1177/0967010612443724; Accessed 7-21-2021; BM]
Hunger is a security problem In the light of the food price hikes of 2007 and 2008 that were followed by
protests, riots and violence in as many as thirty countries and led to political upheaval in Haiti and
Madagascar (BBC, 2008a,b, 2009a,b; Nicoll, 2008), some states have started paying increased attention to ‘food security’ and
have initiated actions to secure themselves against the risk of future supply shocks. Strategies
include grain stockpiling, market interventions and agricultural land acquisitions in other – often
less-developed – countries (Alshareef, 2009; People’s Republic of China, 2008; State of Qatar, 2011). Such actions suggest
that surety of food supplies is seen by some governments as a strategic imperative. These actions also have international
repercussions. Nevertheless, they are not usually studied as part of the (international) security practices of states. These actions also
ignore the problem of hunger. Given the scale of hunger in the world, there
are at least five reasons why hunger
warrants greater attention from security scholars, notwithstanding the divergent views of what constitutes a
security problem. First, as the deprivation of food, hunger is far more of a threat to life and a far
greater source of physical harm on a massive scale than deprivation of land, income, capital,
political voice or basic dignities. About one billion people regularly go hungry (FAO, 2009b,c, 2010). Many
hundreds of millions more live in poverty and have little capacity to avoid the risk of future hunger
in the face of exogenous shock, such as even a small rise in the price of staple foods. For many of these
people, hunger is an existential threat. They risk early death from lack of nutrition or from lack of
resilience to injury, infection or disease, and hunger dramatically curtails the physical and cognitive
development of their children. For the remainder, hunger and malnourishment erode their livelihoods
and limit their capacity as human beings. To paraphrase Booth (1997: 111), regardless of whether or not this is
labelled a security issue for and by the elites who define security agendas, it is an existential threat for those one
billion people. Second, by allowing this physical harm to continue, elites are failing in their selfassigned role as protectors and guarantors of security. In theory at least, this can be seen as a significant
undermining of political legitimacy and the legitimization of security practices. Third, and more practically, vulnerability to
hunger is a possible antecedent to conflict. Risks of deprivation conflicts and associated political
violence could conceivably be mitigated if the underlying pressures were addressed. Fourth,
pervasive hunger is demonstrative of a substantial lack of capacity not only for the individuals
but also for the communities and states that carry its burden. Finally, as this article intends to demonstrate,
despite some limitations in existing security frameworks, there is significant value, both practical and conceptual, to be
gained from approaching the problem of hunger with the tools of security scholarship.
AT: Pan K
China is a country run by military elites interested in expansion – zero chance
their authors can explain territorial expansion and maritime aggression
Wilson 2014 – prof of strategy and policy @ the Naval War College
Andrew R, The Chinese Way of War, Strategy in Asia, Stanford U Press, p. 123-125
After reviewing the five cardinal myths with more historical accuracy than they usually receive, the question
remains as to which aspects of the Chinese military tradition still inform its strategy. One thing seems
clear: there is no single Chinese way of war. One must take history and culture seriously when considering strategic
inclinations, and as scholarship of the past two decades on Chinese military history and culture clearly has shown, Chinese military
traditions are rich and diverse. But a Chinese strategist today who believes that the future trajectory of Chinese geostrategy is
determined by an intrinsic Chinese way of war is no more correct in evaluating tradition than an ancient Confucian who predicted
that an empire may be united only by a sage king. Today, Chinese
political and military leaders are free to
choose different models of military action in formulating policy, and though culture is one
resource they may draw on, it does not confine their actions to a predictable range. Even though
interest in the classics and the great captains and past campaigns is growing in China, the move back to tradition is tentative and
superficial. Most
of what appears in the Chinese media relies on tropes demolished above, and
specialists in Chinese security studies appear
to be obsessed with strategic culture and unearthing the Chinese way of war. This is an attempt to find
both greatness and solace in history. Although a Chinese way of war existed in the past, tradition has been under
intense attack for most of the last century, and the world view of Chinese leaders has been so
conditioned by foreign ideologies and military doctrines that it is hard to find much continuity
with that past. Aspects of contemporary Chinese strategy resonate with the past but may be coincidental. A deeper
understanding of how statecraft has been practiced in peace and war is needed, but in the near
term one should not be surprised by the continuation of self-Orientalizing reductionism that has
characterized the debate. Understanding Chinese military experience calls for examination of
the counterpoints to the myths that matter, including territory, size, strategy, culture, and the
near seas. China has waged countless wars of territorial expansion and defense. Because controlling
continental and maritime arenas is intimately linked to political legitimacy, China has tended to overemphasize the
value of territorial objectives. The large Chinese population, relative economic prosperity, and sophisticated bureaucracy
scholarship on the mainland is not particularly sophisticated. Many
led to gigantism in military affairs. From vast continent-spanning fortifications and treasure fleets to the herculean efforts of the
Korean War, even recent
Chinese governments have translated immense military potential into
immense military capability. While quantity may have a quality of its own, the gigantism of the past and present China has
produced important works of strategy, among them The Art of War and writings of Mao Zedong. Perhaps it is because of the scale of
warfare that thinking about the linkage between military operations and their political consequences has enjoyed a rich tradition in
China. Historically, China has been a continental power, but it has been putting to sea since at least the tenth century. Proximity
to the ocean and the first island chain is vital to Chinese security and prosperity. For most of its long
history China has dealt with a region marked by both uncertainty and overlapping sovereignties. That worked to the advantage of
Chinese states, because as long as a hostile power did not control the near seas, they enjoyed the fruits of maritime trade without
the need for a large navy. Today
Chinese views are conditioned by a century of humiliation. If given the
requisite military capability and provocation, the Chinese will go to war at sea. As opposed to a single
coherent strategic culture, myths represent flawed assumptions that many Chinese and foreign observers enthusiastically embrace.
Myths not only seek to define a Chinese way of war but posit alterities that define the strategic culture of a potential enemy. The
yin-yang of the philosophy ofDaosim and the dialectics of Marxism-Leninism may explain contemporary Chinese strategists who
regard the inclinations of adversaries as the polar opposite of their strategic culture myths. China is not alone in embracing this
version of strategic polarity, but given the insecurities that plague its growing military potential, it is nonetheless troubling to find
questions of policy, strategy, and war dealt with in simplistic ways.
AT: Water Wars
Robust consensus backs up water wars – it will determine the future of 21st
century conflict.
Angelakis et al. ’21 [Andreas N.; Water Resources Engineer at the National Agric. Research
Foundation, Institute of Crete, Hellas and Technical Consultant of Hellenic Union of Municipal
Enterprises for Water Supply and Sewerage; “Water Conflicts: From Ancient to Modern Times
and in the Future”; 2021; Vol. 13, Issue 8; Sustainability; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13084237;
Accessed 7/19/21; NT]
The current global population growth, as
well as urbanization, exacerbate the difficulties that cities
face to provide water and sanitation services, particularly in developing countries. On the other hand,
complicated socioeconomic problems, including inequality, incompetent legal frameworks, land
use/cover changes, poverty, and poor water governance have important implications for the
management of urban and rural water resources. Reforms in the shape of ownership and management of water and
sanitation facilities via privatization and various forms of semi-private and public partnerships also have impacts on access to water
resources. These reforms may lead
to the augmentation of water conflicts over access to water resource
services if not undertaken with serious consideration to socioeconomic situations. The collection of references
presented in this paper focus on water conflicts, politics, wars, arguments, fights, tensions, and violence, in an effort to determine
controversial aspects of water resources management.
As states rely on competing claims and rising war conflicts—which not only occur in modern
history, but also in prior millenniums—it is no coincidence that, as the years pass, the inequity of water
distribution will expand globally. This element is indicative of how likely the scenario will be of
future wars causes (in regards to claiming aquifers) [170].
Since Bronze Age, massive droughts that wiped out cities, civilizations—as we have learned from history—
depend on water. This precious resource has been a source of tension and a factor in conflicts among countries,
states, and groups, and will continue to be a determining factor for development in the future.
The United Nations recognizes that water disputes result from opposing interests of water users,
public or private [171]. Other terms of water conflict describe it as a conflict between countries, states, or human groups over access
to water resources [99,171–173].
The same methods of
conducting armed conflicts are strongly influenced by the water factor, which
has therefore constituted a crucial aspect of military logistics since ancient times. Units of the
Roman army during the military campaigns were specifically assigned to water transportation, as shown in Rome
on the Trajan and Aurelian Columns, depicting soldiers loading water barrels on wagons supporting the troops. In recent times,
technological evolution has strongly influenced the logistics systems supporting the troops, especially
in areas with a shortage of water resources. The first mobile desalination units— “distillers”—were used
during World War II in the Pacific area; subsequently, since the 1980s, there has been increasing use of
reverse osmosis systems.
Various sub-disciplines have grappled
with war’s etiology, but each in turn, as with definitions of war, often
reflects a tacit or explicit acceptance of broader philosophical issues on the nature of determinism and
freedom. Heraclitus decried that war is the father of all things, and Hegel echoed his sentiments. Interestingly, even Voltaire, the
embodiment of the Enlightenment, followed this line: “famine, plague, and war are the three most famous ingredients of this
wretched world...Air, earth and water are arenas of destruction” (from Pocket Philosophical Dictionary).
The high number of shared
rivers, combined with increasing water scarcity for growing populations,
led many politicians to claim that the wars of the next century will be about water. The only problem with this
scenario is a lack of evidence. While water supplies and infrastructure have often served as military tools or targets, no states have
gone to war specifically over water resources, since the city–states of Lagash and Umma fought each other in the Tigris−Euphrates
Basin in 2500 BC. Instead, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), more than 3600 water
treaties were signed from 805 to 1984 AD. Whereas most were related to navigation, over time, a growing number addressed water
management, including flood control, hydropower projects, or allocations in international basins. Since 1820, more than 680 water
treaties and other water-related agreements have been signed, with more than half of these concluded in the past 50 years.
The historical record proves that international water disputes do get resolved, even among enemies and even as conflicts erupt over
other issues. Some of the world’s most vociferous enemies have negotiated water agreements, or are in the process of doing so, and
the institutions they have created often prove to be resilient, even when relations are strained.
As for the
use of water as a weapon of war, one can conclude that it is unfortunately still an
element present in military conflict or in situations of “asymmetric war”—from the bombing of dams in Europe
in the Second World War to the destruction of water infrastructure, and attempts to contaminate water by terrorist groups,
especially in the Middle East. Despite the existence of shared
international rules, the problem persists, and
this is why we need to be prepared—from a technical point of view—to protect the populations. Reasonable
and democratic agreements are necessary.
Future water conflicts will be somewhat different from the past with different types of challenges
[174–176]. These new challenges include a water–energy nexus complicated further by the energy–water–land
(EWL) nexus, which is then further complicated by the climate-EWL nexus, with many linkages and interactions, with the three
resource sectors and climate fluctuations [176]. Water conflicts will also include water supply systems security
[175], especially related to terrorism, where “water resources or water systems are either targets or
tools of violence or coercion by non-state actors”. The vulnerabilities in water supply systems include raw water
sources (surface and/or groundwater); raw reservoirs; raw water channels and pipelines; connections to water
distribution systems; pump stations and valves; and finished water tanks and reservoirs. Physical disruption
would include destroying or disrupting key elements of the water system; however, contamination has
generally been viewed as the most severe potential threat to water supply systems.
The concept of sustainability
is also a major component of water conflicts. In particular, water resources
sustainability, which is defined as follows [176]: “Water resources sustainability is the ability to use water in
sufficient quantities and quality from the local to the global scale to meet the needs of humans and
ecosystems for the present and the future to sustain life and to protect humans from the damages
brought about by natural and human-caused disasters that affect sustaining life”. In summary, the future will be
challenging in regards to water conflicts, especially in areas that have potential for water crisis
challenges, such as central Asia [177,178].
It must be noticed that water
can be considered as a weapon to fight enemies/rivals who want to
access/withdraw water for their benefit. Additionally, it can be considered as a resource to fight for when
its availability is very low. Therefore, the access to water could be a weapon against or a reason for a
fight.
Today and in the future, there
is a greater focus on the peaceful sharing and management of water at both
the international and the local level in the developed world. Moreover, there is a tendency to reduce water use and
increase water production. However, in the developing world, internal, sub-state conflicts about water
are endangering the livelihoods of millions of people and, therefore, deserve the international community’s full
diplomatic, scientific, and financial attention.
Impact Turns
2AC – Warming Discourse Good
Deliberation over fear of warming is good – debating policy options criticizes
worst forms of apocalyptic framing while preserving the best.
Pfau 2007 - Prof of Communication – U Minnesota-Duluth
Michael, “Who's Afraid of Fear Appeals? Contingency, Courage and Deliberation in Rhetorical
Theory and Practice,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 40.2 (2007) 216-237
A fear appeal possessing each of these characteristics is not only relatively ethically
unproblematic, but is a potentially valuable tool capable of enhancing [End Page 232] public
deliberations about some issues. "Civic fear" as developed by Aristotle and explicated within this essay is an emotional
disposition with the potential to help the body of deliberators (whether legislators or citizens) to enhance
their collective perception of the events threatening the republic. It is the potential of "civic fear" to enhance collective
perception of events that allows this emotional state to incline audiences toward deliberation. Once decision makers
apprehend the potential dangers posed by events more clearly, they are in a much better
position to begin formulating potential courses of action, and weighing which of these actions is likely to
preserve the republic from danger. "Civic fear," in other words, is an emotional state that, at its best, opens up deliberative
possibilities.
This type of fear appeal is to be contrasted with the traditional "dichotomous" fear
appeal that is depressingly common in contemporary political discourse, and remains a lightning
rod for ongoing humanist suspicions of fear and fear appeals in politics. Such fear appeals, in fact, are
often used as strategies to bypass deliberation and scare audiences into adopting a rhetor's preferred alternative (as in the case of
the passage of the USA-PATRIOT Act).¶ While this essay falls short of endorsing standard "dichotomous" fear appeals, and even
remains skeptical of many of the baser fear appeals populating U.S. political discourse, this
is not to suggest that all
"dichotomous" fear appeals are inherently irrational or manipulative. Walton's work has established the
appropriateness and rationality of some of these traditional fear appeals, and provided some relatively
clear rules from traditional argument theory and pragmadialectics in order to assist citizens and
critics in their attempt to evaluate them.70 But the cognitive character of this emotion also allows the possibility that
the fear appeal can be used in a specifically civic and deliberative mode, as a means to enable citizens and policy makers to better
recognize the nature of the problems facing the political community, and to begin thinking about potential solutions. In some
respects, appeals
to "civic fear" are especially necessary now at a time when many leaders, policy
makers, and citizens—due to self-interest, unwarranted confidence, or excessive fear—have turned a blind eye to
the very real dangers posed by global warming, fossil fuel dependence, resource depletion, income polarization,
increasing corporate control of politics, failing health care systems, record budget deficits, record trade deficits, and the long list of
other problems that remain relatively unrecognized by a regime that seems focused solely on an object of fear that is already clearly
recognized by all. Under
such circumstances, one can only hope that legislators and citizens will
possess the courage, as well as the foresight, to face these underappreciated objects of fear,
and commence open and vigorous discussions about potential solutions. Perhaps the ongoing
abuse of fear appeals by the powerful may eventually itself [End Page 233] become an object of "civic fear," and inspire
academics, political leaders, and citizens to even more fundamental deliberations regarding the
character of U.S. political discourse, and the fate of the United States itself.
Debate is critical to bring awareness of conceptual solutions and the risks of
climate change.
Weber and Stern 11
Elke and Paul C, “Public Understanding of Climate Change in the United States,’” American
Psychologist; Vol. 66, No. 4, 315–328 (May/June)
The Future of Public Understanding and Its Relation to Action The trajectory of public understanding frustrates many climate
scientists and educators who see climate risks growing, understand that delayed action will increase the risks further, and believe
that concerted action is needed now to reduce them (e.g., Hansen, 2009). Many of these concerned individuals see climate literacy
and continuing
efforts by scientists to explain what they know as the way to accomplish the
objectives of improved public understanding, increased public concern about climate change, and increased public
support and action to reduce climate risks. However, unless existing behavioral science evidence collected in different domains of
application is brought to bear on climate literacy and education, there
is no reason to believe that future efforts
will be any more successful in improving public understanding or willingness to take action
related to climate change than past efforts have been. Conventional educational and informational programs
are unlikely to have a major effect on aggregate public opinion, and more effective strategies need to be devised to improve public
understanding and to increase individual and collective action. As political ideology plays a large role in people's beliefs about
climate change and their policy support, problems
with public understanding are not mainly due to a knowledge
deficit but often result from a deficit in trust in the conveyors of climate models and data ( Malka &
Krosnick, 2009).¶ Improving Public Understanding¶ Public understanding of climate change needs improvement, but the problem is
not one of “illiteracy.” In comparison to the rest of the world, the American public has an average amount of knowledge about
climate change and an average understanding of climate change phenomena ( Brechin, 2003). U.S. adults who doubt that climate
change is happening, is anthropogenic, or presents serious risks should be assumed not to have a deficit of knowledge but rather to
have different understandings. Individuals holding mental models that conflict with the available scientific evidence are not a blank
slate, as the metaphor of illiteracy suggests, so the needed educational process is not one of adding to knowledge but one of
inducing conceptual change. Research on science education indicates that preconceptions that conflict with scientific understanding
can be tenacious and that instruction that does not address them typically fails to help learners adopt mental models that are
scientifically accurate ( National Research Council, 2005). A developing literature, focused mainly on teaching fundamental scientific
concepts to children, identifies common preconceptions in some areas of science and studies “learning progressions” that can lead
learners effectively from their preconceptions to mental models that are consistent with scientific understanding ( National
Research Council, 2007). Changing adults' misconceptions about climate change will likely prove more difficult than teaching
children, but the general principle of beginning with learners' preexisting mental models surely applies ( Bostrom et al., 1994;
Kempton, 1991). What can scientists and educators do to improve U.S. public understanding? We
begin by stating a
position in favor of “nonpersuasive communication” ( Fischhoff, 2007). Much of value can be gained
by efforts to inform the public in ways that are not disguised efforts to engage support for a line
of public policy. Thus, it is important for scientists to continue to explain what is and is not known
about climate change to journalists, policymakers, and the general public, using normal science education
approaches, and to explain the difference between reducible versus irreducible uncertainty.
Such efforts will be valuable to people whose understandings already approximate those of scientists, whose understandings are
relatively unformed, or who become more open to input from scientists in the future. It is also important to continue to correct
errors and mischaracterizations of the science of climate change, which continue to be publicized despite repeated corrections.
These efforts are necessary, though unlikely to be sufficient, to raise the level of public understanding in the current politicized
environment.¶ Other approaches are needed in addition. One is to explain a simple conceptual frame for understanding climate
change that is more congruent with the state of knowledge than the persuasive frames on offer now—a frame that does not claim
too much for the ability to make climate predictions or exaggerate the import of existing scientific uncertainties. 7 Recent scientific
reports are beginning to define such a frame—one that emphasizes risk or uncertainty management ( Gober, Kirkwood, Balling, Ellis,
& Deitrick, 2009; National Research Council, 2009, 2010a, 2010b, 2011; Pollack, 2007). In this frame, climate
change is
shown to alter the profile of risks from the many events associated with climate, typically
increasing such risks, including catastrophic ones. Responses to climate change are presented as
options for risk management, not as self-evident responses to a predictable future.¶ The risk
management frame is readily understandable. Everyone faces catastrophic risks (from life-threatening diseases,
automobile accidents, house fires, and even climate-related events), and everyone understands strategies for
managing them. One strategy is to reduce activities that might lead to catastrophe (e.g., controlling
our diets, staying off icy roads, or for climate change, adopting energy-efficient and low-emissions technology). Another is to lower
the cost of catastrophic events if they occur (e.g., installing air bags and fire extinguishers, buying health and fire insurance, or, with
climate change, protecting vital infrastructure and improving early warning and emergency response capabilities). Yet another
strategy is to invest in a better understanding of the risk profile and of the likely costs and
benefits of the risk management options. People manage risks by employing combinations of
these strategies or by employing none of them and taking their chances.
2AC - Security pedagogy good
Discussions of security politics are necessary for education, no need to tie us to
their faulty link logic
Downs and Murtazashvilli 2012
Donald Alexander [Alexander Meiklejohn prof of political science, law, and journalism @ UW
Madison] and Ilia [Assistant prof at the grad school of public and international affairs @ U of
Pittsburgh], Arms and the University, Cambridge University Press, p. 405-408
Our purpose in presenting this discussion of the various approaches to security studies was not to take a side in the debates that
have proliferated in the expanding field. We had two different purposes. First, we wanted to provide a framework to cast light on
the empirical findings that we presented earlier in this chapter. To make sense of these findings, one has to have a basic idea of the
fundamental thinking and controversies in the field of inquiry. Our second purpose relates to the pedagogical theme of the book: to
provide reasons for taking the study of military-related issues seriously. In the context of security studies, this means appreciating
the classical approach to security studies, for that approach consciously includes military power as a central tenet. As stressed
throughout this book, the
point is certainly not to push a militaristic or promilitary agenda, but rather to
demonstrate how the inclusion of military-related study can contribute to liberal and civic
education. Indeed, as mentioned at the beginning of Chapter 2, the debate between realism and its critics
raises profound empirical, normative, and philosophical questions that cut to the core of civic
and liberal education: What is the meaning of citizenship? Is it rooted in universal principles, or is it socially constructed?
What is the role of morality and ethics in international life, and what are the most effective means of promoting these goods? Is
there such a thing as universal truth, or is truth contingent upon interest or social construction? Are ethical standards universal, or
do they differ among different realms, such as private morality, economic relations, domestic politics, and relations among nations?
How do power and the threat of force relate to citizenship and moral obligation? Classical
security studies also pose
questions regarding life and death. In addition, it is evident that classical strategic studies and
realism are still very relevant to political and international life. First, who can reasonably avow
that self-interest and the will to power (at both the individual and the state levels) have disappeared as
important aspects of human motivations and action? Even if wars are less prevalent than in the
past, and if the theorists of democratic peace are on to something, the fact remains that
organized violence remains part of our world; and it lies in the background of states and international orders within
which the practice of democratic peace prevails. 64 (In other words, democratic peace must ultimately be backed by power,
whether the power comes from international institutions - which have not had an unblemished record thus far in protecting peace
and justice - or the commitment of powerful states or alliances such as NATO f5 Second, such rogue states and "revolutionary
regimes" as Iran and North Korea are on the verge of possessing nuclear weapons as of this writing. If they attain these weapons,
the nations within the realm of democratic peace will be obligated to deploy the doctrine of deterrence against them. Some
strategic thinkers are now even reconsidering the previously rejected doctrine of the threat of limited nuclear war to deter such
regimes.66 Third, as many advocates of human rights acknowledge, sometimes military intervention is needed to secure those rights
in the face of tyranny. And if such intervention does not come, the consequences are obvious, as the graves, hospitals, and rivers of
blood in such places as Nazi Germany, Armenia, Darfur, Rwanda, Burma, Iran, and the Gulags of Communism have shown.
Accordingly, sometimes
peace is preserved not by pacifism or extreme reluctance to use arms, but
rather by a plausible deterrent force. 67 If so, peace and war studies are not necessarily in
opposition to one another, but can constitute two sides of the same coin. As MIT's Stephen Van Evera
has remarked, most theories about the causes of war are also about theories of peace- and vice versa. 68 Fourth, some scholars
have empirically demonstrated that even liberal states with republican forms of government are considerably more likely to follow
the strictures of international law when it serves their interests to do so than when it does not. 69 And fifth, what do we make of
conflict that arises from the animosity of nonliberal states or groups that lie outside the realm of democratic peace? Sometimes this
conflict is itself a product of the very practices that contribute to democratic peace - supporting classic realism's grasp of the tragic
nature of life and international relations. As Philip Bobbitt has demonstrated in two magnum opuses, the rise of "market states" in
the late-twentieth century- the products of economic interdependency - helped to fuel the jihadist terrorism that now threatens
those very states. The economic relations and activities of market states extend beyond traditional physical borders, embedding
market polities in international networks that sometimes defy the limits and perquisites of sovereignty. (Market states are prime
examples of the decentering of the state.) This expansion of economic activity and power alienates fundamentalist Islamists, but
also provides networks of communication and information that Islamic terrorists use to recruit members and obtain technological
knowledge. In many ways, liberal democracy's conflict with terrorism epitomizes the tensions and dilemmas that beset international
relations theory today: Dispute reigns over whether the conflict should be considered a war or a law enforcement matter, and the
legal status of non-state terrorists who violate the rules of war is a matter of continuous dispute. 70 Is the threat posed by terrorism
real, or is it also influenced by our constructions of the threat? The confrontation with international terrorism provides both
vindication and refutation of all schools of security studies. But at the very least, realism and traditional security studies have
something important to say about terrorism on a variety of levels. Constructivism has usually been used to question realism's
suspicion of international organizations and order. But a constructivist sensibility can also cut in the other direction. For example,
some commentators have observed that some liberal internationalists and peace advocates project their own beliefs in goodwill and
peace onto others whose purposes are much less benign. (Among a multitude of examples are Woodrow Wilson's faith in the
League of Nations, Neville Chamberlain's views toward Hitler, Jimmy Carter's earlier views toward the Soviet Union, and George W.
Bush's earlier assumptions regarding Vladimir Putin.) Accordingly, constructivism can be used to question the assumptions of all
schools of IR, including its own when some of its practitioners unduly dismiss realism's claims. Realism- including the "moral
realism" as we have conceptualized of it in this book - and the
traditional core of security studies remain highly
relevant, even if responsible scholars and policy makers must account for alternative
understandings. And since the project of this book deals with pedagogy, we are not obligated to
pick a horse in this race. It is enough to acknowledge that the tenets of realism and traditional security
studies are important regardless of one's policy or normative position, and that such tenets broaden and
deepen the knowledge to which students are exposed in campus life today. Security studies programs remain
hospitable to realism, and it is not isolated from the university or singular in its approach. In
general, the security studies programs that we asked about are sources of productive friction to
varying extents.
2AC – Eco Rhetoric Good
Our rhetoric is good—their links are industry propaganda to make protecting
the environment sound radical.
Peeples et al. 14 Jennifer Peeples is Associate Professor in the Department of Languages,
Philosophy and Communication Studies at Utah State University; Pete Bsumek is Associate
Professor of Communication Studies and Co-Director of Center for Health and Environmental
Communication at James Madison University, Steve Schwarze is Associate Professor and Chair in
the Department of Communication Studies at The University of Montana; Jen Schneider is
Associate Professor of Liberal Arts and International Studies at the Colorado School of Mines.
“Industrial Apocalyptic: Neoliberalism, Coal, and the Burlesque Frame”, University of Montana
Law Review.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1013&context=communications_pub
s, [Accessed: 7-18-2021]//cblasi
In the realm of environmental controversy in the United States, apocalyptic rhetoric is
consistently associated with environmentalist voices. Examples of such labeling abound: an editorial in
the Investor’s Business Daily discussing clean air concludes, “Meanwhile, green groups froth with
apocalyptic rhetoric.” 2 Describing a case of ecotage, the editor of the Richmond Times Dispatch claims, “It is
mildly tempting to blame mainstream environmentalists, with their sometimes apocalyptic
rhetoric, for fostering an atmosphere upon which the lunatic fringe feeds.”3 And in a piece provocatively
titled “No reason to fear the environmental bogeyman,” Ben Eisen contends, “For decades, the more radical elements of the
modern environmental movement have employed terrifying, apocalyptic rhetoric in an effort to scare citizens and policymakers into
enacting an agenda that can go beyond common sense environmental policies.” 4 But the
easy association of
environmentalism with apocalyptic rhetoric is inaccurate and politically misleading. When mass
media identify environmentalism as apocalyptic, they mark environmentalism as radical,
outside the mainstream, and unreasonable, which clears a space for 3 industry voices to be
perceived as the rational center, the common sense approach to environmental issues. 5 This
association also deflects attention from the apocalyptic rhetoric that comes from industry. In his
history of environmental politics, Samuel Hays problematizes the association of environmental discourse with the apocalypse,
claiming that historically, "environmentalists were the purveyors of optimism about the possibilities of human achievement while
administrative and technical leaders were the constant bearers of bad news. In the media the roles were reversed:
Environmentalists warned of impending catastrophe, while the technical leadership exuded optimism.” 6 Rhetorical
scholars
who continue to identify apocalyptic rhetoric with environmentalism reinforce this distorted
perception of the rhetoric of environmental controversies—a move that unnecessarily limits our
understanding of apocalyptic rhetoric. For example, although M. Jimmie Killingsworth and Jacqueline Palmer
acknowledge that “the enemies of environmentalism have regularly devised apocalyptic narratives of their own,”7 they also identify
apocalyptic narrative as “a standard feature of environmentalist polemic”8 and focus primarily on
environmentalist voices while giving brief attention to only two examples of apocalyptic rhetoric
from opponents of environmentalism: Monsanto’s rejoinder to Silent Spring titled The Desolate Year, and the rhetoric of
former Interior Secretary James Watt.9 More recently, Christina R. Foust and William O. Murphy analyze apocalyptic framing in US
press coverage of climate change, yet those
frames are almost exclusively built from quotations of proenvironmental sources.10 In our view, the scholarly and public focus on environmentalist uses of
apocalyptic discourse has deflected attention away from the structure and function of
apocalyptic rhetoric used by countermovements to environmentalism. This essay seeks to remedy that
oversight. We propose the concept of industrial apocalyptic as a significant rhetorical form in
environmental controversy, using texts in support of the US coal industry as our examples. We define industrial
apocalyptic as narratives that constitute the imminent demise of a particular industry or a broader economic system for the purpose
of influencing public opinion and public policy. This form of apocalyptic is consistent with the secular apocalyptic that Kurt Ritter and
David Henry identify in the conservative rhetoric of Ronald Reagan, a rhetoric that, in James Arnt Aune’s view, consistently seeks to
manage the ideological tensions between free market capitalism and patriotism. 11 We find that the industrial apocalyptic rhetoric
used on behalf of the coal industry relies on a burlesque frame to disrupt the categories of establishment and outsider and to thwart
environmental regulation.12 Ultimately, the
industrial apocalyptic co-opts environmentalist appeals for
radical change in the service of blocking such change and naturalizes neoliberal ideology as the
common-sense discourse of the center
Case turns the K—critiquing environmental rhetoric reinforces neoliberal
ideology
Peeples et al. 14 Jennifer Peeples is Associate Professor in the Department of Languages,
Philosophy and Communication Studies at Utah State University; Pete Bsumek is Associate
Professor of Communication Studies and Co-Director of Center for Health and Environmental
Communication at James Madison University, Steve Schwarze is Associate Professor and Chair in
the Department of Communication Studies at The University of Montana; Jen Schneider is
Associate Professor of Liberal Arts and International Studies at the Colorado School of Mines.
“Industrial Apocalyptic: Neoliberalism, Coal, and the Burlesque Frame”, University of Montana
Law Review.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1013&context=communications_pub
s, [Accessed: 7-18-2021]//cblasi
The apocalyptic rhetoric and the burlesque framing deployed by the coal industry also enable the
industrial position to be seen as the common-sense discourse of the center. As Star Muir explains, the
very assertion that environmentalists engage in apocalyptic rhetoric and the absence of a countervailing
label for similar industry rhetoric does the rhetorical work of positioning environmentalism as extreme
and its proposed solutions as hopelessly utopian. 81 Moreover, as Hays suggests, labeling
environmentalists as doomsayers elides the optimism that comes with the belief that
environmental problems can be identified and solved, and deflects attention from the inherent
pessimism of industrial apocalyptic discourse, which asserts that any attempt at addressing
environmental problems will lead to certain economic decline and job loss. 82 That pessimism is
reconstituted as commonsensical and realistic. Our analysis extends Hays’s insight by developing the ideological implications of
these rhetorical strategies; in particular, that industrial apocalyptic in a burlesque frame provides a rhetorical form that is well suited
to normalizing neoliberalism as common sense. It is effective for two main reasons. First, liberalism, and by extension neoliberalism,
are ideologies that are often articulated through a burlesque frame. As Burke notes, “The
method of burlesque (polemic,
caricature) is partial not only in the sense of partisan, but also in the sense of incompleteness.”83
Liberalism, according to Burke, offers rights, but denies obligations. It defends liberty and private property in
absolutist terms, and ignores corresponding and complementary duties to society and the common good, which, in turn, would
“require us to stress the ambivalence of rights and obligations.” 84 For Burke, “the very basis of classic liberal apologetics, the
overemphasis upon freedom, was but a sober way of carrying out the burlesque genius.” 85 Neoliberalism, like liberalism,
utilizes this same kind of over-emphasis on freedom to craft an extreme and polemic ideology
that identifies individual liberty with private property and market rationality. The use of the
burlesque frame masks the apocalyptic character of the industrial narrative. The frame helps manage
the tension between the apocalyptic narrative’s implied call for radical rebellion and the neoliberal goal of restoring traditional freemarket principles According to Killingsworth and Palmer, apocalyptic
narrative “is an expansive and offensive
rhetorical strategy.” 86 It goes on the offensive by implying “the need for radical change,” by marking “oneself as an
outsider,” risking “alienation,” and urging “others into the open air of rebellion.” 86 By deploying apocalyptic
narratives, the coal industry is able to go on the offensive, position itself as a radical outsider, and
call for rebellion against a caricatured opponent. But in combination with the burlesque frame, industrial apocalyptic turns away
from calls for radical social or ideological change and thus avoids risking alienation. In this sense, industrial
apocalyptic is a
new twist on the strategy of aggressive mimicry that Jennifer Peeples observed in the rhetoric of the Wise Use
Movement, 88 in which pro-industry organizations employed the anti-establishment identity and
discourse of environmental groups in order to force environmentalists to use limited resources
to defend themselves against the characterization that they were government insiders focused solely on special interests. In
this case, the coal industry co-opts the apocalyptic language and appeals of environmentalists, but
then uses a burlesque frame to position those who produce and benefit from an entrenched
neoliberal ideology as radical outsiders being attacked by powerful and dominant foes. Just as Tea Party rhetors
position themselves as radical outsiders, even while they defend the most basic and traditional liberal principles (individualism,
liberty, private property), so too is the coal
industry able to position itself as a radical agent of social
change, even while it works to prevent social change. The appearance of burlesque in industrial apocalyptic,
its degree of intensity, and its potential shading into tragedy89 all may serve as indexes of
neoliberal ideology, and point toward sites where neoliberalism’s footing is not yet secure. In other words, industrial
apocalyptic marks key moments of the ideological suturing of neoliberalism’s contradictions. The burlesque frame is just one
rhetorical tactic for pursuing this work. The exaggerated,
absurd extremes of industry rhetoric analyzed in
this essay mark an aggressive mode of neoliberal rhetoric, whereas the rhetoric of coal front groups that
makes support for coal inherent to regional cultural values or national identity reveals its more positive, celebratory mode.
Ultimately, industrial
apocalyptic rhetoric attempts to clear the rhetorical field of competing voices
and naturalize neoliberal ideology as the commonsense way of approaching environmental and
economic crises.
AT: Identity Shapes Policy
Their assertion is non-falsifiable and wrong
Gray 2014 – prof of politics and strategic studies, director of Centre for Strategic studies @ the
University of Reading
Colin S, Strategy and Culture, Strategy in Asia, Stanford U Press, p. 93
The influence of culture simply asserts the identity of actors or organizations. Even when the
United States must respond to strategic circumstances shaped by a foreign strategic culture, that response
will bear some American characteristics. However, it is not self-evident that those characteristics
will be particularly American. To state the matter bluntly, the notion of strategic culture is logically and
empirically problematic. One cannot presume identity drives behavior. More often than not, identity is
overcome by exigency. People tend to behave in ways not only because of who they are and what
they believe in but also because of where they find themselves, and not necessarily by their own volition,
either politically or strategically.