Week 2: The Academic Field of
Security Studies
IR 522 Security Issues in Global Context - Instructor: Dr. Bezen Balamir Coşkun
2 March 2011
Contents
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SECURITIZATION: WHAT MAKES SOMETHING A SECURITY
THREAT
The word “Security”
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All sorts of questions might be asked about the word security.
What does it mean to be secure?
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Who is doing the securing?
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Who or what is being secured?
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Dictionary definitions are of no help. Dictionaries tell us that security involves something (anything) which promotes
safety or protection. But, from what? And, toward what end? Perhaps security exists on a spectrum, from some
nominal, taken-for-granted level to some extreme, high-alert level. Perhaps it is a process (more or less of it exists), and
further, perhaps it is normative (good and bad forms of it exist). When security is considered a process that is subject to
moral evaluation, this is the idea or concept we call SECURITIZATION.
Securitization
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Securitization, as a concept, originated from the writing of Ole Wæver (1995), a Danish professor of the Copenhagen
School of international relations which is part of the constructivist perspective in social science, which holds that some
things don't really exist in material reality, but only exist as social constructs in peoples' minds because people tacitly
agree to act as if something existed.
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Most constructivists analyze international relations by looking at things like goals, threats, fears, cultures, or identities -in short, the kinds of things which exist subjectively in peoples' minds. Another good read on the subject is the edited
volume by Katzenstein (1996), which uses constructivist critique, like McSweeney (1999) to attack notions of national
security and national interest as being too closely based on a state-centric approach.
Securitization
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Most constructivists hold that anybody can put the adjective "national" in front of something for rhetorical purposes,
and government officials often do so for rallying people behind some foreign policy. Constructivists hold that state
interests are not "discovered" but constructed. National security policy is not "formulated" by rational actors, but is
instead shaped by contested identities and other social factors such as the norms and cultures within a society. Balzacq
(2005) has called these three things (identities, norms, and cultures) the "three faces" of securitization (agency, audience,
and context).
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identities -- the ways that individuals label themselves
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norms -- rules that are socially enforced, whether written or unwritten
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cultures -- the ways people classify, codify, and communicate their experiences
Securitization
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A constructivist approach, however, has both advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage is it opens up new
vistas for ways of seeing things, particularly new types of fear-driven and anxiety-laden threats. The main disadvantages
include downplaying of the importance of realistic threats, casting negativity over any attempts at generalizing, and
seeing culture conflict where integration is the pattern. However, constructivism forces us to not only consider a wider
variety of threats, but gives us ways to better understand the concept of securitization. It is a five-stage, sequential model,
which can be portrayed as follows:
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defining (some problem as "deviant") -- the equivalent is defining something as a security issue
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prospecting (for some medical discovery) -- an equivalent is dusting off some old intelligence report
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claims-making (of one's interest group) -- the equivalent being some powerful interest group backing the idea
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turf-battling (over who "owns" the issue) -- the equivalent being a politician using strong rhetoric
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designating (the matter in law or legislation) -- the equivalent is the passing of authorization to use force
Securitization
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This model of SECURITIZATION describes the process of real-life
actors "interpreting" and "re-interpreting" things so that some
audience becomes convinced, in a particular context, that what was once
a non-security problem must now become a security problem.
High & Low Security Threats
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As Hough (2004) points out, there is the "high" politics of state security (those things which ordinarily require military
action) and the "low" politics of health, welfare, and other issues (which don't ordinarily require military action). Other
than describing variable access to the ear of a Commander in Chief, this distinction is mostly a matter of relative
prestige among and between policymakers and policy advisors. Far more useful may be the distinction Hough (2004)
makes between "wideners" and "deepeners" because this distinction assumes the broadened conception of security that
the Copenhagen School or constructivists take for granted. Not all security threats are military threats. Not all security
threats involve nation-states. Not all security threats are political or ideological, as with "haves" exploiting the "havenots." Indeed, more people have been killed in human history by things which don't involve nation-states or military
conflicts at all. It may seem unorthodox to think of security this way, but it's exactly how the "wideners" of the
Copenhagen School see it -- hurricanes and earthquakes as being pretty much a threat in the same sense as a military
attack. A typical "widener" definition of a security threat is as follows:
A Widened Definition of Security
Threat
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It is only clear that by the late 1990s, the field had accepted a conventional wisdom that threats and vulnerabilities can
arise in non-military contexts, or as Buzan et. al. (1998: 5) put it: "as existential threats to a referent object by a securitizing
actor who generates endorsement of emergency measures." Exactly what constitutes an "existential threat" is anyone's
guess. Hard threats exist that need little "redefining."
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The 1990s saw contributions by the "deepeners" who advocated a notion of human security (Falk 1995). This notion directly
attacks the line that only the state can be a securitizing actor. Security is a human condition, and the people, not their elites,
should be the ones who say when their insecurities are being addressed. In what is now a popular buzzword, "human security"
holds that a people-centered view of security is necessary for global stability. The United Nations embraces this view in the
form of their United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the largest multilateral source of development assistance in the
world. Today's security threats do go beyond defense threats and include poverty, economic inequality, diseases, human rights
abuses, environmental pollution, and natural disasters.
A Widened Definition of Security
Threat
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On terrorism -- people-centered interventions are needed to address underlying problems, get at the root causes, and make
concessions as to rebuilding infrastructure, redirecting investment, and setting up programs for inclusion and reconciliation
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On disease -- empower public-private partnerships and other global actors to take a role in prevention, education, and
communication, eliminating states from the picture who only want to protect their economies and tourism industry
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On global warming -- climate changes are a "threat multiplier" and activism is needed to change peoples' attitudes from apathy
into action
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On poverty -- address gender asymmetries in livelihoods and support microcredit initiatives to enable poor people to participate
in economic activity
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On natural disasters -- utilize more humanitarian intervention, even if it violates principles of state sovereignty
Human security obviously has more meaning in a local rather than global context. For instance, opinion polls of
Europeans by the EU show that most Europeans feel more frightened by organized crime and the possibility of nuclear
power plant accidents than terrorism. U.S. policy officials involved in the war on terror should not be surprised when
other nations (in other contexts) don't seem to "get it" in the same way the U.S. does. Those who agree that terrorism
ought to, indeed, be a priority threat for all nations often charitably use the word "strategic" to describe such
prioritization. In all fairness, human security is an emerging field and has yet to develop ways to prioritize threats.
Realism
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Those who defend the traditional nation-state approach to security are called realists. It is important to understand their position and (shall we
say) "old-fashioned" way of declaring something a security threat. Using the word "strategic" is old-fashioned in this sense, and it references not
just the need for a military definition (security studies being the study of the threat, use, and control of military force), but the idea that a threat is
something which threatens national security interests.
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Historically, it is a very old idea that a state should protect its citizens from threats, and in return, citizens should provide their loyalty. You may
know this idea as a popular version of what is called the SOCIAL CONTRACT, an idea in political philosophy which can be traced to the 1651
book, Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes. Realists tend to think anarchy would result if this contract were violated, but realists have had many
defectors from this position. For example, what is sometimes called the Welsh school of critical security studies, and best represented by Booth
(1991: 539), holds that "security and emancipation are two sides of the same coin; both are needed, in both theory and practice, to create stable
security." By comparison, the Copenhagen school, best exemplified by Buzan et.al. (1998) strictly rejects the idea of nation-state military
solutions for almost any threat. As discussed in a previous lecture on the Academic Field of Security Studies, many realists today have formed, or
are forming, their own departments of "war studies" or "strategic studies." The neorealist Mearsheimer (1995) holds that the only proper
subject matter of security studies ought to be the safeguarding of "core values" that a state holds dear. The neorealist Walt (1991) regards the
proper subject matter as anything which leads a nation to prepare for war.
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Not all realists hold hard-line views. Some have a more widened orientation. Nye's (2004) "soft power" approach, for example, represents a
kind of mix between realist and constructivist (widened) views. Soft power denotes the non-military dimensions of state power, particularly the
kind rooted in information technology, or "keeping on top" of the Internet-driven information age. Some countries, like Canada, for example,
have embraced a different constructivist (deepened) view, and set for themselves such goals as to become the world's leader in land mine removal
and reform of the U.N.
National Security & Vital Interests
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See Table 1 A Rank Order of National Security Threats
National Security & Vital Interests
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No one would seriously advocate military attack in retaliation for embarrassment or differences of opinion. However, no
one wants to wait stoically for annihilation while weapons of mass destruction are stockpiled. Each nation is expected to
use negotiation via its diplomacy system to prevent aggravations, humiliations, and grievances from escalating, but only
democracies tend to honor this system, and a variety of other political systems ignore it. Some nations tend to take action
in the face of humiliation; and other nations are notorious for acting militarily on differences of opinion. There is also
the matter of dissuasion (a subtype of deterrence) which applies when there is one remaining superpower in the world (a
hyperpower). Additional burdens and responsibilities befall such a power. The current US-UN regime (if it could be
called that) is based on a preference for alliances or coalitions, but America's history of unilateral action has also
displayed a reliance upon strategies of destabilization, deterrence, and dissuasion. In real politics (realpolitik), there is an
inherent connection between the notion of "threat" and the notion of "vital interest." The following are the standard
vital interests of any country, particularly the United States:
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Protecting the territory and population of the homeland
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Preventing the emergence of a hostile coalition
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Ensuring freedom of the seas, lines of communication, airways, and space
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Ensuring uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources
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Deterring and defeating aggression against allies and friends
Threats & Challenges
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Many liberals, pacifists, and others refuse to participate in the "threats
discourse" because they think it's fearmongering. They prefer the word
"challenges" instead. A good exposition of this viewpoint is contained in
Abbott, Rogers & Sloboda (2008) who attempt to answer the difficult
question about what are the biggest threats in the world today. They
argue there are five (5) of them: climate change; terrorism; competition
over resources; marginalization of the world's population; and global
militarization. (See Table 2)
The Prioritization Problem
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In many ways, thinking about which threats or challenges are the biggest in the world today is a prioritization problem. Clearly, there
is a consensus that multiple challenges exist, and the only real way of measuring the response is to look at how much money states
appropriate toward such problems.
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some security issues can be compartmentalized in terms of whom is the most threatened, or whom exactly benefits; but others
cannot. Some threats are Munich-type (attempting to negotiate only leads to massacre); others are not. At different levels, perceived
threats may seem as real as the "life or death" threats that governments say are realistic.
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Some coercive diplomacy moves and humanitarian interventions are more an act of charity than a response to a security
threat. Military threats are, likewise, subject to not being readily apparent much of the time (although even a liberal hawk would agree
that no attacked nation should let its dead go unanswered). What's needed is some way to measure what nation states allocate their
money on.
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As Krause and Williams (1996) point out, questions about what is to be secured and by whom and how are likely to continue in debates
over the construction and practice of "securitization."