Table Of ContentNassef M. Adiong
Securitization
Understanding Its Process in the field of International Relations
Seminar paper
Document Nr. V125925
http://www.grin.com/
ISBN 978-3-640-32225-1
9 783640 322251
SECURITIZATION
Seminar Paper
Department of Political Science
College of Social Sciences and Philosophy
University of the Philippines, Diliman
In partial fulfillment of the requirements in Special Problems and
Topics in International Security (Intl Stud 267 - WNOP)
Presented by
Nassef M. Adiong
25 March 2009
Historical and Philosophical Bases of Security Studies.....................................................3
The Copenhagen School on securitization framework: Conceptualization of the theory..6
The Singaporean School on securitization framework: Defining an Asian perspective....9
Conclusion: A critique both on the Copenhagen and Singapore securitization frameworks
...........................................................................................................................................11
References:........................................................................................................................12
1
From the previous session of the class (3 December 2008), the students have had a better
understanding on the central points of debate over the issues of international security i.e.
how it is being redefined from the traditional to non-traditional security and as against to
the amorphous orientation of human security, and its effects brought over to the
development of security in the field of International Relations. Now, we will discuss how
security had been conceptualized and what methodology or approaches had contributed
to the expansion of its conception.
I asked Prof. Kraft whether time, in terms of periodization of events, affects the evolution
on contextualizing and conceptualizing security. He latently answered that in to some
extent it does by referencing events like the saliencies of the Cold War era to the 1994
Rwanda’s humanitarian crisis, etc. My impression to the reading materials provided in
the syllabus are constructively relevant in terms of periodization of historical events in
consonance to the areas of concerns that are unfolding in today’s human world. Thus
security matters triggered an important effort for scholars to empirically study its
dynamics and magnitude for the benefit of, mainly, policy-making procedures. I may be
wrong about this premise, but this is how I surmised the intricacy devolving in
international security particularly its separatist elements to other disciplines such as
international political economy or even getting away to the ambit of politics.
Consequently, the paper will focused on how and why do issues become security issues?
How issues securitized? Why do they occur? Is such an issue sufficient enough to be
measured as a security matter? Which areas of concerns have contributed to the
expansion of the conception of security? Some of the posited queries are inscripted in the
syllabus as the main focal point of the paper while others were formulated in response to
questions raised from the previous class session. The paper will begin with the
fundamental philosophical descriptions about security, its historical antecedents of
conceptualizing the securitization theory to the presented paradigm and methodology
used by the Copenhagen School (CS), and of course its subsequent criticisms made by
the Singaporean School (SS) under the IDSS-Ford research project on Non-Traditional
Security (NTS) in Asia. The seminar is delimited to the theses presented in the reading
2
materials under the reference section and will only provide a general framework and
guidelines for the succeeding seminar presentations for their (my colleagues in Intl Stud
267) chosen specific and significant security issues.
Historical and Philosophical Bases of Security Studies
In its broadest and academic term, “security” has been defined contemporarily by Buzan
and Wæver (1998) as being that special type of politics in which specified developments
are socially constructed threats, having an existential quality to cover values and/or assets
of human collectivities and leading to a call for emergency measures. However,
surveying the old traditional perceptions of security dating back from Plato, Aristotle,
Confucius, to Rousseau, Kant, Kautilya, to Hobbes, Machiavelli and to Morgenthau, I
found out a linkage of a security study in answering human’s physiological needs that is
interpreted in varied disciplines from Philosophy, Political Science to International
Relations. Their arguments were presented in the study done by Solidum et al (1991, p.
13-16), to Plato such path leading to security was presented in his ideal republic. The
total security, both spiritual and material, was brought about the creation of a new society
and all its institutions based on the right principles of social existence. Plato related these
principles to the idea of the universal Good as governing nature.
For Aristotle the quest for security was connected with his idea of fullness of being and
ideal nature. This took the form of instinctive striving after perfection as embodied in the
species. In the area of man’s social or political life, security arrangements manifested
themselves in certain types of social systems said to be harmony with nature or in
conformity with man’s striving after full development of himself or the Good’s life. For
Confucius security was associated with commitments to certain universal principles of
conduct. The ultimate aim was to bring about a condition of universal social harmony and
stability. Goodness of human nature was often assumed which, if damaged, could be
restored mainly by proper education.
3
For Rousseau, the quest for security look from the man’s attempt to return to his natural
condition, which Rousseau portrayed as the natural goodness of man, and man’s quest for
political legitimacy. To Kant, security meant the recognition of the rational possibility of
a universal peace. However, to an Indian thinker, Kautilya, contends that holding the
opinion that universal egoism made permanent security impossible. He developed a
system of security where this was treated as so many strategies by which, given the egoist
nature of man, social living or security, could be made manageable, and so, relative
security might be attained.
Hobbes’ argument of an organized society where security prevails takes place in the
shadow of the Leviathan-ruler, ever prepared to use his sword to enforce the conditions
of the social contract, which was the original choice of anarchic men. Buzan and Wæver
(p. 4) opined that his premise were individualistic (not organicist or romantic like the
German ancestors of realism). His starting point is that the individual has a right to self
defense, but that individual pursuit of self-preservation is vulnerable. The basic
Hobbesian argument that a social contract constructing a commonwealth was necessary
or at least preferable for security and thereby liberty, they found it necessary to tame and
constrain the state. On the other hand, Machiavelli argues that the possibility of relative
security could exist only if a society or a statesman behave as a disciplined and
responsible citizen, or alternatively, if a regime is run in an authoritarian manner, with
force being used generously to repress anarchic tendencies in man.
In my understanding, security occurs due to the fact that man is responsible in protecting
himself from the threats that he thinks is existing with a purpose of building a securitized
environment, and for him to live by sufficing and enjoying his satisfactions. In this prism,
we’ll going to discuss the differing security theories from the perspective of International
Relations and how time impacted its evolution of being conceptualized. Theoretical
interest in security from the perspective of realism acquired importance in the 16th and
17th centuries with mercantilist ideas of national protectionism. While an important phase
in recent thought on security has been the era of the “Cold War,” where the search for
national and world-wide security has tended to crystallize itself in terms of two
4
competing camps, one associated with the Soviet Union and the other with the United
States. In contemporary, one view of security is that which defines as the protection of
values previously acquired or as high value expectancy in the sense of continued
unmolested enjoyment of one’s possessions as Solidum et al (p. 16) described. Here,
security, when viewed as a topic of international politics, is generally perceived as the
ability of a state to protect its way of life, its “core values,” meaning its territorial
integrity and political independence.
Within the context of the power paradigm, security conceived as the absence of threats to
national status or values could be attained or maintained only through the accumulation
of instrument of power. She (p. 17) discussed that Morgenthau sees the issue of security
within the context of international politics where sovereign state pursues its own peculiar
national interest. Obviously, during the Cold War there has been a tendency to emphasize
balance of power and military power which are thoughts of as useful for protecting
national security or interest. On the other hand, according to Buzan and Wæver (p. 2),
since the onset of Cold War, liberal theory has downplayed security and security studies
mostly ignored or dismissed liberalism. Liberalism challenges the logic of security by
asserting that the supposedly permanent realist world of fear can in fact be not only
alleviated, but possibly even replaced altogether. If states act according to a liberal logic
of maximizing absolute gains and generally prioritize economics over politics, then the
war problematic to security will become marginal, and both security studies and the
security institutions of the state will eventually become redundant.
During the World War I, the British have been busy desecuritizing issues in the sense of
social democracy while in World War II up to the Cold War; Americans had introduced a
new paradigm which is securitizing issues through their liberal perspective. Here security
was shaped by the contradictory pressures of reacting to Soviet Communism as a broad-
spectrum external threat, and containing the risk of domestic military threats to the liberty
of American civil society. Therefore they (p. 3) contends that securitization, is not just a
call for political priority, but if need be, for permission to break the normal rules of
politics i.e. by using force, by taking executive powers, or by imposing secrecy.
5
Caballero-Anthony and Emmers (2006, p. 23) added that it is when the move that takes
politics beyond the established rules of the game and frames the issue either as a special
kind of politics or as above politics and may refers to the classification of and consensus
about certain phenomena, persons or entities as existential threats requiring emergency
measures.
They explained that securitization is thus mostly about calls for closure against things
perceived as existentially threatening and further, the consensual establishment of threat
needs to be sufficient so as to produce substantial political effects. What constitutes an
existential threat is thus viewed by CS stating that it depends on a shared understanding
of what is meant by such a danger to security. Threat may be classified into three
according to Solidum et al (p. 28): actual, potential, and fictitious.
1) Actual threats are existing conditions that can, at any moment, reduce security;
2) potential threats are conditions tending to reduce security but are not
transformable to actual threats due to some constraints; and
3) fictitious threats are conditions that are perceived to reduce security but do not
really exist.
By introducing the concept of securitization and classifying the threats, we will move on
how it is being securitized, why issues become security issues, and which areas of
concerns have contributed to the expansion of the conception of security?
The Copenhagen School on securitization framework:
Conceptualization of the theory
Caballero-Anthony and Emmers (p. 21-23) asserted that the CS, a body of research
mainly associated with the work of Barry Buzan and Ole Waever, has developed a
relevant instrument to conceptualize the theory of securitization. This theory outlines the
political nature of “doing” security and challenges the traditional approach to security -
concerned with identifying and dealing with supposedly self-evident threats - and
introduces a social-constructivist perspective that considers how problems are
transformed into security issues. Securitization is the successful process of labeling an
6
issue a security issue and results in the transformation of the way of dealing with it. This
transformation has relevant implications; through the label “security” problems are turned
into existential threats that require exceptional, emergency measures, which may include
breaking otherwise binding rules or governing by decrees rather than by democratic
decisions. Haacke (2007, p. 3) simply puts that to securitize an issue is to present as
urgent and existential, as so important that it should not be exposed to the normal
haggling of politics but should be dealt with decisively by top leaders prior to other
issues.
In Caballero-Anthony and Emmers (p. 23-24), they were five key terminologies in the
process of securitization which was presented by CS for security studies, namely:
security, securitizing actors, referent objects, specific audience, and the speech act.
ƒ Security. A socially constructed concept about survival wherein an issue is
presented as posing an existential threat to a designated object. It is securitized
when articulated by a securitizing actor.
ƒ Securitizing Actors. These are governments, international organizations or civil
society actors that securitize an issue by articulating the existence of threat(s) to
the survival of specific referent object.
ƒ Referent Objects. These can be individuals and groups (refugees, victims of
human rights abuses, etc.) as well as security issues like states (military security),
national sovereignty or an ideology (political security), national economies
(economic security), collective identities (societal security), or species or habitats
(environmental security) that possess a “legitimate” claim to survival and whose
existence is ostensibly threatened.
ƒ Specific Audience. The act of securitization is only successful and complete once
the securitizing actor succeeds in using the language of security which is the
“speech act” to convince a specific or significant audience e.g. public opinion,
politicians, military officers or other elites, etc. that a referent object(s) is/are
existentially threatened.
ƒ Speech Act. This is an important part in the process of securitization. According to
Wæver (1998), with the help of language theory, we can regard "security" as a
7
speech act. In this usage, security is not of interest as a sign that refers to
something more real; the utterance itself is the act. By saying it, something is
done (as in betting, giving a promise, naming a ship). By uttering "security," a
state-representative moves a particular development into a specific area, and
thereby claims a special right to use whatever means are necessary to block it.
Through this process, two things became very clear. First, the word "security" is
the act and second, the utterance is the primary reality. Caballero-Anthony and
Emmers (p. 24) further explained that speech informs and influences our
perception of reality and has a direct impact on human behavior and outcome, just
like what Prof. Kraft had talked about on how we can convince a specific
audience that this is a security issue and explaining the delineation between
security and academic issue e.g. poverty as a security or developmental issue. He
answered by elaborating the implication of psychological response to them for the
purpose of prioritizing and mobilizing greater resources.
Examples for this framework can be substantially presented by the areas of concerns in
securitization as chosen by my colleagues in Intl Stud 267, ranging from the issues of
environmental security, economic, migration, health, gender, transnational crimes in drug
and human trafficking, terrorism, maritime, and human rights and humanitarian
intervention on security studies.
Consequently, the CS provided a framework to determine how and by whom a specific
matter becomes a security, and that the securitization theory eliminates the rigid
distinction between “traditional” and “non-traditional.” However, Haacke (p. 4) gives
some fundamental questions regarding the distinction of securitization to politicization of
an issue: Does a referent object hold general legitimacy as something that should survive,
which entails that actors can make reference to it, point to something as a threat, and
thereby get others to follow or at least tolerate actions not otherwise legitimate? In this
sense, we will present the criticisms on Copenhagen School’s securitization theory.
8
