Reconstructing desecuritisation: The normative-political in the Copenhagen School and directions for how to apply it

Review of International Studies

Volumn 38, Issue 3, 2012, Pages 525-546

  Hansen, Lene ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN   (Denmark)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84862564531     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: 14699044     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210511000581     Document Type: Review

References (135)

1. Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1998), pp. 4, 29.
2. See, for example, Jef Huysmans, 'The Question of the Limit: Desecuritisation and the Aesthetics of Horror in Political Realism', Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 27:3 (1998), pp. 569-89; (Pubitemid 128646811)
3. Michael C. Williams, 'Words, Images, Enemies: Securitization and International Politics', International Studies Quarterly, 47:4 (2003), pp. 511-29;
4. Claudia Aradau, 'Security and the Democratic Scene: Desecuritization and Emancipation', Journal of International Relations and Development, 7:4 (2004), pp. 388-413; (Pubitemid 40059052)
5. Hayward R. Alker, 'On Securitization Politics as Contexted Texts and Talk', Journal of International Relations and Development, 9:1 (2006), pp. 70-80;
6. Claudia Aradau, 'Limits of Security, Limits of Politics? A Response', Journal of International Relations and Development, 9:1 (2006), pp. 81-90;
7. Andreas Behnke, 'No Way Out: Desecuritization, Emancipation and the Eternal Return of the Political - A Reply to Aradau', Journal of International Relations and Development, 9:1 (2006), pp. 62-9;
8. Rita Taureck, 'Securitization Theory and Securitization Studies', Journal of International Relations and Development, 9:1 (2006), pp. 53-61.
9. Ole Wæver, 'The EU as a Security Actor: Reflections From a Pessimistic Constructivist on Post-Sovereign Security Orders', in Morten Kelstrup and Michael C. Williams (eds), International Relations Theory and the Politics of European Integration (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 250-94;
10. Paul Roe, 'Securitization and Minority Rights: Conditions of Desecuritization', Security Dialogue, 35:3 (2004), pp. 279-94; (Pubitemid 39408331)
11. Matti Jutila, 'Desecuritizing Minority Rights: Against Determinism', Security Dialogue, 37:2 (2006), pp. 167-85; (Pubitemid 43733150)
12. Paul Roe, 'Reconstructing Identities or Managing Minorities? Desecuritizing Minority Rights: A Response to Jutila', Security Dialogue, 37:3 (2006), pp. 425-38; (Pubitemid 44304762)
13. Rita Floyd, 'Towards a Consequentialist Evaluation of Security: Bringing Together the Copenhagen School of Security Studies and the Welsh School of Security Studies', Review of International Studies, 33:2 (2007), pp. 327-50;
14. Kristian Åtland, 'Mikhail Gorbachev, the Murmansk Initiative, and the Desecuritization of Interstate Relations in the Arctic', Cooperation and Conflict, 43:3 (2008), pp. 289-311;
15. Megan MacKenzie, 'Securitization and Desecuritization: Female Soldiers and the Reconstruction of Women in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone', Security Studies, 18:2 (2009), pp. 241-61.
16. Ole Wæver, 'Securitization and Desecuritization', in Ronnie D. Lipschutz (ed.), On Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), p. 75.
17. Page number refers to the reprinting of Wæver, 'Securitization and Desecuritization' in Barry Buzan and Lene Hansen (eds), Sage Library of International Relations. International Security: Volume III - Widening Security (London: SAGE, 2007), pp. 66-98.
18. Huysmans, 'The Question of the Limit', pp. 572-3.
19. See also Roe, 'Securitization and Minority Rights', pp. 282-3.
20. Taureck, 'Securitization Theory and Securitization Studies', p. 59;
21. Floyd, 'Towards a Consequentialist Evaluation', pp. 330, 335;
22. Aradau, 'Security and the Democratic Scene', pp. 389-90 and 406;
23. see also Williams, 'Words, Images, Enemies', p. 521.
24. Floyd and Aradau are right that emancipation is refuted, but emancipation is not the only concept, through which a normative claim can be made. Floyd is also right, that Wæver describes ethical issues as the domain of 'securitization studies', but a possible distinction between securitisation studies and securitisation theory is not suggested elsewhere. As this article will show, if there is such a distinction, it must be one, that locates the former within the latter. Taureck, 'Securitization Theory and Securitization Studies', p. 55;
25. Wæver, 'The EU as a Security Actor', p. 252.
26. Huysmans, 'The Question of the Limit';
27. Williams, 'Words, Images, Enemies';
28. Behnke, 'No Way Out';
29. Taureck, 'Securitization Theory and Securitization Studies', p. 59;
30. Diez and Higashino, unpublished paper presented at BISA 2004, quoted by Taureck 'Securitization Theory and Securitization Studies', p. 59;
31. Aradau, 'Security and the Democratic Scene', p. 396;
32. Holger Stritzel, 'Towards a Theory of Securitization: Copenhagen and Beyond', European Journal of International Relations, 13:3 (2007), pp. 357-83;
33. Rita Floyd, Security and the Environment: Securitisation Theory and US Environmental Security Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 14-17, 26-7;
34. Jutila, 'Desecuritizing Minority Rights', pp. 172-4.
35. Buzan et al., Security, pp. 142-3;
36. Floyd, Security and the Environment, p. 9.
37. Bülent Aras and Rabia Karakaya Polat, 'From Conflict to Cooperation: Desecuritization of Turkey's Relations with Syria and Iran', Security Dialogue, 39:5 (2008), pp. 495-515;
38. Åtland, 'Mikhail Gorbachev, the Murmansk Initiative';
39. MacKenzie, 'Securitization and Desecuritization'.
40. This conception is located within 'the classical tradition that contains Machiavelli as well as Arendt'. Buzan et al., Security, p. 144.
41. Michael C. Williams, The Realist Tradition and the Limits of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 112. Williams identifies these themes in a discussion of Morgenthau, but they are, as this article will show, at the heart of debates over politics and security more generally.
42. Huysmans, 'The Question of the Limit';
43. Williams, 'Words, Images, Enemies', pp. 516-17.
44. Huysmans, 'The Question of the Limit', p. 584.
45. Williams, 'Words, Images, Enemies', p. 518;
46. see also Williams, The Realist Tradition.
47. Williams, 'Words, Images, Enemies', p. 520.
48. Buzan et al., Security, p. 143;
49. Wæver, 'The EU as a Security Actor', pp. 284, 286.
50. Patricia Owens, Between War and Politics: International Relations and the Thought of Hannah Arendt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 25-6.
51. Williams, 'Words, Images, Enemies', p. 523.
52. Wæver, 'The EU as a Security Actor', p. 252.
53. For a further discussion of speech act theory and the Copenhagen School, see Thierry Balzacq, 'The Three Faces of Securitization: Political Agency, Audience and Context', European Journal of International Relations, 11:2 (2005), pp. 171-201; (Pubitemid 40856141)
54. Juha A. Vuori, 'Illocutionary Logic and Strands of Securitization: Applying the Theory of Securitization to the Study of Non-Democratic Political Orders', European Journal of International Relations, 14:1 (2008), pp. 65-99.
55. Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976).
56. Christopher Norris, Derrida (London: Fontana, 1987), p. 66.
57. Aradau holds that desecuritisation is 'the necessary supplement or challenge to securitization', but she does not see it as supplementary in Derridarian terms, but rather as 'deprived of any political sting'. Aradau, 'Security and the Democratic Scene', pp. 405-6.
58. Thus, according to Nicole J. Jackson, securitisation theory is difficult to apply to authoritarian states, because of the absence of 'normal politics' in those settings. Nicole J. Jackson, 'International Organizations, Security Dichotomies and the Trafficking of Persons and Narcotics in Post-Soviet Central Asia: A Critique of the Securitization Framework', Security Dialogue, 37:3 (2006), pp. 299-317, p. 312. (Pubitemid 44304757)
59. Buzan et al., Security, pp. 4, 23-4.
60. Ibid., p. 29. For a further discussion of the relationship between the securitised and the non-politicised, see Lene Hansen and Helen Nissenbaum, 'Digital Disaster, Cyber Security, and the Copenhagen School', International Studies Quarterly, 53:4 (2009), pp. 1155-75
61. and Floyd, Security and the Environment, pp. 56-7, who suggests conceptualising desecuritisation as falling into two categories: the politicised and the depoliticised.
62. Owens, Between War and Politics, p. 26.
63. Williams, 'Words, Images, Enemies', p. 523.
64. Thomas Risse, "'Let's argue!": Communicative Action in World Politics', International Organization, 54:1 (2000), pp. 1-39, p. 7.
65. Buzan et al., Security, p. 27.
66. Christina Boswell, 'Migration Control in Europe After 9/11: Explaining the Absence of Securitization', Journal of Common Market Studies, 45:3 (2007), pp. 589-610, p. 606.
67. Roxanne Lynn Doty, 'States of Exception on the Mexico-U.S. Border: Security, "Decisions," and Civilian Border Patrols', International Political Sociology, 1:2 (2007), pp. 113-37, p. 131.
68. Wæver, 'The EU as a Security Actor', p. 262.
69. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1990), p. 25.
70. Buzan et al., Security, p. 27.
71. For a further discussion of the concept of audience in securitisation theory, see Balzacq, 'The Three Faces of Securitization';
72. Stritzel, 'Towards a Theory of Securitization';
73. Matt McDonald, 'Securitization and the Construction of Security', European Journal of International Relations, 14:4 (2008), pp. 563-87.
74. Wæver, 'Securitization and Desecuritization', p. 75;
75. Huysmas, 'The Question of the Limit', pp. 572-3.
76. Floyd, Security and the Environment, p. 27.
77. Wæver, 'The EU as a Security Actor', p. 266.
78. Much of the debate about responsibility has centred on the role of the security analyst, but I would argue that the audience for Wæver's plea for responsibility is wider than that and includes all who might manifest themselves as securitising actors. Johan Eriksson, 'Observers or Advocates? On the Political Role of Security Analysts', Cooperation and Conflict, 34:3 (1999), pp. 311-30;
79. Ole Wæver, 'Securitizing Sectors? Reply to Eriksson', Cooperation and Conflict, 34:3 (1999), pp. 334-40, p. 335;
80. Michael C. Williams, 'The Practices of Security: Critical Contributions - Reply to Eriksson', Cooperation and Conflict, 34:3 (1999), pp. 341-4.
81. Wæver, 'The EU as a Security Actor', p. 253;
82. Pinar Bilgin, 'Making Turkey's Transformation Possible: Claiming 'Security- speak' - not Desecuritization!', Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 7:4 (2007), pp. 555-71, p. 559.
83. Wæver, 'The EU as a Security Actor', p. 285, emphasis added.
84. Wæver, 'Securitizing Sectors?', pp. 338-9;
85. Wæver, 'The EU as a Security Actor', p. 283.
86. Floyd, 'Towards a Consequentialist Evaluation'.
87. Stefan Elbe, 'Should HIV/AIDS Be Securitized? The Ethical Dilemmas of Linking HIV/AIDS and Security', International Studies Quarterly, 50:1 (2006), pp. 119-44.
88. One should keep in mind though, holds Stefan Elbe, that the constitution of 'disease management' as a technical-bureaucratic 'bio-political' issue might be as problematic as an explicit securitisation. Stefan Elbe, 'AIDS, Security, Biopolitics', International Relations, 19:4 (2005), pp. 403-19, pp. 404, 409.
89. Ivo Banac, 'The Fearful Asymmetry of War: The Causes and Consequences of Yugoslavia's Demise', Dædalus, 121:2 (1992), pp. 141-74;
90. Robert M. Hayden, 'Balancing Discussion of Jasenovac and the Manipulation of History', East European Politics and Societies, 6:2 (1992), pp. 207-12.
91. Wæver, 'The EU as a Security Actor', pp. 282-5.
92. R. B. J. Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 74-80.
93. Wæver, 'The EU as a Security Actor', p. 283.
94. Wæver, 'Securitizing Sectors?', p. 339. For an alternative normative theory which distinguishes between morally right and wrong securitisations and desecuritisations, see Floyd, Security and the Environment.
95. For an exception, see Floyd, Security and the Environment, p. 27, n. 58, and pp. 33-8.
96. Wæver's 'Moments of the Move' from 1989 is an early indication of the 'theory in the background' strategy of securitisation theory. Footnote 1 refers to an earlier, unpublished paper on 'the political move' in Aristotle, Machiavelli, and 'especially Hannah Arendt', yet the present paper will be 'burdened as little as possible by philosophical and theoretical discussions'. Ole Wæver, 'Moment of the Move: Politico-Linguistic Strategies of Western Peace Movements', Working Paper no. 1989/13 (Copenhagen: Centre for Peace and Conflict Research, 1989),
97. printed in Ole Wæver, Concepts of Security (Copenhagen: Institute of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, 1997), pp. 183-210, p. 186.
98. This 'theory in the background' strategy might have contributed to the controversy over the status of securitisation as political theory. Alker, 'On Securitization Politics'.
99. Wæver, 'Securitization and Desecuritization', p. 75.
100. See for instance, Ole Wæver, 'Ideologies of Stabilization - Stabilization of Ideologies: Reading German Social Democrats', in Vilho Harle and Pekka Sivonen (eds), Europe in Transition: Politics and Nuclear Strategy (London: Pinter, 1989), pp. 110-39;
101. Ole Wæver, 'Conceptions of Détente and Change: Some Non-Military Aspects of Security Thinking in the FRG', in Ole Wæver, Pierre Lemaitre and Elzbieta Tromer (eds) (eds), European Polyphony: Perspectives beyond East-West Confrontation (London: Macmillan, 1989), pp. 186-224.
102. Ole Wæver, 'Conflicts of Vision: Visions of Conflict' in Ole Wæver, Pierre Lemaitre and Elzbieta Tromer (eds), European Polyphony: Perspectives beyond East-West Confrontation (London: Macmillan, 1989), pp. 283-325, p. 294.
103. Wæver, 'Ideologies of Stabilization', p. 116.
104. Wæver, 'Conflicts of Vision', p. 324, n. 82.
105. Wæver also quotes Richard K. Ashley to the effect that the inside/outside dichotomy is highly likely to keep informing states' view of their security. Wæver, 'Conflicts of Vision', pp. 293-4.
106. Wæver, 'Ideologies of Stabilization', p. 115
107. Wæver, 'Conflicts of Vision', p. 314.
108. Wæver, 'Moment of the Move', p. 205;
109. Wæver, 'Conflicts of Vision', p. 316.
110. Wæver, 'Ideologies of Stabilization', p. 116.
111. Ole Wæver, 'Three Competing Europes: German, French, Russian', International Affairs, 66:3 (1990), pp. 477-94.
112. Wæver, 'The EU as a Security Actor', pp. 261-2.
113. Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver, 'Macrosecuritisation and Security Constellations: Reconsidering Scale in Securitisation Theory', Review of International Studies, 35:2 (2009), pp. 253-76.
114. Wæver, 'The EU as a Security Actor', p. 262.
115. On the possibility of disappearance as progress, see Floyd, 'Towards a Consequentialist Evaluation', p. 343, n. 56.
116. Valentina Pop, 'Hungary Heading for Fresh EU Controversy with "History Carpet"', euobserver.com (12 January 2011), available at: {http://euobserver.com/843/31629} accessed 11 August 2011.
117. Wæver, 'Ideologies of Stabilization'.
118. Claudia Aradau, Rethinking Trafficking in Women: Politics out of Security (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
119. Wæver, 'The EU as a Security Actor', p. 262.
120. Bilgin, 'Making Turkey's Transformation Possible', p. 566.
121. Behnke, 'No Way Out'. p. 64.
122. Roe, 'Securitization and Minority Rights';
123. Roe, 'Reconstructing Identities'.
124. Aras and Polat, 'From Conflict to Cooperation', p. 512.
125. For a fuller account of this triple move, see R. B. J. Walker, 'Lines of Insecurity: International, Imperial, Exceptional', Security Dialogue, 37:1 (2006), pp. 65-82, pp. 78-80; (Pubitemid 43530034)
126. see also Richard K. Ashley, 'Geopolitics, Supplementary; Criticism: A Reply to Professors Roy and Walker', Alternatives, 13:1 (1988), pp. 88-102, pp. 94-5;
127. David Campbell, National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity, and Justice in Bosnia (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), pp. 209-43.
128. Costas M. Constantinou, 'Poetics of Security', Alternatives, 25:3 (2000), pp. 287-306, pp. 288-9.
129. Andreas Behnke, 'The Message or the Messenger?: Reflections on the Role of Security Experts and the Securitization of Political Issues', Cooperation and Conflict, 35:1 (2000), pp. 89-105, p. 90, 96.
130. Åtland, 'Mikhail Gorbachev, the Murmansk Initiative', p. 305.
131. Karl Christian Lammers, 'Denmark's Relations with Germany since 1945', in Hans Branner and Morten Kelstrup (eds), Denmark's Policy towards Europe after 1945: History, Theory and Options (Odense: Odense University Press, 2000), pp. 260-81, p. 265.
132. MacKenzie, 'Securitization and Desecuritization', p. 245.
133. Lene Hansen, 'The Little Mermaid's Silent Security Dilemma and the Absence of Gender in the Copenhagen School', Millennium - Journal of International Studies, 29:2 (2000), pp. 285-306.
134. For two attempts see Hansen and Nissenbaum, 'Digital Disaster'
135. and Floyd, Security and the Environment.