Understanding securitization as a process, rather than as an event, allows an analysis of the ways in which securitization affects the identity of the securitizer, as well as that of the securitized. Although a speech act (or a series) by a government leader is crucially important, not least in legitimizing a securitizing move, it is not sufficient just to focus on that level. Securitization means real changes in the lives and life chances of people in their everyday being. This book has sought to show how that is so. In this Conclusion, I will revisit what I mean by a post-Copenhagen securitization theory; I will discuss how a securitization process changes identity structures; I will re-examine the important contributions to understanding these social processes provided by the theory of ontological security; and I will conclude with some comments about the case of Britishness and the Muslim Others.

I have argued that as part of seeing securitization as a process, it is necessary to relax four of the pillars of the Copenhagen School, to produce what I have described as a post-Copenhagen securitization theory. These addressed the range of communicative acts, rather than just the speech act; the importance of social agency in securitizing; the involvement of the audience; and the way in which the introduction of emergency measures needs to be seen broadly, to be beyond the actions of the state, and to be in everyday life.