Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-hfldf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-01T22:33:14.065Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

(De)securitisation dilemmas: Theorising the simultaneous enaction of securitisation and desecuritisation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2017

Jonathan Luke Austin  and
Philippe Beaulieu-Brossard
Jonathan Luke Austin*
Affiliation:
The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
Philippe Beaulieu-Brossard*
Affiliation:
Canadian Forces College, Toronto
*
* Correspondence to: Jonathan Luke Austin, CCDP, IHEID, Case Postale 1672, 1211, Geneva, Switzerland. Author’s email: jonathan.austin@graduateinstitute.ch
** Correspondence to: Philippe Beaulieu-Brossard, Canadian Forces College, Toronto, 215 Yonge Blvd, North York, ON M5M 3H9, Canada. Author’s email: pbeaulieub@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article theorises the simultaneous enaction of securitising and desecuritising moves. It argues that the frequent simultaneity of these two processes, which are normally considered mutually exclusive within Securitisation Theory (ST), has previously gone unnoticed given a set of methodological, temporal, and ontological biases that have developed within ST. Demonstrating how these biases can be overcome – and even reconciled with the seminal texts of ST – by drawing on work from within social theory and elsewhere, we argue that the frequent simultaneity of (de)securitising moves most urgently requires us to reconsider the normative status of desecuritisation within ST. Although desecuritisation has traditionally been viewed as normatively positive, we argue that its temporally immanent enaction alongside securitising moves might introduce more violence into security politics and, in fact, exacerbate protracted conflicts. Ultimately, we make the normative ambitions of some within ST more opaque. Desecuritisation is not a shortcut to the ethical-political good within ST.

Keywords

SecuritisationDesecuritisationSecurityCopenhagen SchoolNormativity
Type
Articles
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , April 2018 , pp. 301 - 323
Copyright
© British International Studies Association 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Obama, Barack, ‘Remarks by the President on the Iran Nuclear Deal’ (Washington DC: White House, 2015)Google Scholar.

2 Ibid.

3 Balzacq, Thierry, Securitisation Theory (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 36 Google Scholar.

4 Buzan, Barry, Wæver, Ole, and de Wilde, Jaap, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998), p. 33 Google Scholar.

5 On multiple ontologies, see Law, John, Aircraft Stories (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

6 For instance, Mohammad Khatami questionned this dichotomy while president in 1998: ‘Terms such as conservative, moderate and the like are more often meaningful in the West. Of course we have differences of opinion in Iran too, and one political tendency firmly believes in the prevalence of logic and the rule of law while there might be another tendency that believes it is entitled to go beyond the law.’ Mohammad Khatami, ‘Transcript of interview with Iranian president Mohammad Khatami’, CNN, available at: {http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/9801/07/iran/interview.html} accessed on 19 February 2017.

7 Balzacq, Thierry and Guzzini, Stefano, ‘What kind of theory – if any – is securitisation?’, International Relations, 29:1 (2015), p. 99 Google Scholar.

8 See, among others, Vuori, Juha, ‘A timely prophet?’, Security Dialogue, 41:3 (2010), pp. 255–277 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hansen, Lene, ‘Theorizing the image for security studies’, European Journal of International Relations, 17:1 (2011), pp. 51–74 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; De Goede, Marieke, Specualtive Security (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Stritzel, Holger, Security in Translation (London: Palgrave, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Austin, John L., How to do Things with Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 99 Google Scholar.

11 Wæver, Ole, ‘Securitisation and desecuritisation’, in Ronnie D. Lipchutz (ed.), On Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), p. 55 Google Scholar.

12 Williams, Michael C., ‘Words, images, enemies’, International Studies Quarterly, 47 (2003), p. 523 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Wæver, , ‘Securitisation and desecuritisation’, p. 56 Google Scholar.

14 Aradau, Claudia, ‘Security and the democratic scene’, Journal of International Relations and Development, 7:4 (2004), p. 389 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Hansen, Lene, ‘Reconstructing desecuritisation’, Review of International Studies, 38:3 (2012), pp. 525–546 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 We leave aside silencing in this discussion here as it is relatively rarely used in the literature. An exception is found in MacKenzie, Megan, ‘Securitisation and desecuritisation’, Security Studies, 18:2 (2009), pp. 242–261 Google Scholar.

17 Aradau, ‘Security and the democratic scene’.

18 Ibid., p. 393.

19 See, respectively, first, Huysmans, Jef, ‘The question of the limit’, Millennium, 27:3 (1998), pp. 569–589 and thenCrossRefGoogle Scholar, Aradau, Claudia and Huysmans, Jef, ‘Mobilising (global) democracy’, Millennium, 37:3 (2009), pp. 583–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 For a review, see Nyman, Jonna, ‘What is the value of security?’, Review of International Studies, 42:5 (2016), pp. 821–839 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Roe, Paul, ‘Securitisation and minority rights’, Security Dialogue, 35:3 (2004), pp. 279–294 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Aradau, Claudia and Huysmans, Jef, ‘Critical methods in International Relations’, European Journal of International Relations, 20:3 (2014), pp. 596–619 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Wæver, Ole, ‘Politics, security, theory’, Security Dialogue, 42:4–5 (2011), p. 468 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Ibid.; Eriksson, Johan, ‘Observers or advocates?’, Cooperation and Conflict, 34:3 (1999), pp. 311–330 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Buzan, , Wæver, , and de Wilde, , Security, p. 40 Google Scholar.

26 Ibid.

27 Balzacq, , Securitisation Theory, p. 39 Google Scholar; Guzzini, Stefano, ‘Securitisation as a causal mechanism’, Security Dialogue, 42:4–5 (2011), pp. 329–341 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Buzan, , Wæver, , and de Wilde, , Security, p. 39 Google Scholar.

29 Ibid., p. 29.

30 Balzacq and Guzzini, ‘What kind of theory’.

31 Hansen, , ‘Reconstructing desecuritisation’, p. 530 Google Scholar.

32 See, for example, Wæver, , ‘Securitisation and desecuritisation’, p. 98 Google Scholar; Christou, Odysseasand Adamides, Constantinos, ‘Energy securitisation and desecuritisation in the New Middle East’, Security Dialogue, 44:5–6 (2013), pp. 507–522 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Donnelly, Faye, ‘The Queen’s speech’, European Journal of International Relations, 21:4 (2015), pp. 911–934 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 Butler, Judith, Excitable Speech (New York: Routledge, 1997), p. 17 Google Scholar.

34 Hansen, , ‘Reconstructing desecuritisation’, p. 538 Google Scholar.

35 Aradau, , ‘Security and the democratic scene’, p. 393 Google Scholar.

36 Hansen, ‘Reconstructing desecuritisation’.

37 Buzan, , Wæver, , and de Wilde, , Security, p. 168 Google Scholar.

38 Balzacq, Thierry, ‘The three faces of securitisation’, European Journal of International Relations, 11:2 (2005), pp. 171–201 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Balzacq, Securitisation Theory.

39 Bertilsson, Thora Margareta, ‘The elementary forms of pragmatism’, European Journal of Social Theory, 7:3 (2004), pp. 371–389 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 McSweeney, Bill, Security, Identity and Interests (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)Google Scholar.

41 Huysmans, Jef, ‘What’s in an act’, Security Dialogue, 42:4–5 (2011), pp. 371–383 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 George W. Bush, ‘President Bush addresses to the nation’, The Washington Post (20 September 2001).

43 Buzan, , Wæver, , and de Wilde, , Security, p. 33 Google Scholar.

44 Ibid., p. 30.

45 Deleuze, Gilles, Bergonism (New York: Zone, 1966)Google Scholar.

46 Buzan, Barry and Wæver, Ole, ‘Macrosecuritisation and security constellations’, Review of International Studies, 35:2 (2009), p. 270 Google Scholar; Hansen, , ‘Reconstructing desecuritisation’, p. 538 Google Scholar.

47 Deleuze, , Bergonism, pp. 42–43 Google Scholar.

48 Garfinkel, Harold, Studies in Ethnomethodology (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1967), p. 97 Google Scholar.

49 Buzan, , Wæver, , and de Wilde, , Security, p. 32 Google Scholar.

50 Buzan, Wæver, and de Wilde, Security.

51 Buzan, and Wæver, , ‘Macrosecuritisation and security constellations’, p. 273 Google Scholar.

52 Hansen, ‘Theorizing the image for security studies’.

53 Devij, Faisal, The Terrorist in Search of Humanity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), p. 179 Google Scholar.

54 Star, Susan Leigh, ‘Power, technology and the phenomenology of conventions’, in John Law (ed.), A Sociology of Monsters (London: Routledge, 1991)Google Scholar.

55 Buzan, Barry, The United States and the Great Powers (Cambridge, UK and Malden, MA: Polity, 2004)Google Scholar.

56 David Petraeus in Octavian Manea, ‘Reflections on the “counterinsurgency decade”’, Small Wars Journal (2013).

57 Hansen, , ‘Reconstructing desecuritisation’, p. 546 Google Scholar.

58 Buzan, , Wæver, , and de Wilde, , Security, p. 23 Google Scholar.

59 Ibid., p. 23.

60 Wæver, Ole, ‘Securitising sectors?’, Cooperation and Conflict, 34:3 (1999), pp. 334–340 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 Buzan, , Wæver, , and de Wilde, , Security, p. 132 Google Scholar.

62 Wæver, Ole, ‘The EU as a security actor’, in Morten Kastrup and Michael C. Williams (eds), International Relations Theory and the Politics of European Integration (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 285 Google Scholar.

63 Stritzel, Security in Translation.

64 Sarah Leonard and Christian Kaunert, ‘Reconceptualizing the audience in securitisation theory’, in Balzacq (ed.), Securitisation Theory; Balzacq, ‘The three faces of securitisation’; Balzacq, Securitisation Theory; Stritzel, Security in Translation.

65 Leonard and Kaunert, ‘Reconceptualizing the audience in securitisation theory’.

66 Mohammad Javad Zarif in Robin Wright, ‘Exclusive: Iran’s foreign minister says sanctions would kill nuclear deal’, Time (9 December 2013).

67 Wendy Sherman in David Sanger, ‘Obama’s chief negotiation in Iran nuclear talks plans to depart after deadline for deal’, New York Times (27 May 2015).

68 Neumann, Iver, ‘A speech that the entire ministry may stand for’, International Political Sociology, 1:2 (2007), pp. 183–200 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stepputat, Finn, ‘Knowledge production in the security–development nexus’, Security Dialogue, 43:5 (2012), pp. 439–455 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69 Star, ‘Power, technology and the phenomenology of conventions’.

70 Austin, Jonathan Luke, ‘Torture and the material-semiotic networks of violence across borders’, International Political Sociology, 10:1 (2016), pp. 3–21 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Austin, Jonathan Luke, ‘We have never been civilized: Torture and the materiality of world political binaries’, European Journal of International Relations, 23:1 (2017), pp. 49–73 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71 Buzan, , Wæver, , and de Wilde, , Security, p. 29 Google Scholar.

72 Ibid.

73 Nyman, ‘What is the value of security?.

74 Roe, ‘Securitisation and minority rights’; Hansen, ‘Reconstructing desecuritisation’; Aradau, ‘Security and the democratic scene’.

75 Roe, , ‘Securitisation and minority rights’, p. 286 Google Scholar.

76 Douglas, Mary, Purity and Danger (New York: Ark, 1984)Google Scholar; Diken, Bulent and Laustsen, Carsten B., ‘We two will never twin’, Global Society, 20:2 (2006), p. 200 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

77 Bion, Wilfred, Second Thoughts: Selected Papers on Psychoanalysis (New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc., 1967), p. 69 Google Scholar.

78 Ibid., p. 118.

79 Schmitt, Carl, The Concept of the Political (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 35 Google Scholar.

80 Lacan, Jacques, Écrits (London: W. W. Norton, 2006), p. 689 Google Scholar.

81 Žižek, Slavoj, Violence (London: Zed, 1999), p. 74 Google Scholar.

82 Doty, Roxanne, ‘Racism, desire, and the politics of immigration’, Millennium, 28:3 (1999), p. 592 Google Scholar.

83 Wæver, , ‘The EU as a security actor’, p. 285 Google Scholar.

84 Buzan, , Wæver, , and de Wilde, , Security, p. 212 Google Scholar.