Securitization Revisited: Contemporary Applications and Insights

247 Pages·2019·7.915 MB·English

by  Michael J. Butler

Securitization Revisited
This book seeks to interrogate how contemporary policy issues become ‘securi-
tized’ and, furthermore, what the implications of this process are. A generation
after the introduction of the concept of securitization to the security studies field,
this book engages with how securitization and desecuritization ‘works’ within
and across a wide range of security domains including terrorism and counter-
terrorism, climate change, sexual and gender- based violence, inter-s tate and
intra- state conflict, identity, and memory in various geographic and social con-
texts. Blending theory and application, the contributors to this volume – drawn
from different disciplinary, ontological, and geographic ‘spaces’ – orient their
investigations around three common analytical objectives: revealing deficiencies
in and through application(s) of securitization; considering securitization through
speech- acts and discourse as well as other mechanisms; and exposing latent
orthodoxies embedded in securitization research. The volume demonstrates the
dynamic and elastic quality of securitization and desecuritization as concepts
that bear explanatory fruit when applied across a wide range of security issues,
actors, and audiences. It also reveals the deficiencies in restricting securitization
research to an overly narrow set of issues, actors, and mechanisms.
This volume will be of great interest to scholars of critical security studies,
international security, and International Relations.
Michael J. Butler is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the
Leir Luxembourg Program at Clark University. His publications include Decon-
structing the Responsibility to Protect (Routledge, forthcoming), Selling a ‘Just’
War: Framing, Legitimacy, and U.S. Military Intervention (Palgrave, 2012), and
International Conflict Management (Routledge, 2009).
Routledge Critical Security Studies Series
Titles in this series include:
(In-)Security and the Production of International Relations
Securitisation and the making of foreign affairs in Europe
Jonas Hagmann
Food Security Governance
Empowering communities, regulating corporations
Nora McKeon
Biopolitics, Governmentality and Humanitarianism
‘Caring’ for the population in Afghanistan and Belarus
Volha Piotukh
Ethical Security Studies
A new research agenda
Edited by Jonna Nyman and Anthony Burke
Securing Health
HIV and the limits of securitization
Suzanne Hindmarch
Researching Non-S tate Actors in International Security
Theory and Practice
Edited by Andreas Kruck and Andrea Schneiker
Environmental Security in the Anthropocene
Assessing Theory and Practice
Judith Nora Hardt
Securitization Revisited
Contemporary Applications and Insights
Edited by Michael J. Butler
Securitization Revisited
Contemporary Applications and Insights
Edited by Michael J. Butler
First published 2020
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 selection and editorial matter, Michael J. Butler; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of Michael J. Butler to be identified as the author of the editorial
matter, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted
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British Library Cataloguing- in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data
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ISBN: 978-0-367-15037-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-05464-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
Contents
List of illustrations vii
Notes on contributors viii
Preface xii
Acknowledgments xiii
PART I
Theoretical insights 1
Introduction: revisiting securitization and the ‘constructivist
turn’ in security studies 3
MICHAEL J. BUTLER AND ZENA WOLF
1 Assessing securitization theory: theoretical discussions and
empirical developments 28
ROXANNA SJÖSTEDT
2 Regional security complex theory: reflections and
reformulations 47
Jarosław JarząBek
PART II
Securitization in application 67
3 Counter- terrorism as a technology of securitization:
approaching the Moroccan case 69
BLANCA CAMPS- FEBRER
4 When advocacy securitizes: non- state actors and the
circulation of narratives around sexualized violence in conflict 91
NATALIE FLOREA HUDSON AND ALEXANDRA COSIMA BUDABIN
vi Contents
5 Securitizing the environment: climate change as first-o rder
threat 116
Mark a. Boyer and neIl oculI
PART III
Mechanisms of desecuritization 143
6 Conflict management redux: desecuritizing intractable
conflicts 145
sInIša VukoVIć
7 Beyond the speech act: contact, desecuritization, and
peacebuilding in Cyprus 168
kaTerIna anTonIou
8 The role of memory in the desecuritization of inter-s ocietal
conflicts 194
VALÉRIE ROSOUX
Conclusion: securitization, revisited: revealed insights,
future directions 217
MICHAEL J. BUTLER
Index 224
Illustrations
Figures
5.1 Conceptualizing climate risk 120
5.2 Map of the Caribbean 125
5.3 Number of storms by decade per country in the Caribbean
region, 1970–2010 126
5.4 Number of storm- related deaths by decade per country in the
Caribbean region, 1970–2010 127
5.5 Total storms and total deaths for the Caribbean region,
1970–2010 128
5.6 Number of storms in relation to total damage for the
Caribbean region, 1970–2010 128
5.7 Total damage caused by storms per decade for the Caribbean
region, 1970–2010 129
5.8 Total population affected in relation to damage for the
Caribbean region, 1970–2010 130
5.9 Total population affected in reference to the total cost of
damage for the Caribbean region, 1970–2010 131
5.10 Affected population per storm for the Caribbean region,
1970–2010 132
5.11 Total deaths in relation to total population affected for the
Caribbean region, 1970–2010 132
5.12 Directional distribution of the data 1970 to 2010 133
5.13 Representative tropical island typologies 134
5.14 Map of Hispaniola showing 15 feet sea level rise 135
5.15 Map of Antigua and Barbuda showing 15 feet sea level rise 136
5.16 Map of Barbados showing 15 feet sea level rise 137
Table
5.1 Observed and predicted impacts of climate change 122
Contributors
Katerina Antoniou is a lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire, Cyprus.
she specializes in peacebuilding and conflict resolution research. she holds a
PhD on international peacebuilding from the University of Central Lanca-
shire. Her dissertation examined group membership and interaction among
peacebuilding professionals in Cyprus. Additional research interests include
securitization, social identity, intergroup contact, and dark tourism. katerina
has received training on higher education, cross- cultural facilitation, and con-
flict mediation. she has also been involved in a variety of non- formal educa-
tion initiatives, including youth empowerment workshops and intercommunal
activities, and is a Fulbright Alumna. She holds a BA in Political Science and
Economics from Clark University, Massachusetts, and an MSc in Inter-
national Relations Theory from the London School of Economics.
Mark A. Boyer is a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor at the University
of Connecticut and serves as Executive Director of the International Studies
Association. Throughout his career as a scholar- teacher, he has actively sought
the integration of teaching, research, and service in all his professional activ-
ities. In addition to an array of journal articles, his books include International
Cooperation and Public Goods (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993) and
Defensive Internationalism (University of Michigan Press, 2005; co- authored
with Davis B. Bobrow). His most recent, and ongoing, research project, Adapt-
ing to Climate Change, is currently under contract with the University of Mich-
igan Press. His professional awards include the UConn Honors Program
Faculty Member of the Year (2015), the International Studies Association’s
Ladd Hollist Award for Service to the Profession (2009), the UConn Provost’s
Outreach Award for Public Service (2006), the UConn Alumni Association’s
Award for Excellence in Teaching at the Graduate Level (2004), the UConn
Chancellor’s Information Technology Award (2001), the Ameri can Political
science association’s rowman & littlefield award for Teaching Innovation
(2000), a Pew Faculty Fellowship in International Affairs (1992) and an SSRC-
MacArthur Fellowship from 1986–1988. He also served twice as editor for ISA
journals: International Studies Perspectives (2000–2004) and International
Studies Review (2008–2012; co- edited with Jennifer Sterling- Folker).
Contributors ix
Michael J. Butler is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science
and Director of the Henry J. and Erna D. Leir Luxembourg Program at Clark
University in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 2014–2015, he was a Fulbright
scholar at the Institute of International studies, university of wrocław
(Poland). His research and teaching interests converge in the areas of conflict
and security. He is the author of three books – International Conflict Manage-
ment (Routledge, 2009), Selling a ‘Just’ War: Framing, Legitimacy, and U.S.
Military Intervention (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), and Global Politics:
Engaging a Complex World (with M.A. Boyer and N.F. Hudson, McGraw-
Hill, 2013) – with an additional monograph, Deconstructing the Responsib-
ility to Protect, forthcoming (Routledge). He has published numerous articles
in leading academic journals and has served on the editorial boards of Inter-
national Studies Review, Simulation & Gaming and International Studies
Perspectives. He is a member of the Governing Council of the International
Studies Association-N ortheast as well as a senior fellow at the Canadian
Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (CCR2P) at the University of Toronto,
and is series co-e ditor (with Shareen Hertel) of the International Studies
Intensives book series (Routledge).
Blanca Camps-F ebrer is Associate Professor of International Relations at the
Autonomous University of Barcelona and the Ramon Llull University. She is
a member of the IRMENA research group. She is also the Research Coordi-
nator of the Observatory on Human Rights and Business in the Mediterranean
Region (ODHE). Her research focuses on security and gender issues. More
specifically, her work examines the counter-t errorist narratives in Morocco as
a securitization strategy.
Alexandra Cosima Budabin is Senior Researcher at the Human Rights Center
and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Political Science at the Univer-
sity of Dayton (U.S.A.). Her research explores non-s tate actors in the global
governance of human rights, humanitarianism, and development. She is a co-
investigator in the research project “Commodifying Compassion: Implica-
tions of Turning People and Humanitarian Causes into Marketable Things”
(2016–2020), funded by the Danish Council for Independent Research.
Natalie Florea Hudson is Associate Professor in the Department of Political
Science at the University of Dayton, where she also serves as the Director of
the Human Rights Studies Program. She specializes in gender and inter-
national relations, the politics of human rights, human security, and inter-
national law and organization. Her book, Gender, Human Security and the
UN: Security Language as a Political Framework for Women (Routledge,
2009) examines the organizational dynamics of women’s activism in the
United Nations system and how women have come to embrace, and been
impacted by, the security discourse in their work for rights and equality.
Jarosław Jarząbek is Assistant Professor in the Institute of International Studies
at the university of wrocław. He obtained his Phd in Political science in