It is shocking how little attention Iran’s recent efforts to satisfy the international community’s demands on nuclear question have received in the news media and academic discourse. As I write this, there are 1182 related news stories on news.google.com related to Rob Ford’s struggles with the crack cocaine and only 85 related to Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Prepping for my graduate course on IR Theory, it struck me how little we talk about the process of desecuritization. The securitization process is well covered, we often are able to analyse, describe, and deconstruction the process of how threats enter the international agenda. The real failure is in how we fail to examine the desecuritization process.
As Karyotis and Patrikios note, “the exact process through which this [desecuritization] occurs is not clearly explained by the Copenhagen School.” The failure of the collective international relations community to engage such questions can be seen in action as Iran appears to be ready to make a deal on its nuclear weapons program, yet few seem to have noticed what may be the most important international relations event of the last few years.
It has always been said war is so fascinating because of the “if it bleeds it leads” paradigm. Even being aware of this bias has not changed the situation; there is still a collective ignorance of how security processes exit the international agenda. The how and when states might choose to take a more cooperative path without outright force is not often explained.
How do we explain recent moves in Iran? I will not speculate on that issue, the key thing is that the IR community needs to be really think about what we do and why. If the goal in the community is examine the process of conflict and cooperation, why do we often fail to examine instances of cooperation and the end of conflict? The events in Iran are important, just as there appears to be a collective ignorance of the drastically changed security situation in Israel (Egypt is now solidly an ally, Syria is gone, Jordan is quite, and Palestine is bereft with infighting). These moves towards a more cooperative international system are important, yet the during this sweeping tide we seem focused on traditional notions of threat construction through fears of such things as terrorism, piracy, and cyber security violations. If securitization as a concept is to be taken seriously, we must seek to understand how threats are securitized, but also how threats are desecuritized.
I’m not sure how reliable counting stories on news.google.com is as an indicator of the attention a story is getting. I saw it on the front page of two major US news web sites this morning. Aside from that, though, I wonder if there is even consensus on what “desecuritization” means. I am admittedly not well-versed in the Copenhagen school, but from my perspective what is happening is a form of disarmament, albeit focused on potential rather than actual weapons capabilities. However, the *discourse* surrounding the issue is still very much a discourse of security.
Amir Lupovici has a recent piece in ISR on “Pacifization: Toward a Theory of the Social Construction of Peace” (2013) that might be worth looking at here (although i can’t vouch for the content, it’s on the “to read” pile!) So right about the trend in the literature.
I think the issue–at least in regard to nuclear proliferation–is that we as a discipline have not recognized it as a bargaining problem. As you mentioned in the post, we have A LOT of work that explains why states find nuclear weapons desirable. We also have fewer works that explain why states end weapons programs, often because of external inducements. (I’m thinking of T.V. Paul and Mitchell Reiss for this second category.)
What we don’t have, however, is much theoretical work that synthesizes the two. This is problematic because a theory for proliferation must explain nonproliferation, and a theory for nonproliferation must explain proliferation. A theory can only do one holds no causal power. So, in essence, we don’t have a good idea what’s going on with Iran because we don’t have a good idea how bargaining over nuclear weapons works. And you are right that this is weird, considering that this has been one of the biggest things going on in IR for the past decade.
[Self-promotion warning] I have some work on this bargaining problem, and a couple of Duck posts have previously discussed it:
https://www.whiteoliphaunt.com/duckofminerva/2012/10/butter-for-bombs.html
https://www.whiteoliphaunt.com/duckofminerva/2013/08/are-weapons-inspections-about-information-or-inconvenience.html
Hi Brandon,
I’m always a little surprised when I see a post mentioning securitization on this blog given the American audience and its cool reception to the Copenhagen School. I’ve always found this a little ironic given that Buzan et al’s SNAF continues to be one if not the most significant texts to emerge in security studies in over 25 years. While not necessarily a reliable indicator Google Scholar’s citation count put’s SNAF (3290) above even Mearsheimer’s TGPP (3127). Yet even though its one of the most cited texts in the field you would be at pains to find it in a syllabus on international security at an American university (although exceptions obviously exist). Security studies is a field that does know itself.
I think what your post alludes to is the political economy of securitization. As mentioned by Williams (2003) there is a certain intersection between mass media and state led securitizing moves. This is especially apparent in ‘dramaturgical’ or more Butler-inspired ‘performative’ readings where the essence of securitization is drama. Security discourses make for good television, a point underscored by the not uncommon of direct cooperation between media outlets and state security officials in the perpetuation of such discourses, as was the case in the United States prior to the Iraq War. In the absence of drama and the presence of regularized politics there is no economic motive to follow the story.
The events in Iran are not important. Seriously. One should chortle with ribald laughter to think that so many decades down the road the Rand Corporation’s plan to leverage the NPT as a tool to chasten the Shah is essentially unchanged – even after stealing the money Iran paid for the US to build nuclear power plants. It will always be unserious to talk about the risk of the unarmed to the armed. Iran is dependent upon Russia for fuel and technology to operate systems – and even Israeli assassination squads have not changed that situation. And Russia has declared Iran to be protected by Russia’s nuclear umbrella in any case. So what we have is a carnival of the insane. https://rehmat1.com/2012/06/09/rand-corp-sanctions-against-iran-are-doomed/ Get a load of the comments that follow.