This is the ninth contribution in our securitization forum. Scott Watson is Associate Professor in International Relations at the University of Victoria, Canada.
In their initial post, Jarrod and Eric nicely demonstrate both the incredible influence of the securitization framework and the relative paucity of securitization scholarship among American IR scholars. As they convincingly show, the success of securitization is evident by the growing number of citation counts and the spread of securitization to fields outside of IR. From my perspective, the strongest indicators of the success of securitization theory are less empirical – it feels as though it has re-energized the subfield of security studies, opening it up to a more diverse range of scholars, and providing a launching point for new avenues of inquiry. Indeed, its greatest impact may be measured by how often it is used as a departure point for novel forms of inquiry, into: affect and emotion, visual imagery, the politics of security, and bureaucratic practices, to name a few. While securitization theory certainly has limitations, exclusions, and blind spots, on the whole the framework lends itself to critical reflection and inclusion of multiple perspectives – it is a vibrant research programme. Testament to its success is that securitization is now often used as the ‘foil’ against which new studies seek to differentiate themselves.
Given these successes, the lack of receptivity to securitization among American IR scholars is puzzling, and potentially troubling. It may be that the framework doesn’t travel well to the American context, but the excellent studies that do apply securitization to the American context belie such an explanation (Higgott, 2004; Hayes, 2009; Sjostedt, 2010). There are likely a large number of reasons for the lack of American interest in securitization. Among the more mundane explanations are the professional considerations to do with career advancement, favored publication outlets, the emphasis on ‘policy relevance’ and the close connection between American academics and policy makers. This is not to suggest that securitization studies do not produce policy relevant findings, but I would aver that they are less likely to produce policy recommendations desirable to policy makers. Methodological differences are also likely at play. Securitization studies mostly employ interpretive methods – discourse analysis and ethnographic research. The commitment to positivist methods among major segments of American IR means they are less likely to be exposed to the work, or accept its methods as legitimate. It is even less likely to lead to scholars learning and adopting a new epistemology and methodologies.
I would however, not place sole responsibility for this divide by over-generalizing and dismissing American IR. There are peculiar aspects of securitization theory that limit its appeal outside of the European context. There is, for instance, a relatively high barrier of entry to the study of securitization, which at times appears to require detailed knowledge of speech act theory and the intricacies of illocution/perlocution, or of continental philosophers that are less frequently taught in American political science/IR departments. Actual empirical analysis using the securitization framework is often couched in lengthy revisions of the framework, or at least through engagement with the seminal debates that emerged in the early period of securitization’s life. The situating of ‘great debates’ in the securitization literature outside the debates that have animated American IR obviously lessens its appeal there. This does not mean that American scholars should or could not become schooled in these literatures and debates, but that few are and there is little incentive to do so.
The lack of incentive to learn a new literature and framework stems, in part, from the availability of schools of thought popular in the United States that do, more or less, what securitization does: such as social constructivism, misperception, and framing. While none of these frameworks capture exactly what securitization attempts to do, they are relatively reasonable facsimiles. If a scholar is interested in understanding how political elites came to regard something as a threat and to implement emergency measures, they could use “Social Theory of International Politics”, “The Culture of National Security” or “Perception and Misperception” as their framework. To compare with one measure employed by Jarrod and Eric, Jervis’ book counts 4385 citations, very close to “Security: A New Framework for Analysis” and “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics”. While there are numerous important distinctions between the securitization framework and the misperception framework, they both offer an account of subjectively and intersubjectively held perceptions of threat. In short, there are tools already available to American IR scholars that allow for the analysis of how threats are constructed and how political actors come to propose war, military invasion, border security etc. as the appropriate response to these threats.
I would further speculate that there is a normative dimension as well: securitization has been tied to a de-securitizing agenda in which security is seen as normatively bad or as a failure of the political process; whereas many American scholars still see value in security itself, even if they want to check its abuse. IR scholars critical of securitized practices in the United States tend to address problems of misperception, faulty reasoning, the use of inappropriate historical analogies, or threat exaggeration – all of which maintain a normative commitment to security as a potentially positive development in certain circumstances, while critiquing its use in a particular episode.
This of course ties to the objective/subjective/intersubjective dilemma at the heart of securitization. Again, at the risk of overgeneralizing, many American IR scholars hold to the claim that certain developments are objectively threatening, regardless of how they are perceived or represented. Securitization offers an ambiguous position on this issue, with a tendency toward intersubjectivity and a rejection of objectivity. There is of course an emerging analysis of new materialism in securitization studies that muddies this generalization, but on the whole, securitization tends to privilege social construction and leaves analysts without a position from which to discriminate between real threats and constructed threats. In a policy oriented academy, this is a serious disadvantage for the securitization framework.
The last provocation I would offer is that one’s position on securitization is a form of identity politics among academics. Securitization theory maintains a certain level of interest (or disinterest) simply because of repeated claims that it resides on the European side of a constructed Europe/America binary. The reality is that the growing body of work on securitization could benefit greatly from further engagement with American scholarship in IR, political science, sociology, and communications; just as American security studies would benefit greatly from greater engagement with securitization and a host of continental philosophers that have influenced much of the interesting work being done in and around, or in contrast to, securitization. So long as both groups of scholars construct their self-identity in terms of this binary, security and securitization studies will be poorer for it.
I know I’m oversimplifying, but if you strip out some of this discussion about ideological commitment to this government or that view of the world or whatever, isn’t a bunch of this that 1. Securitzation theory is about the causal process of threat creation (Securitization is a DV) 2. Most of American IR in the security studies field is about empirical analysis of how those threats, *however* they are created, influence outcomes of interest (the outcome of securitization is an IV). Securitization scholars could influence American IR more if they could show, empirically, how the process of securitization (securitization as a DV) influences outcomes of interest for American IR scholars, while American IR scholars could influence securitization scholars more if they showed more interest in the process by which threats are created (potentially important if the process of creation influences outcomes of interest for American IR scholars).
Hi Michael, thank you for your post. I’ll try and respond to some of your comments.
Most securitization scholars prefer constitutive instead of causal explanations, and at some level this is a legacy of the causal/constitutive divide (thanks Martin and Holils, Wendt, etc.). There are certainly some securitization theorists – Stefano Guzzini (2011) – who focus on causation, or more precisely causal mechanisms, but these are substantially different from the Humean efficient causality of ‘if A then B’ I think are implied in your comment. For what its worth, I believe Thierry Balzacq also has an interest in causality in securitization, and I do as well, and there are certainly many American scholars who would meet securitization theorists halfway on this issue. Causality does not have to be a scary word.
The second part of your comment is more tricky. For many – though certainly not all – American scholars I’m not sure any empirically analysis of how threats are constructed and interpreted is feasible or desirable, precisely because it challenges the view that threats to a political community are self-apparent and can be assessed neutrally. A number of American scholars hold threats are assessed through the domestic marketplace of ideas (see Thrall and Cramer’s collection on threat inflation), where the danger of a specific threat is assessed through politically neutral and economically efficient decision making. In my view the market place of ideas model drastically downplays the level of competition, the uneven distribution of power, and ignores the range of discursive strategies actors will use to establish dominant articulations of threats.
In other words, any adoption of the securitization framework would mean a displacement of the classic marketplace of ideas in foreign policy debates, and its deep appeal for a liberal model of political science centered rational, economically efficient decision making.
When does this become relevant to American IR Scholars? I would argue at the very point they engage in what is understood as one of the highest purposes of political science: when they advocate for specific policies in that so-called marketplace of ideas. I make this argument at great length here: https://bit.ly/1KZoUIL.
Hi Eric and Mike,
Thanks for the comments and exchange.
Eric, you said, “For many – though certainly not all – American scholars I’m not sure any empirically analysis of how threats are constructed and interpreted is feasible or desirable, precisely because it challenges the view that threats to a political community are self-apparent and can be assessed neutrally.”
I’m not sure that’s what Mike’s asking about. For me, I’d be really interested in empirical analysis of how features of the threat construction process affect outcomes. The research design that would interest me would say “In these observations, threats were constructed in [this] way, and in other observations, they were constructed in [that] way. Here’s evidence that variation in [this vs that] affected [an important outcome, like the occurrence of war].”
This would be an important step towards convincing people that — in order to understand an important outcome — they should be just as concerned with how we talk about tanks, as opposed to just counting tanks.
I’m not up on securitization theory. My only knowledge comes from HS and college debate. And I’m not a scholar of the philosophy of science. So it’s very possible that I just don’t know about places where this empirical work has been done.
Eric – thanks for your reply. I think there are a few things going on here. In the interest of intellectual precision, which I think could help illustrate why some of these differences emerge over time, I want to separate them and I’m curious to know what you think of these:
1. Epistemology: Is the goal of the research exercise positivist or not. If the answer is no in a classic American political science way, that’s going to be a barrier to entry for American political scientists committed to positivism. The rest of the discussion of a divide is arguably window dressing at that point, because if people are engaged in different exercises to achieve different goals, it is not surprising that there is a gap.
2. Relevant dependent variable: As in my initial comment, I think most IR security scholars in the US tend to focus on state behavior as a DV. The way you explain, and my understanding of the securitization literature, suggests that most securitization scholars focus on the construction of threats as a DV. These are not “competitive”. One could, in theory, easily do both of these things, or look at interactions between them, presuming one can overcome issue #1 above, right?
3. The ideology and politics of it: I think there are two parts to this:
A. Statements about the field that are empirical in nature, but where we do not seem to have sufficient empirical evidence to confirm or disconfirm them: For example, you say “For many – though certainly not all – American scholars I’m not sure any empirically analysis of how threats are constructed and interpreted is feasible or desirable, precisely because it challenges the view that threats to a political community are self-apparent and can be assessed neutrally.”
That is an empirical question, in my opinion, and one that is probably answerable. What’s the survey data we have to support that contention? How should we determine this? Without that data, I’m not super comfortable generalizing about what groups think.
B. Being more intellectually precise about what is normative versus empirical. There is a tinge to securitization theory, in your comments, that seems to suggest that i). threats are inflated and ii). this is bad. If part of the goal of securitization theory is to oppose and elucidate the construction of threats in the US/UK/etc., there is a somewhat different commitment there than American IR security scholars who often view their goal as more purely empirical (this also circles back to issue #1 above, which is why I think it’s critical). See the TRIP survey data on the prominence of mid-range empirical analysis, as opposed to realism or liberalism, in the commitment of IR scholars, especially younger IR scholars.
And it’s totally ok for there to be different focal points, but that doesn’t have to mean that one is right or one is wrong or one is more enlightened than the other. They can just be different ways to cut into these issues.
4. On another note, it’s hard for me to imagine many serious IR scholars trained in the last decade or so that don’t think politics plays a huge role in shaping which threats emerge as critical at a given point in a given state (and then we can talk about whether it’s identity, institutions, or whatever doing most of the “constitution”, but that’s a separate discussion).
Put another way, is the beef exaggerated here? The specific construction of threats can be *very* relevant, as Stephen says below, for IR security scholars in the US, because it can shape how states behave and the outcome of that behavior.
Thoughts? I’ve really enjoyed this forum, btw. Lots of terrific insights!!
Great forum. And great comments, Mike. In my opinion, ‘Yes, the beef is exaggerated.’
Thanks for the kind words Michael. I’ll try and answer some of your points, though others working in this area may offer a very different perspective.
1. As far as epistemology goes – and here I’ll broaden the discussion to more general philosophies of science – the vast majority of work is not positivist. There are however, a growing number positivists who study securitization and make use of the large-N quantitative methods (in the last thread Brandon Valerino mentioned Georgios Karyotis’ quantitative work in the Journal of Peace Research). This research may find more traction in American IR.
A better way of seeing securitization theory may be to view it is a highly pluralistic research tradition, one which could fit easily into any of the ideal-typified philosophies of science in IR identified by Patrick T. Jackson in his book Conduct of Inquiry.
2. Asking for a DV essentially ‘loads’ the deck and gears the conversation to a specific philosophy of science (neopositivism). Still, I would readily concede researchers working in this area need to produce sharper accounts of what securitizing moves produce. Here the original cannon (Security: A New Framework for Analysis) is helpful: securitizing moves legitimate the breaking of rules (i.e. prohibitions against torture), the mobilization of resources (expanding security agency budgets), constrain deliberation (executive prerogative), and, perhaps most significantly, label certain groups as enemies (what poststructuralists may call ‘othering’). All of these might be classed under broad categories of ‘state behaviour as the DV’, but this would probably entail a view of causality many securitization theories would be uncomfortable with.
3. A) You’re right, that’s a tough generalization to make, and I don’t have social scientific survey data of American IR/security scholars to support it. But then again, I’m not looking for falsification of a hypothesis, and I’m not sure falsification really serves the IR community all that well (see Wight’s Agents and Structures on this point). Instead, I’m making a plausible conjecture based on the available evidence, a conjecture that is open to refutation and may prove fallible. But to refute that conjecture, what I would need to see is some alternative explanation for the enduring attraction of the liberal market place of ideas model in American IR. Why, after a litany of critiques and serious studies of ‘market failure’ (see Thrall and Cramer) does this model endure in a particular institutional, political, and historical context, and not others?
B) I both agree and disagree with this comment. Securitization, despite the Copenhagen’s school attempt to distinguish it from Critical Security Studies, has a strong inflection of Critical Theory (though I am not the best person to talk about this), and that has left many skeptical of the fact/value distinction.
That being said, you’re probably right. Securitization theory has not adequately unpacked its normative claims, and this is a serious and longstanding critique (see Claudia Aradau’s original argument in 2004). In my research I attempt to highlight some clear normative affinities between American mainstream realists and securitization theory. Both share a common concern over excessive expansion of the national security agenda, though for markedly different reasons, and both ask deep questions about how to advocate restraint in national security debates. My take on this is here https://bit.ly/1KZoUIL, but views on this issue vary significantly. I’m not sure I agree with your comment that most work in American IR is specifically empirical. When I look at someone like Stephen Walt, I see a rich history of sustained and engaged policy advocacy, coincidentally often against threat inflation. The striving to policy relevance is an exercise to advocate specific policies, and this is unmistakably normative, even if you are engaged in a form of Weberian activism. There’s a lot here for Americans/Europeans/all the rest of us to talk about, but the heavy premium placed on ‘policy relevance’ makes much of American IR inescapably normative.
4. I guess two things strikes me about your comment that many IR scholars “think politics plays a huge role in shaping which threats emerge as critical at a given point in a given state”.
The first, is that its difficult to square this view with the common ways in which security scholars talk about security issues in naturalistic and unproblematic terms, with little consideration for the political or historical conditions of their emergence. Enviromental security, critical infrastructure security, migration security, cyber security, homegrown terrorism, and host of other issues are typically referred to in a casual manner as simply ‘things’ that appeared once enough people recognized their objective danger, and if you don’t recognize this danger then you are ‘misperceiving’ the situation. Not only is this narrative empirically questionable, it hides what may have been intense political struggles between different groups to securitize or desecuritize, and the strategies they employ.
Second, when American scholarship does engage with the politics of threat construction, it is often with a view of ‘politics as interference’ in the market place of ideas. Shielded from the manipulation of more parochial interests, the institutions and actors of the marketplace would have efficiently prioritized the most significant threats to the political community. In securitization theory, politics is fundamental and irremovable from any articulation of security because saying something is a security issue is always a political act (see Waever, 2011).
I’d repeat my caveat that many American IR scholars fall outside these consideration, being quite a bit more richly diverse than some presume.
Perhaps if you are interested, you might want to organize your thoughts for a guest post? Please let me know if you are interested.
That’s a great response. Really helps clarify things and offers a path forward. Let me think about a potential guest post. Thanks for the offer!