How Might a Securitisation Approach Help to Make Sense of the So-Called War On Terror - Research Paper Example

HOW MIGHT A SECURITISATION APPROACH HELP TO MAKE SENSE OF THE SO-CALLED 'WAR ON TERROR 0 INTRODUCTION: "The terrorist attacks on New York's Twin Towers on 11 September 2001 as well as those that followed in Bali, Madrid, London, and other places around the globe, and the ensuing "war on terror", have radically challenged the ways in which we think about security and the relationship between security and freedom. " (Thomas Diez 2006) Governments of many western countries today have passed several legislations based on their anti-terrorists activity measures, which also have the effect of restricting the individual freedoms in a way that would not have considered legitimate prior to 9/11 incident. It is interesting to note that across this war and terror endangered world, bounded by the opportunities and threats afforded by globalization, new forms of autonomy, resistance and organized violence engage equally singular systems of international regulation, humanitarian intervention and social reconstruction. In this security terrain, those systems of resistance and their opposing forces of regulation and intervention have assumed a networked and nonterritorial appearance. "While states and their security apparatuses remain pivotal, in both camps they situate themselves within and operate through complex governance networks composed of nonstate and private actors." (Mark Duffield 2002) Within the above broad spectrum the political scientists talk about the securitization of public policy defining it as a process by which organisational or political actors use security rationales to support claims for funding particular activities or where the 'security state' uses the rhetoric of external or internal threat as a pretext for entering into new policy fields or developing new powers. However, the most recent threats of terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and the spread of virulent disease together with the continuing spillover effects of 'new' wars have nonetheless created worrying threats like resource and environmental depletion and has also captured the popular imagination in such a way that nations and leaders can no longer remain complacent about the developing situations. In this context this study paper attempts to bring about the characteristic features of securitization and how the concept can be applied to the combat the war on terror. 2.0 WHAT IS SECURITSIATION- ESSENTIAL FEATURES "Human security fits the paradigm of persuasion, just as national security lies at the core of the paradigm of power. While national security is the ideology of a state-centric international order, human security is the ideational basis of a people-centric world order underpinned by a global civil society" (Prof Amitav Acharya 2005) As the definition goes each category of security is determined by the securitising actors and referent objects and it is also possible that the types of securities may vary across the security sectors. The Copenhagen school has expanded the definition of security to include non-military threats to a referent object. "Over the past decade, new approaches in security studies have developed with the aim of challenging traditional realist and neo-realist theories. This debate began in response to the claim that the security agenda must be "broadened" to examine threats beyond state and military security, and "deepened" to include individual, social and global concerns. One of the most influential of the new approaches is articulated by Barry Buzan and Ole Waever among others, whose collective body of work is known as the Copenhagen School."- (Nicole Jackson) It may be noted that the Copenhagen Scholl adopts a multi sectoral approach to security that represents a move away from traditional security studies and its focus on the military sector. "Those sectors include: Site security (military security) National Sovereignty/ ideology (political security) National economies (economic security) Collective identify (societal identity) Habitats (environmental security) (Buzan, Waever, de Wilde: 1998) However it must be remembered that though these different sectors will have different objects of security, they all are likely to display distinctive patterns of interaction in the process of securititsation. "It is important to note that securitisation is not a subjective process at the level of individual conscience (in the head of the securitiser, so to speak). To the contrary, the Copenhagen school considers the construction of a security problem as a social or inter-subjective phenomenon."- (Rens Van Munster 2005) Working on these basic grounds, securitisation to day has taken a definitive format which enlarges itself not only to human security but also to securitization to science and technology. "Nevertheless, in recent years alternative understandings of security in international relations have gained ground - it is increasingly argued and accepted that security is something else than, or something in addition to, military force." - (Helene Sjursen 2003) A concern can be securitized, that is framed as a security question, when it is moved from the politicized to the securitized sphere. In response to a threat a securitizing actor articulates the need to adopt extraordinary means that go beyond the ordinary norms of the political domain." - (Collins Contemporary Security Studies 2005) While analyzing the framework of security in the available literature, we can find basically two views of security one talking about the old military and state centered view; another one deviating from the old one looking at security at a broader perspective which questions the primacy of the military and the state in conceptualization of security. According to this newer theory, security must be studied as a discourse in which certain issues are supposed to be securitiesd, while some other issues are to be desecuritised. This theory has also given a new definition to security in that security is viewed as a move that takes politics beyond the established rules of the game. It visualizes security as an issue either as a special kind of politics or above politics. Thus it may be appreciated that securitization can be viewed as more extreme version of politisation. "A discourse that takes the form of presenting something as an existential threat to a referent object does not by itself create securitization-this is a securitizing move, but the issue is securitized only if and when the audience accepts it as such [] Successful securitization is not decided by the securitizer but by the audience of the security speech-act" (Buzan, Waever, de Wilde: 1998). Combining the frameworks of securitization and of the security complex (Buzan et al. 1998) provide security studies with tools for analysing questions that cover different levels of interaction (system, inter-unit, unit, individual etc.) and different sectors (military, political, societal, economic, environmental). Each of these levels and sectors follow the same logic in the creation of the security agenda, securitization, even though the threats and referent objects of security differ. - (Juha Vuori 2003) "conditions for a successful speech act [are]: (1) the demand internal to the speech act of following the grammar of security; (2) the social conditions regarding the position of authority for the securitizing actor-that is, the relationship between speaker and audience and thereby the likelihood of the audience accepting the claims made in a securitizing attempt; and (3) features of the alleged threats" (Buzan, Waever, de Wilde: 1998). To understand the place the language has in the act of securitization, it is not necessary that one must perceive the initial move of securitization and act thereupon as it is an existential threat to security. The only thing is to accept that a referent object is existentially subjected to threat. Moreover, since security is a socially constructed concept, what constitutes an existential threat is a subjective matter and is contingent upon what constitutes a perceived danger to the society. "A securitizing actor can make a successful speech act while still deciding to address the existential threat through standard political procedures "(Collins: 2005). However the adoption of any extraordinary measures would result in the non-acceptance of a discursive representation of a security question if it doesn't go hand in hand with policy. However it has to be admitted that the dynamics of securitisation and de-securitisation remains insufficiently understood empirically - "the securitization process being essentially concentrated on framing a theoretical approach to security studies. Questions need to be addressed as to why some issues are treated as security threats while others are not, why some succeed where others fail. Nor does it provide the means to assess whether it produces policy effectiveness" - (Collins 2005) "One of securitization theory's weaknesses is that the conditions it identifies as enabling the process of securitization are ill defined and lack internal consistency." (Philippe Bourbeau 2006) 3.0 APPLICATION OF SECURITISATION ON THE WAR ON TERROR: Although of late varied definitions have brought out different dimensions to securitization approach traditionally security studies have considered the concept of security as a neutral scientific concept, which has no normative or political aspects. While the term security reflected the differences in the power capabilities of functionally identical actors it also emerged as the domestic freedom of political decision-making even under pressure from an external aggressor. "Thus, the approach of securitization doesn't take security as a given necessity but sees it as an intersubjective construction. The approach doesn't deny that many issues on the security agenda have to do with the existence of referent objects, but it deals more with problems that follow from the possibility of constructing almost any issue as an issue of "national security". The framework thus supplements traditional ways of studying security through problematising the concept of security." - (Juha Vuori 2003) Thus it is evident that the central approach of the securitization issue deals with any problem or issue that concerns national security-be it is economical or social. The general understanding of the term securitization from time to time has devolved itself around the military security, especially so in the recent periods, where the terrorist attacks are much in the offing threatening even the economically advanced countries like US. In the present part of this paper we will have an overview of what is so called 'war on terrorism' and the impact of securitization approach on this new found ideology. To arrive at a concise definition on 'war on terrorism' is rather a difficult task, as different circumstances in the political arena of the world had given rise to different connotations to this most debatable term depending upon the circumstances of the individual incidents on which such definitions could have been based. Moreover the war on terrorism had varied objects in protecting the nations by themselves. "War on Terrorism as it is presently conceived is not achieving its objective of eliminating or even reducing the threat of terrorism, but is exacerbating the problem. This may be due to incompetence, or failure to properly implement the war, as argued by former Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry; or it may be due to the fundamental assumptions underlying the war."- (K.M. Fierke 2005) 3.1 SUSTAINABILITY OF THE EFFECT OF SECURITSAITON ON WAR ON TERRORISM: Considering only those type of events which are both plausible and probable and which have close relation to the war on terrorism, it is possible to reasonably assume that the following events could significantly reinforce or undermine the effects of securitization concept on the war of terrorism. "The impact of further terrorist plans and/or attacks (or plans or attacks attributed to terrorists); The commitment of the US to the WoT securitisation; The legitimacy of the US as a securitisation leader within international society; The (un)acceptablility and (il)legitimacy of both the WoT securitisation as a whole or of particularist securitisations that get linked to it; The potency of securitisations competing with the WoT." - (Barry Buzan 2006) An analysis of the above events point out: The terrorist attacks may either decline due to internal reasons of the terrorist outfits or countermeasures or may be on the rise due to strong motivational factors in favour of the terrorists or ineffectiveness of the countermeasures. A more complacent neutral situation may also be witnessed. The commitment of the US to the war on terrorism securitization is largely dependent upon the costs of both financial and civil liberty associated with it; also its ineffectiveness caused by the time and money being spent on a constant surveillance over everything from trade and finance to personal traveling of the citizens and visitors alike. How long it is possible to use the same vigour in following the guided principles of securitisation as anti terror mechanisms to be adopted are a highly hypothetical question. The question about the weakening the position of the US as a legitimate leader of fighting war on terrorism on a global basis due its unilateralist turn which may eventually see that US is not favoured as a legitimate leader and also the weakening of the war on terrorism itself in the course of time which may not need the leadership of a country like that of the US. It is possible to conceive the idea that war on terrorism securitisation will have to have its critics working on the relationship it creates between religion and politics, where both have quite different ramifications in the tangential directions. Action like that of US and the British to justify the invasion of Iraq linking the invasion to counter the ongoing war on terrorism may bring more unacceptability to the whole concept of war on terrorism itself by nations who do not really support the US and UK on this issue. Other compelling and competing criteria which may attract the world's attention like rising sea-levels, approaching asteroids or even the spread of a new epidemic may easily place the concerns of the world on issues other than war on terrorism where securitization against war on terrorism may not even find a place. 4.0 APPLICATION OF SECURITISATION APPORACH BY DEVELOPED NATIONS - MEAUSRES TAKEN: "The 'war on terror' has affected anti-terrorism laws and anti-terrorism policies world wide. New legislation has been passed in many countries; laws existing prior to September 11th 2001 have been used with a new focus on security and prevention; and there have been attempts to integrate and harmonise national and international measures of combating terrorism in order to coordinate strategies against what is perceived as a global and globally coordinated threat." (Julia Eckret 2005) "The concept of security in international law and international relations has, however, traditionally denoted the security of states, and the orthodox definition of international security is premised on the military defense of territory" - (Brett Story 2005) Hence the foremost concern of any nation's security is its stronghold on its military power. The United States after 9/11 incident had taken tremendous efforts in augmenting its military resources so that it can strengthen its hands on its war on terrorism. On whatever is happening in securitization of war on terrorism is concerned the key player inevitably is the United States enjoying a period of unparalleled global preponderance either because of its control over a more substantial share of global power or the magnitude by which the country was affected by the terrorist attacks. So when we talk of developed nations for the limited perspective of the securitization aspects about which this paper spins around, we mean the United States and its de-facto immediate follower United Kingdom. In the direction of securitization, the US had in the past taken several economic and non-economic measures which had a direct impact on the efforts to combat the war on terrorism. Such measures have started as early as its nonproliferation programs in the former Soviet Union like: Weapon Security & elimination Fissile Material Security Fissile Material Elimination Employing WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction)experts Strengthening the countermeasures against Biological Weapon threats. Other important areas where the United States have concentrated are the issues of immigration and asylum as matters of security. "Central to this research, often, is the influential concept of 'securitization' developed by the Copenhagen School of contemporary security studies. Interested in the discursive aspects of security politics, members of the Copenhagen School used the idea of securitization to describe the discourse or 'speech acts' by which security threats are constructed" - (Brett Story 2005) The position of introducing new measures under securitization theme in the UK is also equally encouraging. "What anti-terrorism measures have been introduced After 9/11, terrorist suspects were held without trial at Belmarsh prison. In 2004 the Law Lords ruled that this breached human rights law, forcing the government to introduce new legislation in the form of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005. Most controversially, this allowed the Home Secretary to impose control orders on terrorist suspects, placing them under effective house arrest. It also made it easier to deport and exclude people form the UK who are accused of fostering hatred or advocating violence. A judge has now ruled that control orders too breach human rights. In November 2005 the government suffered an embarrassing defeat over proposals to increase the time that suspects can be held without trial from 14 to 90 days. The final legislation, the Terrorism Act 2006, included a compromise figure of 28 days. The act also introduced laws against indirect incitement and 'glorification' of terrorism and an offence of 'acts preparatory to terrorism'." (Article on: Terrorism and Civil Liberties (2006) Debating Matters Competition) 5.0 LIMITATONS OF SECURITISATION APPROACH: The securitisation approach though is relevant from its position as a combating tool for the developing war on terrorism, is not a panacea in itself as a total measure of control against war on terror. This is due to the fact that the approach is suffering from some inherent limitations which are outlined below: First, securitisation has been addressed in solely discursive terms, failing to contend with the way in which threats are constructed by both discursive and non-discursive practices of security formation. Second, a focus on securitisation risks obscuring the processes that stop short of extreme or exceptional politics. As Buzan et al. put it, "when any issue is presented as posing an existential threat to a designated referent object," it justifies emergency measures" that might not be acceptable within "normal politics" (1998: 21-24). Third, the pervasive themes in the crackdown on asylum seekers and unauthorised immigrants are 'management' and 'control' in contrast with the traditional security preoccupations with 'conquest' and 'victory'. Here the enemy is characterised by 'intangibility' which makes the securitisation ineffective most of the times. Fourth, the securitisation theory doesn't prioritise, nor develop any analytical tools for understanding for whom securitisation is done or why; "In the process of securitization, the key issue is for whom security becomes a consideration, in relation to whom" state Buzan et al. (1998: 18) - (Brett Story 2005) 6.0 CONCLUSION: "The concepts of securitization and desecuritization and the emphasis on studying security as a discourse allow us to escape state-centric realism, but this framework is at the same time unable to account for a possible change in normative standards for conflict resolution and the strengthening of legally binding agreements." (Helene Sjursen 2003) Hence it boils down to the fact that the securitization policy will either be governed by the most powerful or it will be taken in the hands of particular groups in response to perceived threats to their very survival. From the foregoing discussions it emerges that the nations world over have been spending considerable time and money in establishing and defending different stands of their own in the spectrum of securitization and the war on terror. But all these activities are centered around: The paranoid sense of terrorist attacks. The urge of protecting the interest of the country and its boundaries mainly in the Wake of economic havoc these attacks can create on its own nation The usage of military power and thereby increasing the potential of economic growth through arms sales The show of big brotherly attitude in the economic and social issues of nations which are not in any way connected with the economic or political advancement of other countries. In the disguise of combating the cross border terrorism countries like US has indulged in the wars of may be beginning with Vietnam continued till today with Iraq, mainly to achieve their hidden agenda of economic stability in their own countries in the ways enlisted above. Other European nations do not have anything new in their own way to add. In the case of developing nations the scenario is still worse. In the absence of the mechanism to provide the latest trends and movements in the area of terrorism, they do not have much to do except making political statements of their unequivocal support to whatever is being done by the super powers to strengthen the securitization and anti terrorist activities. Another direction in which attention needs to be focused is 'managing the imagined threat of terrorism' "neither that counter-terrorist policies are not useful or necessary, nor that the threat of terrorism is "imaginary". Of course the threat is real and needs to be dealt with through a variety of measures. the way we think about the terrorist threat may not necessarily reflect its reality. In other words the way we perceive the terrorist threat is constructed (framed) through the way social actors, especially politicians and the media, talk about it. This framing, although occurring in the abstract world of perceptions, has far reaching consequences in the real world, including the way we practically deal with terrorism and our sense of vulnerability as a society" (Cristina Archetti and Prof. Philip M. Taylor) Word Count : 3549 Reference List: 1. Thomas Diez 2006 Opening, Closing: Securitisation, the War on Terror and the Debate about Migration in Germany Discussion paper at the MIDASSWP Workshop [online] Available from : http://www.midas.bham.ac.uk/Berlin%20Paper%20Diez%2020060307.pdf Accessed on 24th January 2007 2. Mark Duffield 2002 War as a Network Enterprise: The New Security Terrain and its Implications Cultural Values, Vol. 6, Nos. 1 & 2, 2002, 153 165 [online] Available from : http://seminar.cambridgesecurity.net/duffield_netwar.pdf Accessed on 24th January 2007 3. Prof Amitav Acharya 2005 Human Security, Identity Politics and Global Governance: From Freedom from Fear to Fear of Freedoms Paper given at the international conference, Civil Society, Religion & Global governance: Paradigms of Power & Persuasion [online] Available from : http://law.anu.edu.au/nissl/acharya.pdf Accessed on 24th January 2007 4. Nicole Jackson International Organizations and the "Securitisation" of Human and Narcotic Trafficking in Post-Soviet Central Asia1 University of Warwick [online] Available from http://www.rsis-ntsasia.org/publications/PDF/Nicole_Jackson.pdf Accessed on 24th January 2007 5. Buzan, B., O. Wver, et al. (1998). Security : a new framework for analysis. Boulder, Colo., Lynne Rienner Pub. 6. Rens Van Munster 2005 Logics of Security: The Copenhagen School, Risk Management and the War on Terror: Political Science Publications [online] Available from http://www.sam.sdu.dk/politics/publikationer/RensSkrift10.pdf Accessed on 25th January 2007 7. Helene Sjursen 2003 Security and Defence ARENA Working Paper [online] Available from : http://www.arena.uio.no/publications/wp_03_10_sjursen.pdf Accessed on 24th January 2007 8. Collins Contemporary Security Studies Oxford University Press Online Resource Centre [online] Available from http://www.oup.com/uk/orc/bin/9780199284696/01student/mcqs/ch07/ Accessed on 25th January 2007 9. Juha Vuori 2003 Security as Justification An Analysis of Deng Xiaoping's Speech to the Martial Law Troops in Beijing on the Ninth of June 1989 [online] Available from : http://www.helsinki.fi/nacs/nacs2003_papers/nacs_papers_fulltext_vuori.pdf Accessed on 24th January 2007 10. Philippe Bourbeau 2006 Migration and Security: Securitization theory and its refinement University of British Columbia [online] Available from http://www.iir.ubc.ca/isac2006/Bourbeau%20ISA%202006%20Paper.pdf Accessed on 25th January 2007 11. K.M. Fierke 2005 The 'War on Terrorism': a Critical Perspective [online] Available from : http://www.ria.ie/cgi-bin/ria/papers/100534.pdf Accessed on 24th January 2007 12. Barry Buzan 2006 The 'War on Terrorism' as the new 'macro- securitisation' Oslo Workshop. [online] Available from : http://www.nupi.no/IPS/filestore/Paper-BarryBuzan.pdf Accessed on 24th January 2007 13. Julia Eckret 2005 The Politics of Security working paper No 76 Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology [online] Available from : http://www.eth.mpg.de/pubs/wps/pdf/mpi-eth-working-paper-0076.pdf Accessed on 24th January 2007 14. Brett Story 2005 Politics as Usual: The Criminalisation of Asylum Seekers in the United States: RSC working Paper No 26. [online] Available from : http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/PDFs/RSCworkingpaper26.pdf Accessed on 24th January 2007 15. Article on: Terrorism and Civil Liberties (2006) Debating Matters Competition [online] Available from : http://www.debatingmatters.com/C2B/document_tree/ViewACategory.aspCategoryID=49 Accessed on 24th January 2007 16. Cristina Archetti and Prof. Philip M. Taylor Managing Terrorism After 9/11: the War On Terror The Media, and the Imagined Threat [online] Available from : http://www.terrorismresearch.net/finalreports/Taylor/Final%20Report.pdf Accessed on 24th January 2007 Read More