Post-Copenhagen Security Studies: Desecuritizing Securitization

1 The so-called Copenhagen school is perhaps best represented in Barry Buzan, `Rethinking Security After the Cold War', Cooperation and Conflict, vol. 32, no. 1, March 1997, pp. 5-28, and more fully developed in Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver & Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1997). A sort of middle-of-the road version of new security studies is found in Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996).

2 Stephen M. Walt, `The Renaissance of Security Studies', International Studies Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 2, June 1991, pp. 211-239.

3 Buzan (note 1 above); Barry Buzan & Ole Wæver, `Slippery? Contradictory? Sociologically Untenable? The Copenhagen School Replies', Review of International Studies, vol. 23, no. 2, April 1997, pp. 241-250. The critique to which Buzan & Wæver replied came above all from a 1996 article by Bill McSweeney; a reworked version of this article can be found in his book Security, Identity and Interests: A Sociology of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

4 David Baldwin, `The Concept of Security', Review of International Studies, vol. 23, no. 1, January 1997, pp. 5-26.

5 Johan Eriksson, `Observers or Advocates? On the Political Role of Security Analysts', Cooperation and Conflict, vol. 34, no. 3, September 1999, pp. 311-333. The symposium also includes the replies from Kjell Goldmann, Ole Wæver, and Michael C. Williams, together with a reply from Eriksson.

6 It should be noted that we appear to agree on one major point, namely the need to study security in its regional contexts. I also accept Morten Kelstrup's point that the critique presented here cannot pretend to invalidate the work of the Copenhagen school as such. The Copenhagen school stands for much more than the isolated points I am criticizing here. Nevertheless, it is its most distinctive aspect that is under attack.

7 More exactly, the element of urgency (time constraint) in the notion of threat. See the relevant section on pp. 360-361.

8 Alexander Wendt, `Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics', International Organization, vol. 46, no. 2, Spring 1992, pp. 391-425; Emanuel Adler, `Seizing the Middle Ground: Constructivism in World Politics', European Journal of International Relations, vol. 3, no. 3, September 1997, pp. 319-363; Jeffrey T. Checkel, `The Constructivist Turn in International Relations Theory', World Politics, vol. 50, no. 2, January 1998, pp. 324-348; Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). For an explicit rejection of Adler's middle ground, see Heikki Patomäki & Colin Wight, `After Postpositivism? The Promises of Critical Realism', International Studies Quarterly, vol. 44, no. 2, June 2000, pp. 213-237.

9 Kjell Goldmann, `Issues, Not Labels, Please! Reply to Eriksson', Cooperation and Conflict, vol. 34, no. 3, September 1999, pp. 331-333.

10 This may seem not so far off from ideas found in writings as recent as Buzan, Wæver & de Wilde (note 1 above). My formulation goes a generation back.

11 Olav F. Knudsen, `The Concept of Cooperative Security and its Relationship to Policy', unpublished paper, presented at the ISA Annual Meeting in Chicago, February 2001.

12 I am indebted to the tradition of Nils Andrén (Den totala säkerhetspolitiken [The Total Security Policy], Stockholm: Rabén & Sjögren, 1972) and other writers who in similar ways have emphasized the political dimension in security (e.g. Helga Haftendorn, `The Security Puzzle: Theory-Building and Discipline-Building in International Security', International Studies Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 1, March 1991, pp. 3-17).

13 Thus I reject Walt's standpoint (note 2 above) of making war and the military aspect a defining criterion of security studies.

14 Buzan (note 1 above); Buzan, Wæver & de Wilde (note 1 above), p. 4.

15 Buzan & Wæver (note 3 above).

16 In addition to some rather awkward language: `Securitization' works all right in English but is unpronounceable in the Scandinavian languages. It testifies to the popularity of the cult that Scandinavian students nevertheless employ the Danish, Swedish, or Norwegian versions in their academic discussions. However, I find `securityness' a shade too sectarian for ordinary scholarly discourse.

17 See, for instance, the retrospective accounts of Blechman and Dörfer: Barry Blechman, `Common Security as Seen From the 1990s', in Olav F. Knudsen, ed., Strategic Analysis and the Management of Power: Johan Jørgen Holst, the Cold War and the New Europe (London: Macmillan, 1996), pp. 93-108; Ingemar Dörfer, `A Comment on the Palme Commission Report', pp. 109-112 of the same volume.

18 Walt (note 2 above).

19 Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations (Brighton: Wheatsheaf, 1983).

20 Ole Wæver, Concepts of Security, PhD dissertation, Institute of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, 1997, pp. 211-256.

21 Bjørn Møller, Common Security and Nonoffensive Defense: A Neorealist Perspective (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1991).

22 However, the premise of the importance of non-militarized security was soon proven wrong in the politics on the European ground level as Yugoslavia fell apart. The old scare-bug type of security - the hard version - was still there. Non-military security was proven irrelevant to this type of danger.

23 Buzan (note 1 above).

24 Wæver (note 20 above), p. 221.

25 Buzan & Wæver (note 3 above), p. 246. See also McSweeney (note 3 above).

26 A more complete argument for this subjective conception of security is given in Buzan, Wæver & de Wilde (note 1 above), pp. 29-31.

27 Ole Wæver, `The EU as a Security Actor: Reflections from a Pessimistic Constructivist on Post-Sovereign Security Orders', in Morten Kelstrup & Michael C. Williams, eds, International Relations and the Politics of European Integration: Power, Security and Community (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 250-294.

28 Actually, the political process of defining something as a threat has not usually - to my knowledge - been much marked by panic, or even urgency, at least not in North European countries; rather, armchair speculation has typified it, as part of defense planning. But that it has taken place in convenient secrecy, protected by an argument of urgency, is of course correct - and that has rightly been targeted by the Copenhagen school.

29 That is not to say that the state must be conceived of as a massive, impenetrable unit or as a unit that is necessarily strong. More on this below.

30 Buzan, Wæver & de Wilde (note 1 above), pp. 35ff.

31 I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer for the point about the literature. Contrary to the reviewer's view, however, I believe that it strengthens my argument. (See also note 34 below.)

32 Buzan & Wæver (note 3 above).

33 Buzan, Wæver & de Wilde (note 1 above).

34 Exactly the same inconsistency is found in the work of Bill McSweeney (note 3 above), one of the Copenhagen school's sharper critics - which is all the more surprising considering the many sensible things he has to say both about the Copenhagen school and the use of the state concept. His argument is puzzling on this score: After an initial critique of state-centeredness, McSweeney gradually works his way back to assigning the state an important place in his analytical scheme.

35 See, for example, Richard K. Ashley, `The Poverty of Neorealism', International Organization, vol. 38, no. 2, Spring 1984, pp. 238-242.

36 Kalevi J. Holsti, The State, War, and the State of War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

37 See, for example, John Gerard Ruggie, `Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations', International Organization, vol. 47, no. 1, Winter 1993, pp. 139-174; Ethan B. Kapstein, `Territoriality and Who is US?', International Organization, vol. 47, no. 3, Summer 1993, pp. 501-503; Stephen Krasner, `Westphalia and All That', in Judith Goldstein & Robert O. Keohane, eds, Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions and Political Change (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 235-264.

38 Though Alexander Wendt has no problem with that. See Wendt (note 8 above).

39 Which is why `two-level games' were hardly new in 1988. Robert Putnam, `Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games', International Organization, vol. 42, no. 3, Summer 1988, pp. 427-460.

40 Arnold Wolfers, `The Actors in International Politics', in William T. R. Fox, ed., Theoretical Aspects of International Relations (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1959), pp. 83-107.

41 Wæver (note 27 above).