Non-Traditional Security in Asia

Dilemmas in Securitization

Ralf Emmers, Mely Caballero-Anthony

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781138264458
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351914352
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Peace & Global Development
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The security issues confronting Asia are both complex and diverse. Given the increasing trend towards an expanding security agenda beyond the military dimension of inter-state relations, this volume provides an extensive study of emerging non-traditional challenges to this region. New realities and new challenges have come to the fore including environmental degradation, illegal immigration, infectious diseases, transnational crime, poverty and underdevelopment. Drawing upon the concepts of securitization and de-securitization, this book brings together regional perspectives from across Asia to examine how these challenges are perceived and managed. It is a valuable contribution to both security and Asian studies and will be ideally suited to those interested in security studies, international relations and development studies.

Chapter 1

Understanding the Dynamics of Securitizing Non-Traditional Security

Mely Callabero-Anthony and Ralf Emmers

The field of security studies has been significantly redefined since the early 1990s. The term ‘security’ has itself become a contested concept. Its conventional definition has been questioned and the concept has become the object of multiple interpretations. The definition of security was traditionally limited to a military dimension of inter-state relations. In contrast, the referent object of security is now no longer confined to the state and its defence from external military attacks but also includes societies and human collectivities. Consequently, issues like infectious diseases, environmental degradation, trafficking in illegal drugs, people smuggling and trafficking and others are being discussed in academic circles as pressing concerns with security implications. Such non-military concerns are categorized in the security studies literature as non-traditional security (NTS) challenges.

The redefinition and broadening of the concept of security in academic debates have been matched by the development of new conceptual tools in the security studies literature. In Asia notions of ‘comprehensive security’ and ‘cooperative security’ have become part of the evolving security lexicon.¹ Furthermore, the idea of ‘human security’, which provides an alternative approach to re-think security by highlighting the threats and insecurities of individuals and communities,² has gained more resonance and credence in the light of emerging threats and uncertainties.

In tandem with the academic trend to re-conceptualize security has been a tendency by governments, policy communities and civil society actors to designate and treat a growing list of national and transnational issues as security matters. Non-traditional security issues are being portrayed and treated by politicians and practitioners as posing threats to the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of nation-states as well as to the well-being of their respective societies and individuals. Such developments in policy circles have taken place in Asia as well, indicative of the increasing diversity of security challenges confronting the region today. Within the last ten years alone, Asia has had to address a series of major non-traditional security challenges including the financial crisis of 1997-98, the haze problems in Southeast Asia, the onset of infectious diseases like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the avian flu, international terrorism, and the tsunami disaster in December 2004.

This edited volume therefore not only reflects the current trends on the evolving conceptualisation of security, but also part of the ongoing study of security thinking in the Asia. As one important outcome of a three-year the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS) research project on Non-Traditional Security in Asia, and funded by the Ford Foundation, this collection provides a comprehensive and extensive analysis of the emerging non-traditional security challenges in the region. More importantly, this volume develops a conceptual framework that goes beyond investigating what these non-traditional security issues are, to understanding the complex processes of how and why these issues emerge, and how they are defined and responded to by governments and non-state actors. It draws upon but also modifies and operationalizes the concepts of securitization and desecuritization advanced by the Copenhagen school to offer an understanding of how non-traditional security issues in Asia are perceived and managed.

In particular, the volume examines the dynamics of securitizing or desecuritizing undocumented migration, HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, forms of transnational crimes like sea piracy, drug trafficking and arms smuggling, as well as poverty and environmental degradation. To explore such issues, the individual chapters address a series of salient questions including the role of state and non-state actors in advancing or hindering the cause of non-traditional security, the impact of domestic politics in securitizing NTS threats, and finally the interplay of the different concepts of security – national/state security, comprehensive security and human security – and their linkages to the securitization or desecurization process.

Analytical Framework

Going Beyond the Copenhagen School of Securitization and Desecuritization Theory?

To understand the dynamics of securitizing non-traditional issues, the edited volume takes off from the theory of securitization and desecuritization set by the Copenhagen School, but modifies it substantially. The theory of securitization/desecuritization emerged at the Conflict and Peace Research Institute (COPRI) of Copenhagen and is represented by the work of Barry Buzan, Ole Waever, Jaap de Wilde and others.³ Although significant differences exist between its scholars, the School has developed a substantial body of concepts to rethink security. In particular, the Copenhagen School has played an important role in broadening the conception of security, not only in including new referent objects of security (other than the state) but also in providing a framework to define security and determine how and when a specific matter becomes securitized or desecuritized.

In Security: A New Framework for Analysis, Buzan, Waever and de Wilde explain that security ‘is about survival. It is when an issue is presented as posing an existential threat to a designated referent object (traditionally, but not necessarily, the state, incorporating government, territory, and society)’.⁴ The Copenhagen School identifies five general categories of security (military, environmental, economic, societal, and political security). The dynamics of each category are determined by securitizing actors and referent objects. The former are defined as ‘actors who securitize issues by declaring something, a referent object, existentially threatened’⁵ and can be expected to be ‘political leaders, bureaucracies, governments, lobbyists, and pressure groups’.⁶ Referent objects are ‘things that are seen to be existentially threatened and that have a legitimate claim to survival’.⁷ Referent objects can be the state (military security); national sovereignty or an ideology (political security); national economies (economic security); collective identities (societal security); species or habitats (environmental security).⁸

An important question however is whether security can be broadened to include these five categories without losing the central coherence of the concept. The Copenhagen School addresses this problem through its securitization and desecuritization model. It claims that any specific matter can be non-politicised, politicised or securitized. An issue is non-politicised when the state does not address it and when it is not included in the public debate. An issue becomes politicised when it ‘is part of public policy, requiring government decision and resource allocations or, more rarely, some other form of communal governance’.⁹ Finally, a political concern can be securitized through an act of securitization. The latter refers to a process in which ‘an issue is framed as a security problem’.¹⁰ Securitization ‘is the move that takes politics beyond the established rules of the game and frames the issue either as a special kind of politics or as above politics’ and it ‘can thus be seen as a more extreme version of politicization’.¹¹ Desecuritization, on the other hand, refers to the reverse process. It involves the ‘shifting of issues out of emergency mode and into the normal bargaining processes of the political sphere’.¹²

The Copenhagen School stresses the importance of the ‘speech act’ in the process of securitization.¹³ The speech act refers to the representation of a certain issue as an existential threat to security. Securitizing actors use speech acts to articulate a problem in security terms and to persuade a relevant audience of its immediate danger. The articulation in security terms conditions public opinion and provides securitizing actors with the right to mobilise state power and to move beyond traditional rules. Significantly, the security concern must be articulated as an existential threat.¹⁴ This important criterion enables the Copenhagen School to link its understanding of security to the question of survival.

The Copenhagen School relies on a two-stage process of securitization to explain how and when an issue is to be perceived and acted upon as an existential threat to security. Beyond the use of the speech act, the act of securitization is only successful once the securitizing actor succeeds in convincing a specific audience (public opinion, politicians, military officers or other elites) that a referent object is existentially threatened. What constitutes an existential threat is viewed by the Copenhagen School to be a subjective question that depends on a shared understanding of what is meant by such a danger to security. Securitization thus refers to the classification of and consensus about certain phenomena, persons or entities as existential threats requiring emergency measures. In these circumstances, standard political procedures are no longer viewed as adequate and extraordinary measures may be imposed to counter the threat. Due to the urgency of the issue, constituencies tolerate the use of counteractions outside of the normal bounds of political procedure. The Copenhagen School indicates however that the success of the act of securitization does not depend on the adoption and implementation of such extraordinary actions.

In short, the Copenhagen School asks the following questions:

• Who and what are the referent objects? These can be individuals and groups (refugees, victims of human rights abuses, etc.) as well as issue areas (national sovereignty, environment, economy, etc.) that possess a claim to survival and whose existence is ostensibly threatened.

• Who are the securitizing actors? These can be governments, political elites, military, and civil society – those actors who securitize an issue by articulating the existence of threat(s) to the survival of specific referent objects.

• Conversely, who are the desecuritizing actors? Those who reconstitute an issue as no longer an existential threat, thereby moving it from the securitized realm into the ordinary public arena.

• How is a process of securitization completed? This focuses on how securitizing actors use the language of security (speech act) to convince a specific audience of the existential nature of the threat. The act of securitization is complete once the relevant audience is convinced of the existential threat to the referent object.

Limitations of the Securitization Model

While the securitization theory provides a systematic framework to understand how issues can and are framed in security terms, we identify four shortcomings with the model. First, while the Copenhagen School tells us who securitizes and how securitization takes place, it does not address the question of why securitization occurs. In response, we identify motivations that encourage securitizing actors to articulate a matter in security terms. Importance is thus given to answering a simple question: why securitize an issue? Every securitizing act involves a political decision. A series of motives and intentions can explain an act of securitization. Securitizing injects urgency into an issue and leads to a mobilization of political support and a deployment of resources. On the other hand, desecuritization may be beneficial due to the risks involved with a process of securitization. Political or military elites can exploit an act of securitization to curtail civil liberties, restrict the influence of certain domestic political institutions or increase military budgets. Securitization can for example lead to the legitimization of the armed forces in politics therefore undermining civilian authority in emerging democracies. By desecuritizing an issue, one can avoid these important risks.

A second shortcoming addressed in this edited volume concerns the insufficient use of empirical research. Scholars of the Copenhagen School have focused on developing a broad theoretical approach to security studies without paying much attention to empiricism. As a result, the dynamics of securitization and desecuritization remain poorly understood empirically. We argue that the securitization model needs to be enriched by more empirical studies and refined in light of their findings and outcomes. For example, the Copenhagen School offers no sense of the indicators of securitization and desecuritization. Even its explanation of how an issue is securitized focuses entirely on a single mechanism, the ‘speech act’. How do we know when an issue is being securitized? Addressing this question, we claim that indicators can be identified. The contributions in this volume seek therefore to develop indicators of securitization and desecuritization as well as to identify mechanisms that go beyond the ‘speech act’.

A third limitation is that the Copenhagen School tends to be Euro-centric in its approach. Its notion of securitization is based on European history and culture. In contrast, the volume applies the securitization model to an Asian context and examines how securitization and desecuritization works, both conceptually and empirically, in an Asian setting. To this end, the contributions apply the conceptual framework to a number of case studies in different parts of Asia (South, Southeast and East Asia).

Finally, the Copenhagen School is not particularly concerned with assessing the policy effectiveness of securitization and desecuritization policies. Nor does it pay much attention to the unintended consequences of these processes. In contrast, the volume places a premium on assessing empirically the extent to which policies of securitization and desecuritization may have contributed to a more effective handling of non-traditional security issues. In that sense, we seek to move the concepts of securitization and desecuritization closer to policy analysis and prescription. A better understanding of such processes could indeed help practitioners in formulating more effective strategies for dealing with nontraditional security challenges. Yet our empirical studies may also indicate that securitizing an issue does not contribute to a solution and that desecuritization is instead a more fruitful approach.

Modification of the Securitization Model: Application and Operationalization

To analyse the growing list of non-traditional security challenges in Asia, we constructed a methodology for investigating acts of securitization and desecuritization.¹⁵ Taking off f...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Global Security in a Changing World
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• 1 Understanding the Dynamics of Securitizing Non-Traditional Security
• 2 Securitization Matrix in South Asia: Bangladeshi Migrants as Enemy Alien
• 3 Malaysia's Approach to Indonesian Migrant Labor: Securitization, Politics, or Catharsis?
• 4 Securitizing Piracy in Southeast Asia: Malaysia, the International Maritime Bureau and Singapore
• 5 Securitizing Small Arms and Drug Trafficking in Indonesia
• 6 Disease and the Complex Processes of Securitization in the Asia-Pacific
• 7 Securitizing the AIDS Issue in Asia1
• 8 Securitizing Health in Violence Affected Areas of Indonesia
• 9 Poverty and the Role of NGOs in Protecting Human Security in Indonesia
• 10 China in the Mekong River Basin: The Regional Security Implications of Resource Development on the Lancang Jiang
• 11 Securitization in Asia: Functional and Normative Implications
• Index