The concept of “security” is very broad, and many scholars have explained it differently. There are those who explain security only as the absence of threats to the existence of the nation and the state, as well as the core values; and there are ones who explain security as something more, including to maintain these values, the nation, or the state by victory even when they are challenged and when the war is unavoidable. For this study, the definition of the concept of security is that it is something constructed, which makes people feel safe in the absence of threats to their life, conscience, property, comfort, and thoughts, by assuring them that even if these values are threatened, they will be maintained by victory.
Securitization is a widely used concept in economics, finance, information technology (IT), and other fields, but the usage of this concept here is political only. Securitization prioritizes the issue by naming it a security issue, bringing it above politics, as an existential issue that shall be dealt with immediately. An issue is securitized when it is presented as existentially important and when the public agrees (usually by a silent consent) that the referent object shall be protected by any means.
There are three levels of dealing with political issues: the first one is non-politicization , undermining the issue, constructing it as unimportant; the second one is politicization , which brings up the issue to the discussions in the public realm; and the third level is securitization , which prioritizes the issue by naming it a security issue, bringing it above politics, as an existential issue that shall be immediately dealt with.
Politics is directed by security “threats”, and they command people’s way of life. Securitized issues determine the political agenda and highly affect the political, social, and economic life of the countries and the international community. There are some important issues that cannot be negotiated for, but there are some others that are only constructed as such. It is important to understand these issues and to understand what lies behind the idea of securitizing an issue. It is also important to understand the intentions of the ones that construct these issues as so special that they cannot be negotiated. By understanding the intentions of the actors, one can decide for themselves the importance of those issues.
The Copenhagen School of Security Studies has developed a critical theory of “securitization ”. This theory explains how some issues become security issues and some do not and who categorizes those issues as such (Waever 1995; Buzan et al. 1998). This book aims to develop the theory of securitization further by analyzing how and why Islam is being dealt with at the “security level” of US foreign policy.
For a referent object to be securitized, one shall argue the existential importance of that referent object. Securitization is done by uttering fragile words (such as “security”, “threat”, and “danger”, among others) when either talking about the referent object (such as nation, state, etc.) or the threat (in this case Islam). The securitizing actors want to be able to use extraordinary means, which would not normally use, to deal with the issue at stake.
There are indicators that US foreign policy follows the Wilson doctrine, where there are “zones of shared values” (Ikenberry 2000: 120) in the world and where the USA has a grand strategy of democracy promotion . But this “promotion” of democracy during the President George W. Bush administration backfired, as Bush wanted to promote democracy in the Middle East by getting more engaged and intervene in the Middle East. The Obama administration saw the results and tried to promote democracy by looking more distantly on the idea of further intervention and instead by trying to build broader coalitions in the Middle East and in the world. In all this promotion-of-democracy politics, Islam and how they dealt with Islam played a crucial role.
Islam has always been an issue of discussion in American politics. How do we talk about Islam, its place, and relationship within the context of US security? How does the language we use to describe Islam influence the way we imagine it? How is Islam constructed as a security issue? These and similar questions are answered in this book.
This book argues that Islam has been securitized, especially during the W. Bush administration, when it was considered as a threat and as the “other” in US foreign policy. American politics had once securitized communism, race, weapons of mass destruction , and now Islam. This securitization is done through the association of Islam with security words in speeches of foreign policy and national security. By analyzing the four recent US presidents’ discourses on Islam, this work sheds light on how they viewed Islam. Islam is analyzed in this work as a religion and a social reality. The current work analyzes how the US policymakers have used Islam in their discourse and how they viewed it as an ideology, because we see that for some it is an ideology that conflicts with what America stands for, whereas for others it is an ideology that aligns with America’s values. This work does not analyze particular relations of the USA with Muslim majority countries or groups, but these relations are analyzed in a broader spectrum as the view toward Muslims and not toward particular groups or states.
Previously, President Clinton decided to hold back from using Islam in his foreign policy discourse, especially in his second term. Only when necessary would he include Islam in the solution and not the problem. On the contrary, President W. Bush securitized Islam in order to legitimize the promotion of democracy, the war on terror , and the invasion of Iraq . He made security a religious issue, and then he increased the security alert in America by fear, thereby constructing Islam and Muslims as the “other” and the rival. Islam was securitized by association rather than directly, increasing polarization , terror, and chaos in the world and undermining US national security that it aimed to protect. The Obama administration wanted to desecuritize Islam, by claiming that America doesn’t see Islam as an enemy/rival. The administration thought that desecuritizing Islam and trying to show how Islam is compatible with democracy is the right method of democracy promotion and fight against extremism . Nevertheless, the desecuritization of Islam has remained only in discourse, whereas in practice very little progress has been made. The biggest indicator of the lack of desecuritization of Islam is the election of President Trump . In his campaign speeches, he made it clear that he and his administration see Islam as a security issue only. Although we cannot analyze his approach toward Islam now, because it is only his first year, but we can predict his approach by analyzing who he hired in senior position at the White House and his initial speeches. Today, America is in the most securitized state since the end of the Cold War . Many issues have been securitized since the new administration, and a separate study needs to be made to analyze that rapid escalation. We believe that the securitization of Islam has helped in bringing up the security atmosphere in America, and the new administration has just amplified it by including more issues.
Because there are three levels of dealing with politics—the domestic, the international, and the system level—an issue can be securitized at different levels as well. It is different in method, in what one wants to achieve, in the actors involved, and in the impact that it has.
Analyzing the securitization of Islam has shown that securitization theory needs to be developed further. Different issues are securitized at different levels, and Islam, like communism, was securitized on a global level that we called the “systematic securitization”, which is a longer campaign that involves many more actors. The actors, speeches, audiences , and methods involved in “systematic securitization” are different from traditional securitization .
The leaders of the states securitize domestic political issues so that they can protect their interests, including their position and ideologies. The leaders who resort to international securitization usually want the position of their states, or groups, to remain high, so that their individual position is high as well, in international platforms. The actors at the system level securitize an issue because they want to spread their own doctrine or ideology as the right one and to promote that doctrine or ideology. This has benefits to the leaders themselves, but it also has ideological meaning, where those groups (states, organizations, interest groups) that securitize in the systematic level want to spread their ideology. Although securitizing actors do not mention their interests directly, interests play an important role when an issue is securitized.
The actors of international securitization try to maintain and benefit their interests and the interests of their group. International issues are securitized against international threats, which usually threaten internationally accepted values, security, humanity, and international peace. By securitizing internationally, a leader or a state justifies intervening in another state, to the international public, and also by engaging in “someone else’s businesses” to the domestic public, which includes military, financial, or political engagements (Shipoli 2010). International securitization is also done in order to protect the idea of “what we stand for”, including the responsibility to protect and to defend the values that these leaders, or states, hold dearly. For example, an American leader may argue that an intervention in a developing country is necessary to protect and promote democracy, which is what America stands for. This also is an interest to protect the ideology and the values of a particular identity.
Systematic securitization, or macro-securitization as Buzan and Waever (2009) call it, is done in order to securitize an issue to the worldwide public and engage everyone to deal with it. Differently from international securitization, in the systematic securitization the issues that concern the whole globe are securitized, and this usually divides the international politics into poles, like communism-liberalism, east-west, and recently Islamic-western. This type of securitization is usually done by a large group spread throughout the world, or a super and unitary power, not by few leaders in a particular region.
Securitization is a process that is constructed by the actors of securitization; thus it was important for this study to analyze their narrative, speech, writing, and visual. In the systematic securitization, where the securitization of Islam fits, the number and scope of the securitizing actors change. While in domestic securitization there are the political elite, governmental officials, local officials, activists, and influential local persons as securitizing actors, in the systematic securitization, this category of securitizing actors includes ideologically driven persons, religious and faith leaders, international political leaders, influential international persons, international organizations, interest groups, multinational corporations, and international media .
The most important idea of the existence of state is the security of life and property of the people, in Hobbesian terms; but today it is obvious that the state’s main goal is to ensure the national security and guarantee national interest. In Wilsonian terms, to be able to ensure the national security and interests, enlarging the zones of democracy is very important, because democracies don’t fight with each other, and as many democratic states as there are, the threat against the USA will decrease. This study shows that securitization is used as a tool in this context. To be able to do this, they need to name someone as a rival as “other”. One comes to think that everyone needs a rival or an “other” to be able to define “self”. The big states, big organizations, big interests, and big people need bigger rivals and bigger “others”, so when they securitize the system they usually divide the globe into a few poles. In systematic securitization , despite the individual and state political and economic interests, there lies an interest of identifying an idea as “evil”, so that the idea of securitizing actors can be defined as “the right” one. Constructing a “rival” or an “other” is not enough while securitizing, presenting them as a threat is as important. In American foreign policy, communism once held that place and after the Cold War it was about to be replaced by Islam, but it wasn’t replaced until the Bush administration, when the securitization of Islam was completed.
This study has looked for the indicators of securitization in foreign policy, security, and democracy speeches of presidents and their senior officials. But most importantly this work has made a latent content analysis of the foreign policy speeches, State of the Union speeches, and speeches given by the presidents on visits to foreign countries, but that had to do with the subject of security, Islam, US foreign policy, democracy, and terrorism. We have also looked at some speeches of the high-ranking foreig...