Modernity, identity and security: a comment on the ‘Copenhagen controversy’

Abstract

The attempts by Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and other members of the 'Copenhagen School' to provide a theoretical foundation for a broader understanding of security and security studies involves a sustained effort to rethink the processes through which issues become 'security' issues. Security is no longer viewed as referring naturally or unproblematically to the military security of the state. Rather, the goal becomes to understand how different 'referent objects' - from the economy, to the environment, to military relations - can become subject to the processes of 'securitization' in which the socially and politically successful 'speech act' of labelling an issue a 'security issue' removes it from the realm of normal day-to-day politics, casting it as an 'existential threat' calling for and justifying extreme measures.Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder, CO, 1998); Ole Wæver, 'Securitization and Desecuritization', in Ronnie D. Lipschutz (ed.), On Security (New York, 1995), pp. 46-86.