Slippery? contradictory? sociologically untenable? The Copenhagen school replies

Abstract

In the January 1996 issue of the Review, Bill McSweeney argues that our 1993 book, Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda in Europe (IMNSAE), ‘subverts’ the analysis of Buzan’s People, States and Fear (PSF) ‘without enhancing our understanding of the problem of security’ (p. 93).Bill McSweeney, ‘Identity and Security: Buzan and the Copenhagen School’, Review of International Studies, 22 (1996), pp. 81–93; O. Wæver, B. Buzan, Morten Kelstrup and Pierre Lemaitre with David Carlton et al., Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda in Europe (London, 1993). Of the many charges that McSweeney brings to bear we will address three. First is that societal security is merely a trendy response to current concerns about nationalism rather than a more theoretically considered move. Second — and this seems to be the core of his complaint — is that the view we take of ‘identities’ is far too objectivist and not (de)constructivist enough, and that our approach makes it impossible to consider the process of identity formation as part of the politics of security. Third, he says that Buzan’s association with IMNSAE contradicts strong positions he developed in PSF and that his analysis has therefore become incoherent.