Contribution of the Copenhagen School to Security Studies - Essay Example

Since the end of World War II, the meaning of the term security has been broadly articulated and placed in more comprehensive terms. This was due to the different forms taken by threats in their targets and sources. Boundaries have been re-defined to include protection from economical, social, ethnic, epidemic, environmental challenges and threats from terrorist attacks. This broadened the security view and emphasis placed on ensuring safety and the well being of society. The concept of security has been defined as collection of security studies which emerged in the mid -1990s by the Copenhagen School of Security. The Copenhagen school constitutes the most coordinated approach to study security in the constructivist tradition as explained by Williams (2008). It states that security is created in a process known as securitisation and is not a fixed unit. In a study scholars found the definition of security as issues that are staged as threats to referent objects by securitising an actor an actor thereby generating emergency measures beyond binding rules. The scholars suggested that security studies be taken beyond a limited agenda that focuses on the military relations between states while avoiding inflating the concept. They concluded that at various levels of analysis special threats justify the use extraordinary measures. Regional security complexes develop and they can be explained as groups of units whose security dynamics and processes are connected that security issues cannot be reasonably resolved and analysed from each other as explained by Buzan (2003). These complexes can be defined in exclusive geographical regions with focus being on the security dynamics and interaction between all the continents of the world. The conclusion is that the regional security level is gaining importance for global security dynamics however the theory has been poorly formulated. The major contribution of the Copenhagen School is the securitisation concept while considering all other key ideas for the approach at the organisation level. Regional security complexes are important for the framework as sites for securitisation practices or as dynamic determining the success or failure of the practices in certain geographical locations. Securitisation is the response to the identification of new security threats can be defined as the basis of the Copenhagen School of conflict studies. The approach concerns expansion of the idea while retaining the specific character of security problems. Issues that are outside traditional boundaries of security become security issues when they are recognised as an existential threat to a referent object. Traditionally it concerned the territorial state but current studies look further at what constitutes the referent object as stated by Buzan, Waever & Wilde (1998). The concept of security is no longer confined to the survival of the territorial state as it was in the past. Scholars challenge the static rendition of security arguing the concept embodies different meanings in various societies and is in fact normative and dynamic. Security has then become a concept that is socially constructed and the Copenhagen School has gone to great depths to prove that societal security is an important determining factor for global security. Copenhagen security studies argue that securitisation should be distinguished from political matters accordingly. This is a distinctive feature of the studies which clearly spells out that matters including acts of diplomacy, international security, debates within the political elite and their audience (referent objects) should be excluded. Identification of a security threat arises where security is not a centre of interest. According to the Speech act when the term security is uttered, a representative of the state has a special right to move into a specific area and use the available means to block the threat as explained by Buzan,Waever & Wilde (2003). In this sense security is a platform of negation between the audience and speakers where the speaker has the position of authority within a particular group of people. This is because the threat becomes a security matter as it is presented as a securitiser not necessarily depending on any existential basis. The articulation of threats is not taken lightly and they are clearly stated in the form of the Speech acts. Speech acts are taken are taken as types of representation that do not simply show a view of an external reality. A good example can be when taking an oath of office when an individual accepts the terms and conditions of the employment and one gets employed. According to Williams (2008) by using language of security and threat a state representative makes a specific development and is allowed by law to use any means to stop it. This is an example of conceptual change in the Copenhagen School from formerly placing the speech act as securitisation. By 1998 the Speech acts were changed to Speech moves that stated that an issue was to be securitised if the audience accepted it. The existence was determined by a number of factors including the kind of the speech act, the conditions historically associated with the specific threat and the securitising factor. The concept of securitisation is applied in all other groups other than the state which where the principle it is mostly employed. Position leaders in a position of authority can in case there is a security threat against the state or nation claim to be speaking on behalf of the citizens, command public attention and take emergency measures as explained by Williams (2008). If nation or state is facing an attack from an enemy the leaders can take drastic measure such as the deployment of troops to defend the state thereby maintaining security for the citizens. This is a less normative alternative for the Copenhagen School that the analysis and study of security should be focussed. The analytical one is based on the commitment that security involves defence of the security of the state from any external attacks. The Copenhagen School defines politics as the opposition to the idea of politicisation or normal politics in other terms that is defined by open political deliberation and the law and suggests the model of Western democratic liberal state. This creates a situation of bias towards the West asides privileging the state in their framework. The main area where the framework is applied includes the way the Western political leaders characterise a particular security issue as an existential threat to the national cohesion and identity of the specific nation or state. The leaders handle the security issue with so much intensity as it is a threat to sovereignty of the state. The nations have well organised security troops that can be called upon by the political leaders to defend the nation. The Copenhagen School has contributed to rules and standards governing the treatment of immigrants by the democratic states. The framework gives the best explanation showing the ways in which the linguistic depictions of threat serve to give content to security by enabling emergency action when such a threat occurs. It stipulates guidelines in which the issue of immigration is perceived in traditional studies and the relevance to security and may be addressed in similar ways politically to traditional security threats. It can deploy security troops and even close off its boarders as an action to close off its boarders which is seen as an action to maintain security in the country. This is to deal with the current security with security threats in the world and responding to the immigrants and asylum seekers in Europe and Australia, particularly in the post- September 11 context as stated by Huysmans (2006). The Copenhagen School developed a relatively conclusive framework but it had it faults since it left some questions unanswered. The framework did not lay down guidelines that establish when to securitise an issue and the kind of audience to convince concerning legitimacy of a securitising action. The framework did not specify whether other forms of representation can act as securitising actions. The major theorists suggest that the solutions to all the contentious issues depend on the case being explored and the associated costs if the narrow framework is used. Lene Hansen (2000) suggests that the focus on prominent voices of the powerful people in society contributes to oppression of the marginalised since their opinion is not heard. This is seen as a negative contribution to the society which is referred to as desecurisation which is caused by a limited view of the logic behind the idea of security that has important normative implications. The concept implies that the key purpose of the securisation framework suggests that the content of security views at any potential of something being at threat and the logic behind it is universal and timeless. This can be explained as the effects of securitisation and the enabling emergency measures are substantively similar. These effects are seen to have negative implications and are seen as panic politics which is the opposite of the politicisation idea. For the Copenhagen School issues are handled with secrecy and urgency with no political influence on the issue being addressed. This is according to the works of Carl Schimitt who was a political theorist and his ideas were inconsistent with deliberative liberal democratic politics as explained by Johannen & Gomez (2001). This explains further the expressed normative preference for the concept of desecuritisation that ensures the issues are removed from the security agenda. There are two important points of importance drawn from the above argument and it leads to the explained conclusions. It is unconstructivist to suggest that the logic of security is associated with the concepts of associated panic politics, secrecy and urgency in the sense that is placed as inevitable. Critical security theorists claim that security can be operated according to a different logic which suggests that progressive ends can be reached through security rather than outside security. A certain scholar supports this argument in her study of the way the US government dealt with the situation of the Haitian refugees. The other point is concerned with the general preference for desecurisation that claims that normative issues that are most important in a project that has been shown as exclusively explanatory at times. The stated wishes of critical constructive scholars explain that concept promote advancement of normative concerns in security analysis. This is in contrast with the ideas of conventional constructivists that suggest that employing this approach will lead to normative concerns to more intense theories as explained by Webb, Farell & Holiday (2002). This leads to emergence of many issues questioning the position of the constructivist idea in security studies. There is an on going debate about whether the constructivists should pursue talks with critical theories and other scholars such as the liberals and realists. There is a notable contribution of the Copenhagen School to security studies the major one being the expansion of the security studies mandate. With international relations, the concept of constructivism is associated with the development of norms for the role of factors in global politics than the military politics that characterise most accounts of security and global governance. This approach has enabled further understanding of the traditional security dynamics and seeks to explain the security dilemma and the perception of threat to the state without considering the role of legitimacy standards or the identity of politics. The emphasis is mainly on the social construction of security and gives conclusive insight into how security relates to politics and the importance of the difference between the contexts of security and threat. This has attempted to widen understanding of the term security and shift the attention from the state as the point of interest. With the focus being on society security the analysis goes beyond the material to cognitive and structural resources. Thirdly, the approach attempts to distinguish between the processes of securitisation from politicisation. References Buzan, B & Wæver, O 2003, Regions and powers: The structure of international security, Cambridge University Press. Buzan, B, Wæver, O & Wilde J 1998, Security: A new framework for analysis, Lynne Rienner Publisher. Hansen, L 2006, Security as practice: Discourse analysis and the Bosnian war, NewYork, Routlege. Huysman, J 2006, The politics of insecurity: Fear, migration and asylum in the EU, New York, Routlege. Johannen, U & Gomez J 2001, Democracy in Asia, Select Pub. in association with Friedrich Naumann Foundation. Webb, DP, Farrell, DM & Holliday, I 2002, Political parties in advanced industrial democracies, Oxford University Press. Williams, P 2008, Security studies: An introduction, Taylor & Francis. . Read More