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One of the most important and controversial contributions to a vibrant body of new security theories since the 1990s has been the idea of securitization. However, rather than providing a consolidated position the discourse on securitization has only just begun to transform the new idea into a more comprehensive security theory. This article argues that such a theory needs to go beyond the current reflections on securitization by the Copenhagen School. Through internal critique and conceptual reconstruction the article generates an alternative framework for future empirical research and identifies two centres of gravity as a first step towards a more consistent understanding of securitization as a comprehensive theory of security.
KEY WORDS * constructivism * discourse * organized crime * securitization * threat image
Introduction
For many years now, insights of social theory and linguistics have inspired various streams of European approaches to International Relations and have led to a broad range of alternative perspectives on international politics. While being introduced as early as the 1980s, many thoughts became popular to a wider audience only in the course of the 1990s. In security studies traditional military strategists and European or American realists have been supplemented and severely challenged by a vibrant body of theoretical innovations. New security theories often share a more dynamic and, in general, ontologically more reflective perspective on security. Moreover, they often apply discursive methodologies and take a critical stance towards the taken for granted 'realities' of security in the world.
One of the most important and controversial contributions to this theoretical discourse has been the idea of securitization as it is articulated in the works of the Copenhagen School. Ole Waever and Barry Buzan, the core of the Copenhagen School, define securitization as a successful speech act 'through which an intersubjective understanding is constructed within a political community to treat something as an existential threat to a valued referent object, and to enable a call for urgent and exceptional measures to deal with the threat' (Buzan and Waever, 2003: 491). Yet, rather than providing a consolidated position, the discourse on securitization has only just begun to transform the new idea into a more comprehensive security theory.
The attempts of the Copenhagen School to construct a more comprehensive theory rest on...