Security through Intercultural Dialogue? Implications of the Securitization of Euro-Mediterranean Dialogue between Cultures

Abstract

This article analyses the consequences of framing Euro-Mediterranean Dialogue between Cultures within a context of security. On the basis of the Copenhagen School's conceptualization of security, it shows that security concerns very forcefully serve to legitimize the need for an ambitious dialogue based on key ideals of Critical Theory. Yet, there is a backside to securitization. Securitization also brings extreme politization and heightened attempts of governmental control, which ultimately compromise those very ideals on which dialogue is based.

Notes

¹ The full name of the dialogue is the ‘Anna Lindh Foundation for the Euro-Mediterranean Dialogue between Cultures’. For the remainder of the essay it will be referred to as the Dialogue between Cultures or for short, the Dialogue.

² Here, it should be emphasized that given the fact that the Dialogue between Cultures is a new initiative, there are relatively few official EU documents which address the content of the initiative in detail. The most elaborate document is the High-Level Report, on which the following analysis will particularly rely.

³ For an overview of these critiques within IRT, see for example Linklater (1996, 2005) or Risse (2000).

⁴ For instance, Connolly has argued that Habermas' quest for consensus comes to absorb difference, hence undermining the ideal of respecting and cherishing plurality (Connolly, 2001). Foucault has equally argued that ‘the search for a form of morality acceptable to everyone in the sense that everyone would have to submit to it, seems catastrophic to me’ (quoted in Linklater, 1996: 290).

⁵ In other words, the southern partners' commitment to the dialogue and their sense of co-ownership of the initiative is in practice deeply affected by the asymmetrical relationship. As the High-Level Report points out: ‘Culture and dialogue cannot have the same role and scope as they do for the ageing and world-wise populations of the northern Mediterranean’ (18).

⁶ Here, the point is not that these securitizing moves are undertaken deliberately or for strategic reasons. The idea is not to show how, for example, EU representatives or the High-Level group manipulatively appeal to security in order to persuade a certain audience, but rather how the legitimations of the dialogue – perhaps despite their good intentions – come to rest on and produce a logic of security.

⁷ This point is particularly worth stressing since it is often the case that calls for civilizational dialogue – albeit unwillingly – seem to embrace Huntington's argument. For example Dallmayr emphasizes the need for dialogue the following way: ‘In my view the significance of 2001 is not diminished but rather intensified by September 11 and its aftermath: the attacks and the ensuing military clashes precisely underscore the urgent need to strengthen goodwill and dialogue among peoples and civilizations around the globe, as a preventive antidote to civilizational conflict’ (Dallmyer, 2002: x, italics added).

⁸ Gillespie has equally pointed out that the Dialogue was highly politicized from its very beginning, in particular over issues of location, funding and organizational structure of the Foundation (Gillespie, 2004b: 234, see also Pace, 2005). Yet, a debate over such issues can be seen as an expression of a relatively normal political process, whereas the extreme politization of the Dialogue concerns the very terms or preconditions of the dialogue.

⁹ This has occurred in cooperation with the Executive Director of the Foundation.

¹⁰ According to a member of the Euromed Committee, one of the ideas of the initiative is exactly to try to influence the southern partners in the direction of democracy and greater respect for human rights through the enhancement of civil society exchanges (Interview in connection with the launch of the Foundation in Alexandria, 18–20 April 2005).

¹¹ However, on the basis of the Foucauldian critique of Habermas, here it may be argued that these confines on the dialogue in terms of actors and themes are unavoidable, given that any dialogue is political and enmeshed with power relations. Any dialogue will be restricted in terms of the subjects who are given access to speak and the objects and concepts that can be discussed. The point is, however, that although any dialogue in this sense is political, securitization brings an extreme form of politization – and hence governmental restrictions – to the dialogue.