The ethics of securitisation: an interview with Rita Floyd

Rita Floyd (PhD 2007) is Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in Conflict and Security at the University of Birmingham (UoB). At the same institution, she was previously a mid-career Fellow of the Independent Social Research Foundation and before that, a Birmingham Fellow. Prior to that, at the University of Warwick, she was a British Academy Post-doctoral fellow and, earlier, an Economic and Social Research Council post-doctoral fellow. Dr Floyd is a Fellow of the Institute for Environmental Security, an international non-profit non-governmental organisation that aims to promote global environmental security.

Dr Floyd has published widely on security, securitisation and environmental/climate security, including Security and the Environment: Securitisation Theory and US Environmental Security (Cambridge University Press, 2010). In recent years, her primary research interest has been the ethics of security/securitisation. In 2019, The Morality of Security: A Theory of Just Securitisation was published by Cambridge University Press. This book is concerned with three research questions: When is it permissible to move an issue out of normal politics and treat it as a security issue? How should the security measures be conducted? When and how should securitisation be reversed? Floyd offers answers to these questions by combining security studies’ influential securitisation theory with philosophy’s long-standing just war tradition into a major new approach to ethical security studies: Just Securitisation Theory (JST). Like just war theories, JST consists of universal moral principles broken down into the just initiation of securitisation consisting – much abbreviated – of:

• 1. Just cause: The presence of a current objective existential threat (just reason) to an impartially valuable referent object (just referent object).

• 2. Right intention: Satisfaction of just cause.

• 3. Proportionality: Securitisation cannot cause more harm than it seeks to prevent.

• 4. Reasonable chance of success: Securitisation is expected to have a greater chance at achieving just cause than less harmful alternatives.

JST also includes criteria for just conduct in securitisation, specifying that: 1) security measures must be targeted to the threat; 2) that among a choice of measures – where possible – the least harmful ones must be chosen, and 3) that executors of securitisation are constrained in their actions by the rights of suspects and threateners. Beyond that JST also develops criteria specifying just termination of securitisation. These pertain to timing, action and the long-term aim of desecuritization.

Mitja Sardoc (MS):

Contemporary scholarship on securitisation has been marked by an expansion of interest from disciplines as diverse as political science, criminology, psychology, cultural studies, sociology, philosophy, etc. How would you evaluate the “emancipation” of issues associated with securitisation from the exclusive domain of the security and intelligence “industry”, as well as International Relations scholarship in general?

Rita Floyd (RF):

I think that this has to be a good thing. There are two reasons for this. First, it is important to realise that securitisation is one of the few International Relations (the discipline) and security studies’ concepts that has managed to gain traction in other academic fields and – at least the word “securitization” – also in the policy-making world. The discipline of International Relations and its sub-field of security studies frequently import theories, concepts and methods from other disciplines. Indeed, it is at times questionable if there is such a thing as IR, especially as we are moving away from the staple of Great Power politics. So, from the point of view of the sociology of the discipline, it has to be a good thing when, for a change, our ideas and concepts are successfully exported.

Needless to say, for the wider world this is only a good thing if the export merits the success. I believe that it does. Let me explain why. Securitisation theory has no fixed view on who can securitise, the origins of threats or the entities in need of being saved. As such, it is uniquely able to capture that security means different things to different people. How does it do this? The theory holds that security threats do not simply exist “out there”, but rather security is a highly political process with issues turned into security threats via a sequence of events usually involving a securitising actor, a securitising speech act/securitising move (whereby a securitising actor declares a particular referent object threatened in its existence unless urgent action is taken right away), the audience (which has to “accept” the threat narrative contained in the securitising move), and the enacting of extraordinary measures (the breaking of established rules) in order to deal with a (perceived) threat. The exact form securitisation takes differs depending on the issue securitised, as well as on who securitises. The securitisation of infectious diseases (including Covid-19 and Ebola) shows that securitisation can mean lock-downs, forced quarantines, border closures and mandatory vaccinations. By contrast, the securitisation of terrorism has seen an increase in police powers (stop and search, detention without trial), withdrawal of citizenship of foreign fighters, control orders, mass surveillance, drone strikes abroad and much more besides. The securitisation of a cyber-threat, meanwhile, may mean the temporary shutting down of the internet, hacking back using offensive cyber-security capabilities and also, one-off military strikes. In other words, securitisation is a shape shifter, often entailing measures that most reasonable people would ordinarily (that is when there is no threat) consider unacceptable, largely because of the harm and/or violence they cause, risk or entail.

A second thing relevant in the context of your question is whether import by other disciplines benefits or increases our understanding of securitisation. I think that this is undoubtedly the case. As security scholars, our aim ought not to be “disciplinary purity”, but to better understand security in practice, and perhaps also to suggest pathways towards better security practice. Insights from other disciplines have enabled us to understand much better how security operates. Indeed, the very idea inherent to securitisation, namely, that security is, or operates like, an illocutionary speech act whereby speaking security is doing security, comes from the philosophy of language.

MS:

The attacks on 9/11 and the “war on terror” have brought to the forefront problems previously either compartmentalised in specialised courses on intelligence and security studies or at the very fringes of scholarly interest. Are there any issues that contemporary discussions on securitisation have neglected or even ignored?

RF:

More is being written on securitisation than any scholar otherwise busy with the day-to-day business of teaching, marking and admin can read and meaningfully engage with. In other words, I am unlikely to be fully informed on all that is already out there, and so my apologies to anyone I might have overlooked. As far as I can see, however, “securitization studies” has extensively engaged with the process of securitisation. Notably, the issue of the form and function of the audience of securitising moves. The issue of audience consent, including whether this has to be tacit consent only or whether the audience plays an active role. Another issue that has seen a lot of debate is the context that facilitates successful securitisation. There has also been much debate on the nature of securitisation. Specifically, on the meaning of extraordinary measures and whether such measures need to be extraordinary at all to qualify for successful securitisation. Overall scholars are attracted to securitisation in such large numbers because it is the only security theory that enables users to make sense of the fact that all manner of issues (including terrorism, climate change, economic decline, infectious disease) to any number of entities (including states, individuals, the biosphere or even the National Health Service (NHS)) can become securitised.

The element of social and political construction involved in securitisation is valid and powerful; alas, it has had the unfortunate effect that the existence of real threats is almost completely neglected. As I argue below, this is not entirely free from normative bias; after all, if there are no real threats, securitisation can never be justified. And if the latter is true, desecuritization is de facto the ethically right choice. But of course, some threats are real. Indeed, even the most ardent critical security scholars tend to believe that man-made climate change poses serious threats to people, the biosphere and the way we live. If this is so, then it is presumably possible that climate change becomes so serious that securitisation seems the right option. To my mind, this mean that we as scholars must start to consider not only how we can know that threats are real, but we must work to identify relevant thresholds for what I would refer to as just securitisation.

MS:

What has been the impact of the “war on terror” on ethical security studies?

RF:

The war on terror has drawn other disciplines into security studies and it has enabled securitisation to transcend its disciplinary home of security studies and IR. For example, in education studies, interesting work has been done on the Prevent duty at British universities. Prevent raises a number of ethical questions; for example, freedom of speech at Universities, appropriate duties of care for staff and the sanctity of academic freedom. (Gearon 2019) In security studies itself, the trigger for thinking about the ethics of securitisation precedes the global war on terror (GWOT). It began with the discovery of the concept of identity- or societal security in the 1990s and research on the securitisation of immigration. Here is why. The securitisation of immigration is vehemently opposed by the majority of academics, whose political allegiances tend to lie on the left of the political spectrum. But there is a problem: if language has performative force as it does in securitisation theory (wherein speaking security is doing security), then by writing about the securitisation of immigration, scholars inadvertently further the securitisation of the same.(Huysmans 2002) In order to address this “normative dilemma”, securitisation scholars tend to recommend desecuritization.

Desecuritization is essentially the unmaking of securitisation. It refers to a return to normal politics where – ideally – the issue is subject to public debate and scrutiny. To be sure, within the confines of the original Copenhagen school’s securitisation theory you cannot counter securitisation by saying, for instance, immigrants aren’t really a threat. Your forte is threat construction, not threat veracity. To my mind, this is unnecessarily limiting. There is obviously a difference between securitisations that address real threats and those that don’t. Moreover, if you wish to convince practitioners not to securitise because of, say, the adverse effects on vulnerable people (immigrants), your best starting point is to demonstrate that immigrants don’t pose a threat. Practitioners who believe that immigrants do pose a threat, aren’t very likely to be persuaded by you pointing to the negative implications of securitisation.

Turning now to the securitisation of terrorism, I would say the war on terror seems to confirm all that is wrong with securitisation. Thus, the Gwot has led to abuses of executive power (in many weak democracies, the securitisation of terrorism has facilitated the forcible repression of the opposition), to the targeting of specific groups of people and to a rift between democracy and security, and much besides. In other words, the war on terror seems to confirm that desecuritization, never securitisation, is the morally superior. But can we extrapolate from this one case for all possible security threats? As already mentioned, climate change for example is almost universally – certainly among academics – considered a real threat. If this is so, it is at least possible that the securitisation of climate change is morally permissible, perhaps it is even necessary to avoid harsher securitisation in the future.(Wæver 2019) And if this is so, surely it is our duty as academics to examine further what ethical securitisation entails.

MS:

Despite the consensus that terrorism represents a major threat to the security and stability of contemporary societies, the securitisation of terrorism faces problems and challenges of its own. What are the main shortcomings (and other difficulties) associated with the securitisation of terrorism?

RF:

While there might be consensus in the policy making world that terrorism represents a major threat, I don’t think that the scholarly community unequivocally accepts that terrorism is a major threat to security. Many critical scholars will point out that car crashes or cardiac arrests have killed vastly more people in the US in any given year than the events of 9/11.(Jackson 2011)

I think that the major problem with the securitisation of terrorism is that it is unclear whether it can succeed and rid the world of terrorism. This is true of all policy response to terrorism; after all, terrorists wish to achieve their goals by spreading fear in society. The securitisation of terrorism gives more clout to terrorism than a political (we might say a non-emergency) response, because an extraordinary response signals that targeted communities are afraid.

MS:

Alongside some of the “standard” problems associated with terrorism, e.g. “the problem of double standards” (“one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”), this area of scholarly research struggles with various ethical dilemmas. What do you see as the most pressing ethical problems associated with the securitisation of terrorism?

RF:

The main problem is I think that it is unclear whether the securitisation of terrorism can succeed, not merely because of the already mentioned fear issue, whereby a fear-fuelled response – as is securitisation – essentially proves that terrorism works, but because the securitisation of terrorism undermines key aspects of democracy (to the way we live). The right to privacy, freedom of expression even the rule of law, have all been adversely affected by the securitisation of terrorism in the West. This is important because both jihadi terrorism and of late, right-wing extremist terrorism threatens rights and liberties (most notably the right to life and physical integrity) integral to democratic states. Ultimately, the question is thus, which has done more harm to the integrity of democracy: securitisation (counter-terrorism) or terrorism?

MS:

The strategy of securitisation has been associated primarily with urgency-based justification of extraordinary measures applied to whatever its object might turn out to be. Do you see the strategy of securitisation as a reductionist way of either solving or containing problems representing a possible security threat?

RF:

It can be. Most notably when securitisation amounts to rhetoric only, but not to concrete emergency actions. Declaring something or someone existentially threatened gives gravitas to a problem. It suggests that something will now be done to alleviate the threat. But this is not always the case; sometimes rhetorical securitisation is nothing but a smoke-screen.

Securitisation is also reductionist when it means militarisation, specifically where non-conventional threats are concerned. Militaries can be useful executors of securitisation. NATO, for example, has played a significant role in the logistics surrounding Covid-19: they have transported medical equipment, they have secured borders and they have built field hospitals. Nevertheless, one has to be mindful of the fact that when the military is the securitising actor – as opposed to one executor of securitisation – their concern tends to be with the impact of the threat on military readiness (for example, the impacts of infectious disease on numbers of security personnel/soldiers).(Elbe 2006) Notwithstanding the fact that military readiness is important, military readiness is a reductionist view of what it means to be secure, especially where non-traditional threats are concerned.

MS:

How have you become interested in securitisation? What triggered your interest in this area of scholarly research?

RF:

When I first studied politics and IR I was primarily interested in environmental politics. As an undergraduate at the University of Portsmouth (2000–2003), I came across the concept of environmental security (especially Norman Myers’ work, Ultimate Security (1993), was influential on me) and considered this an unmitigated good. I thought that if only environmental issues gained security status, something would finally be done about the issue, including about climate change. My interest in environmental security extended beyond my undergraduate work into my Masters dissertation. By then, at the University of Edinburgh, securitisation was first suggested to me by my MA dissertation supervisor, Professor Roland Dannreuther, in the winter of 2003–2004. He suggested it because Security: A new framework for analysis (1998) offered an analytical way into environmental security. In the winter of 2004, I went to Copenhagen University for a week-long course taught by Ole Waever, the originator of securitisation theory. While taught by Waever, the course was in no way an indoctrination; instead, we learned about a multitude of approaches. Indeed, many students on that small course have gone on to carve out successful careers in security studies (for example, Luis Lobo-Guerrero, Christian Bueger, Holger Stritzel and Bejamin Herborth), but far from all of them work on securitisation. For me personally, it made sense to get stuck into securitisation because: a) I was interested in environmental security and securitisation theory offered an analytical way into this topic; and b) I realised pretty quickly that any work using securitisation required a stance on some of the original theory’s key concepts and points, because some of these were underdeveloped, while a good amount of tension exists between some of the theory’s key assumptions. Notably, is security an illocutionary speech act or does it depend on audience acceptance?

MS:

Your book The Morality of Security advances a novel theory, i.e. “just securitization”. How did you come up with the link between the two seemingly unrelated concepts of securitisation and justice?

RF:

It all started with my work on environmental security. By the time I was doing my PhD (2004–2007), I had come to realise that the securitisation of the environment is not the unmitigated good I had believed it to be as an undergraduate student. My PhD research looked at the securitisation of the environment under the Clinton administration and the desecuritization of the environment by the George W. Bush administration. I found that when the natural environment was securitised by the most powerful country in the world, this did not mean that the environment was made safe (treated better) for the benefit of present and future generations. Instead, US environmental security primarily meant that the Department of Defence became active in cleaning up its toxic military bases. While this is a good thing, it is a long way away from a securitisation of the environment that puts the environment or better, human security, first. Instead, the environment was militarised.

I also found that desecuritization is not always a positive development. While environmental security was a far cry from what I had envisaged, desecuritization was worse. Instead of desecuritization equating to politicisation of the issue, defence environmental security largely vanished from the policy making agenda. In times of terrorism, the armed forces had to be able to train realistically (like they fight) without being constrained by environmental rules and regulations. My research findings got me thinking about what I then called positive and negative securitisation.

My PhD was published in 2010 as Security and the Environment: Securitisation Theory and US Environmental Security by Cambridge University Press. The final chapter of this monograph offers a moral evaluation of securitisation and desecuritization in the environmental sector of security. Completing this project, I began to think seriously about devising similar moral evaluations of securitisation and desecuritization of the Copenhagen school’s other sectors of security. These break down into political, military, societal and economic security. I soon found that the ethics of environmental security are comparatively easy, unlike in the other sectors of security. There is – with the natural environment – an entity most people think should be saved (after all, Myers, 1993, is correct that all other forms of security depend on a functioning natural environment); moreover, there is no one intending to do harm. I eventually abandoned this idea of such a study in favour of writing a book about security threats to the western core of international society and the how and when the core may be morally permitted to defend itself. In the end, I dismissed that idea in favour of writing a general theory of just securitisation. It was in this context that I started to engage with the just war literature.

MS:

How has your thinking on securitisation “evolved”? Is there any element of your work in this area of scholarly research that you would consider revising or developing further? If “yes”, which one(s)?

RF:

I tend to be one of those people who can’t let go of a project. If it weren’t for the Research Excellence Framework (REF), crudely put, the British institutionalisation of “publish or perish”, I would probably put all my work on academia.com as work in progress. In that way, I could always amend everything. Of course, that is not an option, but also no piece of work is every fully finished; you might be tired of it, or done for now, but never finished. Over time, whatever immediate post-publication anxieties I have tend to fade. Mostly, my writings appear more coherent than they seemed at any point of planning or writing. This being said, I am sure that most aspects of my book, The Morality of Security: A theory of just securitisation, could be gone over, improved and elaborated on. Compared with the volume of stuff out there on the justice of war, mine is a tiny effort indeed. I am sure that I will continue to work on issues mentioned in that book for a long time. For now, however, my focus is on another major issue.

Missing from The Morality of Security is a discussion of when securitisation is obligatory and who has such duties. I am currently working on a book provisionally called The Duty to secure: From just to mandatory securitisation. This book is informed by four interrelated research questions: (1) In what circumstances is securitisation morally required? (2) Who, or what kinds of actor, are morally required to securitise, and to what referent objects? (3) On what grounds are actors required to undertake self- or other-securitisation? (4) How do we achieve compliance with mandatory securitisation? Just Securitisation Theory, as developed in my 2019 book, is relevant for this project because obligation entails permissibility; after all, no one can have a duty to do something unless that something is also morally required.

MS:

Are there any other spheres of social life where your theory of just securitisation could be applied? If “yes”, “why” and “how”?

RF:

If you mean spheres of life other than terrorism than the answer is yes of course. The answers I have given so far should make it clear that securitisation theory was not developed in the context of the securitisation of terrorism. The framework emerged towards the end of the Cold War when many scholars tried to make sense of the broadening (more issues) and deepening (more actors) of security in practice. Indeed, the beauty of securitisation theory is that it can be applied to any issue, any actor, in any context. The same is true for my own Just Securitisation Theory.

I was thinking your question could also be taken as asking whether the generic principles for just war and just securitisation (that is just cause, right intention, etc.) would also work for other concepts. Here I am unsure. The criteria for war and securitisation are so stringent because both do harm; notably, both kill and maim people. Therefore, criteria for less harmful acts seem to require less stringent criteria. One exception to this might be what Olaf Corry (2006) calls riskification; that is, the management of inter alia people to make them safe from the possibilities of harm, notably by addressing vulnerabilities – provided, however, this management pertains to extraordinary measures.

MS:

What, if any, are the limitations to the obligation to securitise?

RF:

It is interesting that you should ask this because the obligation to securitise hardly features in the Morality of Security, as this book is concerned with when securitisation is morally permissible only. But of course, if there is such a thing as a morally permissible securitisation, it is reasonable to assume that securitisation is sometimes not merely morally permissible and thus optional, but obligatory. As mentioned already, I am currently working on a follow-up book that tackles this question. In The Duty to Security: From just to mandatory securitisation I argue that relevant actors have a pro tanto obligation to securitise when, in addition to the satisfaction of just cause, right intention and macro-proportionality, securitisation is a last resort. By last resort I do not mean that all less harmful alternatives have to have been exhausted, but merely that plausible less harmful alternatives have to have been given sufficient time to have failed to address just cause.¹ (Floyd 2019)

By contrast I hold that morally permissible securitisation does not depend on this kind of last resort. Where permissibility is concerned it suffices if the chances of less harmful alternatives at achieving just cause are ex ante ranked lower than those of securitisation. In short, securitisation – provided all other criteria of just initiation to securitisation are satisfied – is morally permissible before other less harmful options have failed. Conversely securitisation is mandatory (of relevant actors) when it is in effect the last resort. While relevant actors have “must cause” for securitisation, when the following is true initiation of securitisation is justified + last resort, it remains a pro tanto obligation only. This means that even when must cause is satisfied, then depending on the would-be securitising actor and their relationship to the referent object, the duty to securitise may still be overridden. In general, moral duties are overridden depending on the costs to the securitising actor – here in terms of the impact on their well-being and security (lives lost), global stability but also financial costs.

Some of these arguments are familiar from discussions on humanitarian intervention, as well as the responsibility to protect. The social contract within states means that states have an overriding duty to act on just cause when their own people or national security are objectively existentially threatened; in other-securitisation, however, costs to the securitising actor can override this obligation. I hold that in such cases the general obligation to securitise does not disappear but merely moves upwards to a more capable actor. In the first instance, this means actors at the sub-global (often the regional) level, and secondly, to the global level. Ultimately – at the global level – mandatory securitisation will require reform of the United Nations Security Council. The book proposes the nature of this reform as well as reforms to international law.

MS:

One final question: what you see as the most productive areas of future research on the ethics of securitisation?

RF:

Without a doubt, researchers could keep themselves busy for a long time discussing individual criteria and thresholds (including regarding macro-proportionality but also satisfaction of must cause) for just and mandatory securitisation. After all, multiple and competing versions of just securitisation theory are possible.(Floyd 2016) They could discuss the merits of methods other than reflective equilibrium for deriving universal criteria. Or, as in contemporary just war theory, the relative power of just cause compared with proportionality, or the dependence (or otherwise) of just intention of securitisation and just conduct in securitisation. Certainly, just desecuritization is a little squeezed in the book and more needs to be said here. Much of this work will be worthwhile.

Moreover, the more scholars work on just securitisation, the greater the chances that we will see real changes in the policymaking world. It is important to emphasise that the aims of the ethics of securitisation is to make the world a better and safer place. There are several elements to this. First, Just Securitisation Theory (my version of a just securitisation theory) is about restricting the occurrence and destructiveness of securitisation. The Morality of Security is aimed at three distinct audiences: scholars, practitioners of security and the general public. JST enables scholars of security to examine the justness of any past or present securitisations, it equips security practitioners with tools helping them decide what they ought to do in relevant situations and it empowers the general public to hold securitising actors and practitioners accountable for how they practise security. While empowering people is an important part of JST, actual empowerment is limited because while the theory allows the public to critique past or present security practice, by itself, it cannot easily be used to request securitisation. My work in progress on The Duty to Secure aims to fill this gap in the theory. Still this book too remains an academic exercise. In addition to this, academics will need to engage practitioners of security. How do they view just and mandatory securitisation? In what ways do existing theories have to be changed to be realizable?

MS:

Thank you.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mitja Sardoc

Mitja Sardoč (PhD) is senior research associate at the Educational Research Institute in Ljubljana (Slovenia) where he is member of the ‘Educational Research’ program. His research interests and expertise include philosophy of education, political philosophy and education policy. He is author of scholarly articles and editor of a number of journal special issues on citizenship education, multiculturalism, toleration, equality of opportunity, radicalization and violent extremism, patriotism,the American Dream, neoliberalism and education, talents and distributive justice. He is Managing Editor of Theory and Research in Education, Editor-in-Chief of The Handbook of Patriotism (Springer) and volume editor of The Impacts of Neoliberal Discourse and Language in Education (Routledge).

Notes

1. For some preliminary work on this see: Floyd (2019).