The question of value-added: a response to Burke

Abstract

In this response, I argue that while Burke is to be commended for rejecting moral relativism in favor of wanting to change the world for the better, his ‘security cosmopolitanism’ is – in its current form – so sweeping that it raises the familiar question: what is the value-added? In particular, I argue that Burke’s theory suffers from viewing all interactions that impinge on security (here in a sense of someone/something being or feeling secure) as security action. Similarly, it is analytically weak to consider all actors whose actions affect the security of others as security actors. I suggest that Burke’s theory would benefit from operating with a much narrower understanding of security action, whereby the concept is tantamount to the use of exceptional measures. Cosmopolitan thinking, including on the importance of human rights, could then be brought to bear on the questions of when such action is morally required, by whom, and to what end.

Keywords:

• just securitization theory
• security
• morally required
• morally permissible
• human rights

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Jonathan Herington for his helpful written feedback on this paper, as well as, Jonathan Floyd for several helpful discussions about my take in this paper and for his valuable advice.

Notes

1. Note I agree here with Nik Hynek and David Chandler (2013) that the term critical security studies should ideally be reserved for scholars driven by an emancipatory purpose. Though, for a different view, see Vuori (2014), while some scholars actually straddle the line between relativism and emancipation (most notably Aradau 2004).

2. I use security action and securitization interchangeably in this paper. As such, securitization does not necessarily refer to the Copenhagen school’s idea of that concept.

3. I would like to thank Jonathan Floyd for this point.

4. This is not to suggest that cosmopolitanism is limited to rights-based arguments, only that this might be the route Burke would want to take considering that he, in a recent co-edited book (with Matt McDonald and Katrina Lee-Koo) on security cosmopolitanism, talks of an equal right to security by every person, every community, and every state (Burke, Lee-Koo, and McDonald 2014,131).

5. Functional distinction refers to the idea that security actors and scholars occupy distinct roles in the securitization process. Specifically for the Copenhagen school, ‘the designation of what constitutes a security issue comes from political actors, not analysts, but analysts interpret political actor’s actions and sort out when these actions fulfil the security criteria. It is, further, the analyst who judges whether the actor is effective in mobilizing support around this security reference’ (Buzan, Wæver, and de Wilde 1998, 33–34).

6. Though I use the singular here, it should be clear that in principle, competing versions of cosmopolitan just securitization theory are possible in the same way as there are countless interpretations of the just war, some of which are cosmopolitan.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rita Floyd

Dr Rita Floyd is a Birmingham Fellow in Conflict and Security at the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham (UK). Her work on environmental security and securitization theory, respectively, has been published in several peer-reviewed journals, most recently in Conflict, Security and Development and in Criminology & Criminal Justice. Her current research interest is ethics and security. She has contributed a chapter entitled “Just and Unjust Desecuritization” published in Contesting Security: Strategies and Logics (ed. Thierry Balzacq, Routledge), PRIO Series in 2015.