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Question 1

In what ways has the Copenhagen School broadened the conception of security?

a) Security, defined as survival when presented with an existential threat, expands security beyond the military context. Each category is determined by securitizing actors and referent objects and the types of threats can vary across the security sectors.

b) The Copenhagen School has expanded the definition of security to include non-military threats to a referent object. The broadening of the concept, in lieu of the development of new conceptual tools, has however resulted in conceptual and analytical incoherence.

c) A definition of international security has been approached in terms of military survival when posed by an existential threat by another state The dynamics of each sector of security have been constructed within the framework of the state as the referent object.

d) The Copenhagen School defines security as survival, articulated as an existential threat. However, the security-survival logic of the state is irrelevant in post-Cold war international society. The military as a referent object is subordinate to non-military sectors.

Question 2

How is a process of securitization completed?

a) A process of securitization is the when an issue not included in the political sphere becomes politicized, and becomes managed within the political system. A securitized issue is part of public policy requiring governmental action; decision-making, resource allocation and even communal governance on occasion (although this is rare).

b) A securitizing actor can articulate an issue outside of the political domain. An existential threat can be made a matter for state attention even when it is not included within public debate. Securitization refers to the recognition of the threat prior to its emergence in the political process.

c) Securitization refers to the move of issues from a politicized state to a heightened state of politics beyond the normal political domain of decision-making activities. Once placed above the political sphere it cannot be returned to the public sphere, having been translated into a state interest above normal proceedings.

d) A concern can be securitized, that is framed as a security question, when it is moved from the politicized to the securitized sphere. In response to a threat a securitizing actor articulates the need to adopt extraordinary means that go beyond the ordinary norms of the political domain.

Question 3

What place does language have in an act of securitization?

a) The production of substantial measures in response to the articulation of an issue discursively represented as an existential threat to the security of a referent object does not require consensual substantiation of that claim. The use of language alone automatically translates an issue into a security question.

b) The use of security language does not mean that the initial move of securitization is to be perceived and acted upon as an existential threat to security. That a referent object is existentially threatened has to be accepted.

c) The speech act is the end point of the two-stage process of securitization. An issue may be discursively represented as an existential threat when it has already presented itself as an actual threat to survival or if the issue is perceived to be so by the public or target. The articulation of an issue in security language is pursuant of a pre-existing acceptance of a broadly defined survival threat.

d) The use of language can only be initiated by powerful political elites. The move of securitization has to reflect the power and influence of the securitizing actor if a securitizing actor is to convince a target audience that existential threats to survival of a given referent object exists.

Question 4

What implications might a successful act of securitization have on the way security is to be viewed?

a) Security is an objective study. The Copenhagen School adopts a social science approach, conceiving the securitization of an issue as a threat to survival as being existential: that the success of the securitization process can be measured and observed, its relative success or failure determinable by the extent to which the audience accepts the discursive representation of the issue as a threat to survival

b) The discursive representation of an issue as an existential threat to the survival of a referent object follows the manifestation of a threat prior to its emergence in the discourse of a securitizing actor. Every act of securitization has the outcome of a political decision and results from a political act

c) An act of securitization can either fail or succeed depending on the nature and the degree of the threat posed Threats to the national territorial, political, identity, or economic interests will result in a successful act of securitization, a position which is allied with the traditional realist approach to international security interests

d) Security is a socially constructed concept: what constitutes an existential threat is a subjective matter and is contingent on a shared understanding of what constitutes a danger to society. Every act of securitization involves a political decision and results from a political and social act.

Question 5

What are the implications of extraordinary measures?

a) A securitizing actor can make a successful speech act without implementing extraordinary measures in response to the articulation of the existential nature of a threat to the security of a referent object. Transforming an issue into a security question requires that an audience has a shared understanding and acceptance of the discursive action.

b) The Copenhagen School's model of securitization provides that once the discursive dimension has persuaded the target audience, extraordinary means (military action) must be employed to complete the process, whether the threat is discursively represented by a state or non-state actor.

c) The adoption of extraordinary measures involves the identification and classification of an issue. Questions are raised as to the significance of the process of securitization if acceptance of a discursive representation of a security question does not go hand in hand with policy.

d) The adoption of extraordinary measures is required to complete the speech act. In this case a security act is dependent on the adoption of emergency powers, the process thereby acquiring a non-discursive dimension to address the so-defined threat.

Question 6

In what ways do a series of motives and intentions help to explain a securitizing act and the implementation of extraordinary measures?

a) Risks to society and abuse of authority can be prevented by de-securitizing an issue and re-including it into the normal political domain. De-securitization can therefore be beneficial as it re-introduces an issue into a politicized sphere.

b) Securitization can be abused, extraordinary powers legitimizing and empowering the role of the military in social or civilian activities. Few checks or balances are imposed once extraordinary measures are enacted, providing unlimited concentration of power with a small elite.

c) Securitization creates the kind of political momentum necessary for the adoption of emergency measures. The injection of urgency into an issue leads to the sustained mobilization of political support. The adoption of extraordinary means provides the necessary unity required for the rapid response to highly threatening situations.

d) An act of securitization prevents the protracted legitimization of curbing civil liberties or arbitrary interference into civil-political institutions in democratic societies because mobilization cannot be sustained by extraordinary measures. Extraordinary measures are reactionary policies at times of acute political crisis and are temporary, dependent on the extent to which the audience still accepts the discursive representation of an existential threat.

Question 7

In what ways can it be argued that the Securitization model has limited conceptual and analytical value?

a) The dynamics of securitization and de-securitization remains insufficiently understood empirically (see for example Anthony, Emmers, Acharya: 2006), the securitization process being essentially concentrated on framing a theoretical approach to security studies. Questions need to be addressed as to why some issues are treated as security threats while others are not, why some succeed where others fail. Nor does it provide the means to assess whether it produces policy effectiveness

b) The extent to which the securitization model contributes to the study of international security studies is debatable. It can easily be analyzed through a realist perspective and in such contexts security will still be restricted to geo-political deterrence, power balancing and military strategy because the state remains the focus.

c) The Copenhagen School does not clarify the boundaries between the political and security domain. The school defines securitization as an extreme version of political action which contributes to the possible blurring of the lines between the de-politicized, politicized and securitized categories of the securitization spectrum. The model may not sufficiently disassociate an act of securitization from high politicization, confused by political context or prevailing circumstances (Anthony, Emmers and Archarya: 200).
correct

d) All of the above.

Question 8

In what ways could the Australian John Howard's' Government be argued to have securitized the issue of the Tampa incident in the 2001?

a) The smuggling of undocumented migrants into Australia was described as a threat to the national integrity of the state and its economy, a discursive representation accepted collectively and providing the justification for the employment of extraordinary measures.

b) The securitizing actor, the John Howard government attempted to convince the audience (the Australian public) that the referent object (national sovereignty) was threatened by the Tampa ship whose geo-strategic position posed an existential threat to the territorial integrity of Christmas island requiring that extraordinary measures be implemented.

c) The John Howard Government, the securitizing actor, made a move to convince the Australian public audience that undocumented migration was interrelated with terrorism. However, the security question posed by migration was rejected and speech act failed.

d) The Howard Government introduced a discursive representation that resulted in a shared understanding of the existential threat posed to the nation by undocumented migration. However, the speech act was not related to policy and the issue was de-securitized and returned to the realm of normal political activity.

Question 9

In what ways has drugs been securitized in Thailand?

a) The consumption of illicit drugs is regarded as primarily a social and family problem, particularly acute amongst young adults and a result of the synthetic increase in the use of manufactured drugs. The domestic nature of the problem does not however constitute an issue of securitization: on the securitization spectrum it belongs to the politicized level.

b) Opinion polls indicated that the move by the Thailand government's move to securitize drugs and implement emergency measures - the War on Drugs - was interpreted as a means of gaining greater control over the civilian population and fears over military intervention into the civil-political sphere. Pollsters rejected the move indicating that the audience believed it to belong to the politicized sphere of activity.

c) The war on drugs led to the implementation of extreme measures. However, fears over the potential abuse of powers feared by the Copenhagen School have been tempered in the case of Thailand's War on Drugs: the majority of the audience having a collective understanding of the continued necessity of the extraordinary measures as integral to the success of the policy and to the survival of society.

d) The Thai audience accepted the interpretation of the events set forward by the securitizing actor and acknowledged the need for emergency action accepting that it posed an existential thereat. However the extraordinary measures introduced to complete the securitization process resulted in an access of powers.

Question 10

In what ways might the example of Iraq provide evidence of a securitization failure?

a) Within the international policy community George W. Bush and Tony Blair gained shared understanding of the threat to international society posed by the continuation of the regime in Baghdad, enabling the building of a "coalition of the willing" to undertake extraordinary measures (regime change). Although the securitizing move only occurred within elite decision-making structures, it still convinced a (limited) audience of the existential threat

b) The opposition to the war was predominantly institutional, e.g. the UN, whereas there was broad acceptance amongst most-nations states in the post-9/11 security climate. Popular fears concerning terror attacks led to general acceptance of the "smoking gun" argument which enabled the implementation of extraordinary measurers in lieu of UN backing.

c) The opposition to the war was characterized by a broad popular movement: the move failed to gain collective understanding of the discursive representation of the existential threat posed by Iraq.

d) All of the above

Oxford University Press, Online Resource Centre, Chapter 07.

Chapter 07

Instructions