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This paper examines how the European Union (EU) has discursively framed the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) since 2003 and explores frames and frame alignment over time. The study argues that the EU embeds the ENP with relatively fixed frame-issues and unstable framings that get aligned when the Union feels urged to respond to external/internal dynamics and deepen engagement with partner countries’ political elites to tackle external challenges/threats. The study argues that the EU has consistently utilized the security frame as the main pillar in crafting the ENP discourse. Even though the ENP incorporates a variety of priority spheres – policy frame areas – for cooperation between the EU and the ‘neighbours’ within the ENP, security frame issues top the EU-led priority list in the neighborhood. Accordingly, the study argues that the neighbors and the neighborhood are conceived in terms of security. Furthermore, it claims that the EU-led frames are interlinked with each other mainly through the security frame. Security policy-frame infiltrates majority of the ENP-driven policy issues, which explains its elevated frequency across the ENP documents. To explain the process the research introduces the concept of frame alignment to explain the changes in EU-driven framings, linking discursive instability with internal and external environmental factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of securitization has an influence on citizenship policies since it enables them to regulate, control and separate secure identities from unsecure identities while also exploiting intercommunity dynamics, straining connections, resulting in exclusions. The thesis that securitization and citizenship are inextricably linked, following different logic at the national and provincial level but tied with the thread of securitization and identity management, is supported by a detailed examination of citizenship policies and legislation implemented after India's independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many nation-states adopted militarized measures for rapid containment. China notably implemented extreme and enduring war-like procedures. This study aims to explore the implications of securitizing the pandemic through a feminist lens and suggest ethical and equitable strategies for understanding emergencies and coping with future crises. Employing discourse-based online ethnography, it analyzes social dynamics in China’s “pandemic war,” examining how gender and (in)security are co-constructed and the role of feminist activism within an authoritarian context. This article argues that framing the pandemic as war reinforces a masculinist stance of dominance, prioritizing state stability over human rights and security. State-centric securitization perpetuates state authority, gendered social hierarchies, and structural violence. The exclusionary nature of this approach created new avenues for feminist activism, both online and offline, advocating for marginalized groups, raising social and gender awareness, challenging state narratives, and fostering collective resistance. Drawing lessons from Chinese feminist initiatives during COVID-19, this study calls for alternative crisis responses focused on care, equity, ethics, and collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last three decades, the phenomenon of violent extremism, primarily religious and ethno-nationalist extremism, has emerged as one of the biggest security challenges for Pakistan. With continuous technological innovations and advancements, the nature of violent extremism is constantly evolving, and now more than ever, it is threatening Pakistan’s social fabric, causing domestic disharmony and leading to unrest and terrorism. More importantly, it adversely affects the state’s foreign relations. This study aims to comprehensively examine the complex interplay of factors contributing to violent extremism in Pakistan. By investigating both the root causes and the ensuing effects through the Securitization paradigm’s lens, this research seeks to develop effective policy strategies to combat this growing threat. The securitization paradigm is crucial for understanding how extremist ideologies are constructed as existential threats, shaping societal responses and informing counter-extremism measures. The paper follows a mixed approach based on descriptive and critical analytical qualitative research methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the securitization of the Kurds and other opposition groups along with an anti-Western discourse has become a useful political strategy for the governing Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) in Turkey. The party used these security framings to put the opposition on the defensive by equating Turkey’s survival with the maintenance of AKP’s rule. This securitization of domestic politics has also shaped the content of the category of ‘enemy’ in foreign policy with particular repercussions for Turkey’s policy towards Syria. Drawing on a discourse analysis of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Twitter posts between May 2013 and May 2023, and declarations made by prominent AKP government figures, this article reveals that the government has used securitization as a strategic tool to reinforce populist dualities. The article also shows that vague and situational conceptualizations in securitization processes provide useful channels through which the government shapes and legitimizes its foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the interconnections between crisis, war and undocumented migration focusing on the crisis at Evros borderzone, Northeastern Greece, in February/March 2020. It puts forward an analysis of public discourse that posits Greece as “a nation under threat” and reflects on the notion of crisis both as a dimension of the present historical moment and a governmental device for strengthening state power. The paper suggests that crisis and war be understood as parts of a security continuum and that the Evros crisis of 2020 rendered visible the mutual constitution of the processes of illegalization and securitization of migration. Formulated as an open threat for Greece and Europe, undocumented mobility feeds into the (in)security spiral promoting more surveillance, tighter border control and deepening the social hierarchy that positions illegal(ized) migrants at the lowest social strata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This provocation paper critically examines the discrepancy between policy rhetoric and implementation in the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, which was approved by the European Commission in April 2024. Despite its portrayal as a ‘fresh start’, the pact displays continuity with past security-focused measures. On the humanitarian side, the New Pact appears to be less effective: while it includes provisions for legal pathways and solidarity mechanisms, it inadequately addresses the rights of migrants awaiting asylum decisions. These shortcomings serve to illustrate the persisting internal conflicts within the EU regarding migration policies and values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the Biden administration sought to legitimate the wide-ranging chip export controls on China (introduced on 7 October 2022) and to convince allies to adopt similar measures. Grounded in a qualitative analysis of US official documents, this study not only draws out the overarching rationale advanced by US officials: China's unregulated access to advanced chips constitutes a major threat to the US and allied security. More importantly, leveraging insights from frame alignment, it uncovers the underlying patterns and dynamics of the legitimation-cum-securitization process. Substantively, US officials insisted on viewing US technological leadership and the escalation of export controls through the security lens, associated China's (mis)use of advanced chips with the erosion of US technological supremacy, military security and national security at large, and framed blocking China's access to advanced chips as critical for the security of the US and allies. This analysis offers broad insights into the contestation and legitimation of an increasingly common yet potentially pernicious phenomenon in US-China relations: enacting techno-economic sanctions in the name of national security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 ruptured Europe's security constellation, leading to historically neutral Finland and Sweden to seek NATO memberships. While there is literature on how NATO influences country's security apparatus, the impact of NATO on smaller states' securitization capacity remains unclear. We undertake 1) a discourse analysis of Norway and Finland's three respective Arctic strategies, 2) a discourse analysis of two online Arctic newspapers 'High North News' and 'The Barents Observer', and 3) an analysis of the allocation of Finnish and Norwegian military spending from 2014-2022. We explore both countries as cases where one is a historic member of NATO and the other is not. Despite this, both states share similar structural security risks such as Russia's geographic proximity. We periodize securitizing dynamics related to the Arctic, matching it to changes in the Finnish and Norwegian military sectors. Given small states lack relative material capabilities, we argue there is a systematic deadlock in transforming securitizing moves into material action. However, as a NATO state, Norway exhibits a significantly higher level of participation in military maneuvers and additional securitizing behavior compared to Finland. By contrast, Finland relies more heavily on intense securitizing rhetoric without accompanying material actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decades, Turkey has expanded its digital capabilities in various issue areas. At the same time, regime change under the Justice and Development Party has resulted in unprecedented state repression against various groups, which increasingly occurs via digitized channels. While Turkey has been building digital capabilities since the late 1990s, efforts to control the flow of refugees since 2015/16 have further resulted in the accumulation of such capabilities. Turkey's partners, most notably the EU, have been pivotal in Turkey's development in this sphere. We trace Turkey's deployment of its newly gained digital repressive infrastructure and triangulate insights from open-source data (i.e. government data, newspaper reports, and other digital traces) to map processes of (mis)use. We argue that the AKP regime is not only deploying digital and AI technologies for the purpose of border and migration governance, but it is also misusing these technologies by engaging in digital repression against refugees. We further find that digital repression strategies employed against refugee populations largely overlap with strategies used to gain control over political opposition and civil society actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a macroeconomic model of interaction between the real sector and the financial sector, and explores the conditions that make the economy vulnerable to sudden collapse as a result of finance-led growth. It extends the Kaleckian framework of the link between profit and investment in a modern financialized economy with some specific features of shadow banking and articulates the underlying dynamics that render the economy systemically fragile and vulnerable to abrupt crashes. We elaborate on this link through a stock-flow consistent accounting framework and study the dynamics through two interacting forces of the shadow banking sector: profit-seeking and liquidity preference. The article formally articulates the dynamics through the framework of 'cusp catastrophe' and identifies some early warning signs of potential financial collapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia's annexation of Crimea and war on Ukraine has led to upheaval in NATO's discourse and practice. Taking a step back from the security debate, this article contends that the very process of responding to Russian aggression has led to the reimagining of NATO's identity. While NATO tends to present change as continuity, this article's mixed methods analysis illuminates how a trio of new and ambitious self-representations have risen to prominence within NATO's post-Crimea discourse. NATO has anointed itself defender of the international rules-basedorder and purveyor of truth and facts amidst a world of disinformation, while pushing a resilience policy agenda that expands its authority into new domestic domains. Problematizing these shifts, the article warns that NATO's new narrative ignores its own role in the problems it seeks to solve and thus risks undermining NATO efforts to rally global support for Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article employs interviews and primary and secondary sources to examine the discrimination, securitization, and instrumentalization faced by four main Christian denominations throughout Turkish history: the Armenian, Greek, Assyrian, and Protestant communities. We shed light on how some religious minority groups have been utilized and represented within the framework of Turkish diplomacy and the pursuit of neo-Ottomanism. We contend that the blanket term 'Christian' is less applicable in Turkey's context, where religion becomes intricately intertwined with ethnicity. Thus, it becomes imperative to investigate each non-Muslim community independently, considering their unique trajectories, historical traumas, internal divisions, and relationships with the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In May 2015, the EU decided to launch a common military response against immigrant traffickers and smugglers known as the European Union Naval Force Mediterranean (EUNAVFOR MED)—and Operation SOPHIA. Its aim was to dispose of smugglers' vessels and other smuggling assets while still in Libyan territorial waters. Although this specific aim had never materialized, leading to the operation's termination in March 2020, the original decision had led to a securitisation process in the Mediterranean in the form of an increasing deployment of militarized bordering practices and techniques under the umbrella of Operation EUVAVFOR MED. The present paper presents a normative analysis of EUNAVFOR MED through the prism of Floyd's Just Securitisation Theory (JST). It focuses on the just initiation of securitisation, which is the first element of JST and a parallel to JWT's ius ad bellum that contains five conditions: Just Reason for Securitisation; Morally Justifiable Referent Objects; Right Intention; Macro Proportionality, and Reasonable Chances of Success. The paper concludes these conditions were not all met in all three phases of EUVAVFORMED and highlights the complexity of normatively assessing the securitisation of migrants' smugglers in the context of this European maritime military operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the efforts of influential Turkish Muslim civil society actors to amplify the voices of Muslim women in the Netherlands. Through interviews, the research uncovers the impacts of Islamophobia and securitization policies on the classification of Muslim women as either threats or victims. The study captures participants’ responses challenging intersectional discrimination based on gender, religion, and race, employing the notion of “talking back” as an analytical framework reflecting resistance. This includes criticisms of boundaries, discrimination, a lack of representation, and patriarchal practices. Participants engaged in talking-back practices by critiquing mainstream feminism’s homogenous approach, advocating for Muslim women’s rights through Islamic feminism, distinguishing culture from religion, and participating in local women’s organizations. The findings hold significant implications for integration, citizenship, security, and multiculturalism amidst rising Islamophobia. This research contributes to uncovering the voices of Dutch-Turkish Muslim women pushing back against marginalization at the intersection of racism, sexism, and discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper questions the apparent hostility between Iran and Saudi Arabia and highlights its discursive construction. It explores the centrality of 'Muslimness' in both countries' discourses and how it both shapes and is shaped by their opposition. At the same time, it seeks to uncover how these discourses construct a specific regional and 'Muslim' dynamic. To do so, the paper draws on theories from both security and nationalism studies. The application of the theoretical framework was carried out over the 2010-2020 period through a discourse analysis of both primary and secondary sources. It is highlighted that Saudi Arabia resorts to a sectarian perspective, merging the 'Muslim' category with a 'Sunni' one, while Iran eludes the sectarian dimension and centers on the struggle against oppression and 'arrogant powers.' The paper concludes that, in the struggle over the definition of 'Muslimness,' both parties invest this label with different, but not opposing, attributes. While Saudi speeches express a closed and exclusive 'identity' defined by their understanding of religion and in direct opposition to Shias, Iranian speeches express an inclusive 'identity' based on 'Muslimness,' which is largely defined by the struggle against oppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how memories of a violent past are interpreted by different generations of exiles, particularly when the primary feature of memory in their homeland is forgetfulness. This occurs when the echoes of political and institutional violence from "home" perpetually reverberate in the diaspora, and when host societies have constructed a securitization framework that progressively redefines Chechens from victims to perceived threats. Based on the case of the Chechens living in the EU since the early 2000s and grounded in field observations and semi-structured interviews conducted from 2015 to 2022, this paper delves into a "conflict-generated diaspora" in formation. Our aim is to understand the intricate interplay of factors and dynamics that contribute to the construction of individual and collective memories of a violent past within the Chechen diaspora. We also consider the impact of transgenerational memory transmission and generational divides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the association between risk retention by originators (skin in the game) and the performance of securitized assets. We combine hand-collected and publicly available data on 85 Brazilian receivable funds with a single originator from January 2013 to December 2020. We find that skin in the game is a buffer against observable risks in accordance with the buffer hypothesis, although the reputation of originators that are financial institutions in the loan market can alleviate moral hazard concerns. For funds with fintech originators, the opposite holds: enhancements are indeed a signal against the unobservable quality of receivables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the intermediaries or brokers who participate in the constitution, negotiation, and production of peace and security policies in West Africa. These security brokers possess social and knowledge capital, making them the preferred interlocutors of international actors, institutions, and researchers to produce security knowledge to inform policy. Thus, this article seeks to explain how these security brokers interact with and shape the construction of a security assemblage in West Africa. Based on three ethnographic sites in Bamako (Mali), Niamey (Niger) and Abidjan (Ivory Coast), social trajectories of these intermediaries of securitization processes allow us to understand how material and symbolic resources are attracted. Security brokers oscillate between instrumentalist, pragmatic, and reflexive stances toward the (re)production of security practices promoted by (trans)national institutions and actors. Just like any international institutions or actors, they can either participate to the (re)production or challenge the premise of the security assemblage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how opposition parties with diverse ideologies can form alliances in competitive authoritarian regimes despite the securitization strategy used by authoritarian incumbents. Using Turkey as a case study, the article demonstrates that an authoritarian leader may associate terrorism with opposition parties and may disseminate this fear to manipulate moderate voters and prevent coalition formation between niche parties. By analysing public speeches of political actors in Turkey, the study argues that if opposition parties recognize the vulnerabilities of the regime and believe that forming an alliance would gain support from the masses and encourage cross-party voting, then the securitization strategy would not deter them from forming a pre-electoral alliance. However, the failure of the securitization strategy to prevent opposition parties from forming an alliance does not guarantee opposition victory in elections. The securitization strategy employed by the authoritarian regime can still be utilized to effectively empower the authoritarian leader, enabling them to win elections by capitalizing on fear and depicting the opposition alliance as a security threat and a potential source of instability if they were to come into power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the corner of Mohamed Mahmoud Street and Youssef El-Gendy Street in Cairo, Egypt, to examine the gendered and classed underpinnings of urban processes of securitization, privatization, and beautification during the 25 January Revolution, notably following the 2013 military coup. This particular intersection was the scene of many of the protests that ultimately led to Hosni Mubarak's ouster in February 2011. Throughout the revolutionary process, its walls became a contested site of representation through, on the one hand, graffiti engaging the revolution along the fault lines of gender and class and, on the other hand, its periodical whitewashing by public and private campaigns. Taking up visual cultural production as a primary site of analysis, the article draws on visual ephemera written on this corner between 2011 and 2017, online debates about these changes, and interviews with some of their protagonists to discuss the significance of this place in relation to questions of access to and control of public/private urban spaces, and memory. Adopting a feminist perspective that foregrounds gender and class as the main categories of analysis, it focuses on two particular moments--WOW Unchained in 2015 and Calligraphy Nefertiti in 2017--to investigate the transformation of this area through the erasure of the traces of the revolution via public/private beautification projects articulated around transnational discourses of women's empowerment and neoliberal notions of gender and class respectability, and its implications for Egyptians' access to public space in post-coup Cairo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the role of the media in the processes of securitisation of international policies in Mediterranean countries. To do so, it studies the presence of the 'security' and 'human drama' frames in seven newspapers in Spain, France, Italy, and Portugal, with the primary objective of measuring these frames to answer questions about the differences found in the newspapers of these countries and the issues discussed in them. Our hypothesis is European Mediterranean press suffers from media securitisation when reporting on the Sahel conflicts. The reason is mainly due to the singularisation of migration issues. Machine learning, specifically unsupervised (LDA) and supervised (SVM) algorithms, were used to locate the frames to analyse the large volume of extracted data. This type of Natural Language Processing (NLP) technique gives excellent results for political communication research. The results show that the security frame is in most of the media analysed. In short, security as a discursive element is the central narrative when dealing with the socio-political reality of the Sahel countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the underlying meaning of Chinese political ideas as represented in the Belt and Road discourse. It aims to contribute to overcoming the bias towards democratic systems in security studies. It challenges the argument that China's peaceful words can be taken at face value and compared with the ideas of democratic regimes. It delivers insights on new perspectives in the 'political threat versus desecuritization' discussion. This paper applies a qualitative discourse analysis with primary data collection of Chinese governmental and state institutional documents, Chinese think tank papers, and joint statements of EU-Chinese governmental officials. The data was analysed with NVivo Software. The empirical analysis shows that Chinese actors have built up a threat narrative idea which is hidden behind words such as 'trust, harmony, pluralism, community of a shared destiny'. Theoretically, this paper shows that the organizing principle, to apply Buzan's words, needs to be acknowledged when interpreting the way Chinese actors frame ideas in the BRI discourse. It challenges the argument of China as a desecuritization actor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The South Asia region is one of the most unstable in the world, having experienced multiple wars. In recent years, water disputes have intensified between this region's countries, including Pakistan and India, as water is intertwined with their security and has been securitized. Indeed, securitization is one of the strategies that has the power of representation of water as a security issue. The study examines how Pakistan has represented the Indus transboundary waters as a security issue through linguistic constructs, especially to motivate domestic audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1990s, migration has featured prominently in Euro-Mediterranean relations. The EU migration policy has progressively shifted from a normative-comprehensive approach tackling the root causes of migration through development aid towards a control-oriented toolbox designed to immediately stop migration flows to Europe. This change has blemished the EU’s image as a normative power and contravened the region-building logic of the Barcelona Process. Contributing to the emotional turn in European Foreign Policy, this article argues that this shift corresponds to the behaviour of an actor under the grip of fear. The securitization of migration has permeated the EU institutions and contributed to the social construction of fear, leading to the emergence of fearful emotional practices. Based on the emotion discourse analysis of relevant EU documents, this article highlights the importance of fear as driver of policy change, triggering the EU to deviate from its own normative commitments in its external relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the discursive politics of securitization of gender operates in AKP’s recent framing of the Istanbul Convention (IC) and its decision to annul it. It demonstrates that AKP’s securitization of gender is structured as a populist discourse in the context of the party’s illiberal transformation marked by the intensification of populist antagonisms. At the national level, it is operationalized to protect the ‘pure’ nation from the ‘destructive’ effects of ‘gender ideology,’ while at the transnational level, it relies on the civilizational dichotomies framing the Judeo-Christian West as ‘alien’ to the nation. As a result, the article stresses the centrality of anti-genderism in the construction of political frontiers, antagonisms, and threat perceptions in AKP’s illiberal populist regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last few decades, China has become one of the most important foreign investment destinations and centers of economic development in Asia. China's growing economic clout and coercive measures lead to the following empirical puzzles: how has Taiwan perceived China's increasing military capabilities and economic influence? What are the major factors that facilitate or constrain the role of a government agency of a weaker state in addressing the economic power of a stronger one? More specifically, what has been the purpose of Taiwan's economic statecraft? Based on Taiwan's official statements, regional trade data, and newspaper coverage in Chinese and English, this study investigates both positive and negative evaluations of China-Taiwan trade from 2009 to 2021. From 2009 to 2016, President Ma Ying-jeou adopted a desecuritization strategy in normalizing bilateral trade with China, and he actively promoted greater liberalization of Taiwan's financial and service sectors for China's investment. From 2016 to 2021, President Tsai Ing-wen employed a securitization strategy in light of the risks of economic reliance on China's markets. The article proceeds as follows. First, it engages the current literature on economic statecraft, China-Taiwan relations, and Asian politics. Second, this study offers a framework of desecuritization and securitization of Taiwan's trade toward China, and it highlights how the political leaders in Taiwan attempt to find a balance between trade and security. Third, it provides in-depth case studies on how Taiwan executed desecuritization and securitization strategies. Finally, it concludes with some initial thoughts on the studies of comparative economic statecraft, and provides policy implications for countries in the Asia Pacific region and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As public performances, festivals celebrate what people believe, who people are, and project what people want to be. Festivals are an important medium by which cultural, social, and religious identities are represented and negotiated. This is especially pronounced in exceptional festival events which require much more improvisational skills than 'routine' festival occasions. This contribution discusses one such event: In 2019, the Varadarāja temple in Kanchipuram celebrated a rare and long-awaited festival, called Āti Atti Varatar Vaipavam, which takes place only once in 40 years. When the number of visitors increased in unanticipated ways soon after the festival started, time-tested ritual rules were suspended, and new stakeholders started to determine the performance of the festival. This contribution traces the multiple ways in which the festival's mythological background and its performance were contested, and how the sheer number of attending pilgrims effected long-lasting changes in the social dynamics among the temple's stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the importance of inter-related securitisation processes on each other, most notably the impact of securitisation practices in one country on the securitisation processes in another. It analyses the impact of US drone strikes on the securitisation processes related to the militancy conducted by successive Pakistani governments in the aftermath of 9/11. The successful securitisation of the war on terror by the US allowed the latter to take extraordinary measures to eliminate terrorism, most notably through the use of drone strikes. However, these securitisation practices inhibited the securitisation of militancy inside Pakistan. While we understand successful securitisation processes, we understand much less about unsuccessful securitisation cases. This article analyses the use of drone strikes as securitisation practices by the US and their impact on the unsuccessful securitisation process of militancy in Pakistan after 9/11. The empirical contribution of this article is its focus on the case of Pakistan where more than 400 drone strikes took place, reportedly killing approximately 7000 people. The article demonstrates how the drone strikes in Pakistan turned the war on terror into an American war and made it difficult for the domestic audience in Pakistan to accept the securitisation moves of the security actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses 15-M and anti-austerity mobilizations in Spain from the perspective of repression and penalization. The literature has paid a great deal of attention to the consequences of this cycle of protest in relation to the quality of democratic participation and governance; it could be argued that the 15-M movement has raised the standards for key aspects of Spanish democracy. In articulating new counter-hegemonic claims, however, 15-M mobilizations have created an opportunity for new forms of repression. Drawing on criminology, socio-legal studies, and mobilization literature, we argue that this cycle of protest has been penalized. This involves a combination of technologies of repression that include invasive policing, securitization, and criminalization. Penalization needs to be seen as a dissent-suppressing mechanism, a negative response by political authorities and private actors that thrives when societies suffer from widespread anxieties about insecurity and crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Authoritarian regimes do not only target and oppress their opponents at home, they also try to repress dissident diaspora members abroad. The literature on transnational (extraterritorial) repression has shown that authoritarian regimes normally use transnational organs of the state such as intelligence services as part of their usual transnational repression activities. However, since they do not have sovereignty in the countries, their transnational repression has limits. This article argues that loyal diaspora supporters help these regimes as additional repression and violence apparatuses by trying to repress diaspora members from the same country of origin. However, the discursive mechanism behind this phenomenon has not been studied. This study aims to address this gap. Based on the competitive authoritarian Turkish case, it introduces the concept of "transnational securitization" to securitization theory. The article argues that what makes this type of securitization different is that the audience (pro-government Turkish and non-Turkish Muslim diaspora groups) is not only convinced by the securitization narrative that legitimates the use of extraordinary means that are normally undertaken by the state, but takes it upon themselves to carry on the anti-dissident repressive and violent actions. The article contributes to both transnational repression and securitization literatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study argues that the Schmittian exceptionalist view drawing on the norm/exception dichotomy is ill-equipped to grasp the nature and operation of current modular emergency regimes where normalcy and emergency coexist as different, yet intertwined modes of governance. These regimes are modular as they enable the interchangeable and simultaneous use of ordinary and extraordinary powers and legislation by executives. In modular emergencies, securitization plays a key role to create a "strategic ambiguity" where the distinction between the "normal" and the "exceptional" becomes untenable and invisible. In securitized political environments, it becomes increasingly difficult for societies to gauge if expanded executive powers and exceptionalist practices are justifiable, reasonable and proportional. Turkey was ruled under a nationwide state of emergency (SoE) for two years declared on 20 July 2016 soon after a failed coup attempt against the Turkish government. Even though the SoE was formally lifted in July 2018, the emergency powers and exceptionalist practices have become entrenched and institutionalized under the guise of the "presidential system of government" designed as a rule of modular emergency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the 'immigrant-Aboriginal parallax gap' whereby material connections between immigration and Indigenous dispossession are rarely examined in tandem by considering ways in which the Canadian media frames Indigenous protesters and irregular asylum seekers. Building on the work of previous studies of Oka/Kanasatake, Ipperwash and Caledonia and irregular boat arrivals of Fujian and Tamil asylum seekers, it identifies similarities in the ways that each group has been racialized, criminalized, delegitimized and constructed as the 'Other'. Employing the theoretical frameworks of settler colonialism and securitization theory, it examines whether the same frames persist in contemporary representations using the case studies of Wet'suwet'en protesters and irregular asylum seekers crossing the Canada–US border at Roxham Road, Québec. A comparative discourse analysis finds that the media continues to frame Indigenous protesters and irregular asylum seekers as threats to the 'rule of law' and the 'common good'. These framings discredit and delegitimize human rights claims that challenge the legitimacy of settler colonial borders – including the right to peaceful protest and to claim asylum – turning them into threats to Canada's sovereignty, thus necessitating state action. We conclude that this discourse has the effect of reproducing the racialized injustices and inequalities of ongoing settler colonialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the securitization of the European refugee crisis in Greece from the perspective of the Copenhagen School's analytical framework as advanced with novel methodological tools. Building on primary data consisting of interviews with, among others, Greek ministers of migration, this study argues that between 2012 and 2015 the central-right government of New Democracy securitized successfully the immigration crisis. This study further maintains that from 2015 to 2018 the government led by the radical-left SYRIZA meta-securitized the securitization tactics of other actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I estimate the extent to which modifications of privately securitized mortgages increased or forgave debt during the Great Recession and aftermath, from 2008 to 2014. I find that loan modifications weakened household balance sheets by adding $20 billion to household debt, with the net amount of debt added per modification doubling from 2010 to 2014. I also find that the increase in debt is consistent with capitalization of fees, but not missed interest payments. Capitalization of fees is significant because it has been associated with a principal-agent problem between investors and mortgage servicers preventing efficient loss mitigation, as well as consumer financial protection abuses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkey's institution of night watchmanship, or bekçilik, almost vanished during the 1990s as new recruitment was halted. Since 2016, however, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has renewed recruitment in line with its agenda of revitalizing the institution, with recruits now officially named Market and Neighborhood Watchmen. The new regulatory and administrative context is highly centralized while their duties are scarcely different from those of the regular police forces, giving the institution's longstanding ambiguity or in-betweenness a more complicated form. In its attempt to publicly legitimize the institution, the AKP has relied on myth creation. Accordingly, this article contextualizes this process of double myth creation at the intersection of Turkey's neoliberal security sector reforms and AKP's securitization policies. In doing so, the article reveals the reasons underlying growing public anxiety regarding the institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of comprehensive security, as developed in the OSCE context, can help in securing internet and digital freedoms against the rise of digital authoritarianism. This contribution will focus on the role of the digital transition in society and its impact on freedom of religion or belief. It will also assess the contribution that the notion of "comprehensive security" can offer in the context of the digital transition. To protect human rights and, among them, the right to freedom of religion or belief, we must embed human rights within the concept of security. Doing otherwise would mean to surrender to authoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent analysis indicates that the coronavirus pandemic has disproportionately affected Roma people, amplified pre-existing exclusion, poverty, discrimination, and exposed marginalized Roma to vulnerability even more than before. This study explores the securitization and militarized quarantine of Roma settlements during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Slovakia. The study analyzes who, how and why securitized Roma communities? On what issues and for whom? With what result and under what conditions? The result of securitization, i.e. militarized quarantine of six Roma settlements is investigated in terms of legality, necessity, proportionality, and temporariness. The topic is approached from the perspective of political science. The study deploys a new institutionalism approach, securitization as an analytical frame, and qualitative research design. This includes a case study, elite interviews, and qualitative content analysis. The study concludes that, in the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Slovakia, securitization took place instead of right-based discourse and a humanitarian approach towards the most vulnerable and socially excluded MRCs. Slovakia deployed heavily securitized responses towards Roma, targeting them selectively and collectively with anti-corona measures. Residents of six Roma settlements were exposed to the discrimination and most restrictive measures that the rest of the population did not face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there have been attempts to theorise state-Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) relations in the Counter-Terrorism (CT) context, including the "co-option and containment" and "duality of coercion" perspectives, these two-way articulations have failed to account for the range of strategic options open to the state in regulating CSOs. This study presents the framework of Strategic Exclusion, Co-option and Containment (SECC) to underscore the general patterns of state engagement of CSOs in the context of CT. It mapped secondary evidence in 19 countries and used three illustrative case studies (Australia, Uganda and Russia) to examine the elements of SECC, namely, states' exclusion of CSOs in law and policymaking on CT, the use of strategic ambiguity in enacting and interpreting CT laws, delegitimizing or criminalising advocacy and influencing the transformation of CSOs into state adjutants. This pattern of engagement with CSOs is transforming voluntary and associational life in precarious ways. The article advances the Copenhagen School and rational-actor model of global strategic decision-making, and contributes to discourses on the closing of civic spaces, democratic recession and the resurgence of authoritarianism. It lays a foundation for generalisable theory and future empirical research on state behaviour towards CSOs in the context of violence, conflict, and security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Nigeria, the threat posed by climate change is leading policymakers and the media to frame climate change as a security threat that warrants support for adaptive actions. We draw upon securitization theory to examine how security narratives affect climate change adaptation. Using primary and secondary data, we find that although securitization arguments are easily identified in climate change policies and action plans in Nigeria, the implications of securitization for adaptation policy and practice are harder to discern. We find that adaptation is not as urgent a policy as would be expected from the logic of securitization. The transformation of security framing into urgent adaptation actions appears difficult because there are no urgent adaptation measures. We also find that people's level of vulnerability and adaptation to climate change is a function of deeper socio-political dynamics and processes that defy the political theatre of securitization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policies and programs in resettlement countries, such as the United States, influence refugees' wellbeing depending on the support they receive from governments. This qualitative case study analyzes the wellbeing of refugees resettled in New York City by examining the impact of organizational, city, state, and federal welfare policies on refugees from the perspective of service providers working at different policy implementation levels, including state and local government, and non-for-profit organizations. The study used a purposive and convenience sample of 12 semi-structured interviews. The findings suggest that the U.S. refugee resettlement system is operating based on the Elizabethan Poor Laws of 1601 and securitization theory ideology, prioritizing self-sufficiency over social support, holding states and local governments responsible for the resettlement programs, and treating refugees as security threats. Future studies may explore the subjective wellbeing of refugees and the mechanisms that address refugees' needs and lived experiences from their perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between the human right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief (FoRB) and security. It argues that FoRB and security are intricately intertwined and uses the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's (OSCE) concept of comprehensive and co-operative security as a theoretical underpinning and ideal-type model from which to assess other approaches to security. Through this lens, it asserts that if sustainable security is an end-goal, and if FoRB helps to ensure it, arbitrary restrictions of this right, or intrusive interference into the lives of religious or belief communities, will ultimately only undermine security and should be avoided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managing transboundary river basins proves a challenge for China when encountering disagreements with its neighbors that experience different political and social conditions. This paper analyzes what happens when China characterizes water as a security issue, examining China's fluid securitization practices, where changes can be identified indicating that the Chinese government values the various water security concerns differently. Two cases are adopted for comparison. In the case of China sharing the Mekong River, the Chinese government has shown a willingness to incorporate more issues found both inside and outside of the water sector. In contrast, in the case of the sharing of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna, China's security agenda has been limited to the consideration of water availability and has led to military security concerns. The findings indicate that China's water security agenda is not only driven by a concern for water management over specific rivers, but also judgments that incorporate strategic military consideration with regard to countries that they are involved with. The case of China thus suggests that water security is a complex domain that demonstrates competing values and concerns in (de)politicizing water. Therefore, water-related security issues cannot be understood solely from an environmental policy perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Securitization to attain bankruptcy remoteness separates the risks of the originator bank from the income-producing asset by structuring the asset sale between the Special Purpose Vehicle and the transferor as a "true sale" as opposed to that of financing an asset transfer. Should the transferor subsequently file for bankruptcy, the transferred assets will be exempted from the transferor's bankruptcy estate, and the investors' secured assets in the SPV are not at risk of loss. Once commercial banks no longer bear the risk of these bankruptcy-remote securitized loans, creeping deterioration in bank lending standards occurred/are occurring via weaker screening, lower denial rates, and misreporting of credit quality. When this type of structured finance became institutionally pervasive, what may have reduced risk at the micro-level quietly engenders non-linear systemic risk. In remedy to this, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform is at best an incomplete international vision. Regulators must make-up for its inadequacies by increasing capital adequacy requirements which ensure banks operate in a prudential manner. Profit-maximization (shareholders) and capital adequacy (Society) must err on the side of capital adequacy given the public-private hybrid nature of money that is backstopped by the private-public Federal Reserve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In South Africa there is a conflation between refugees and other migrants at a legislative, policy and narrative level. Based on 32 interviews and four focus groups conducted in Johannesburg and Musina in spring 2020, we show the conflation between refugees and migrants through changing legislation, a bureaucratized system which makes access to any legal status difficult and political narratives that serve to construct a threat. This results in dangerous, sometimes violent consequences for migrant communities themselves. The conflation is however a political non-distinction that is made purposefully in the interest of increasing domestic legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that the United Nations Trusteeship System after World War II, in its attempts to release states into independence, was simultaneously complicit in perpetuating secessionist conflicts, with which former trust territories continue to struggle until today. Secessionism was framed as a threat to state-building and not as an expression of self-determination. We use a Critical Security Studies framework and compare the conflict on Ewe/Togoland unification in bordering regions of the British Gold Cost and the Trusteeship Territories of Togoland (1950s), with the conflict on secessionism of Bougainville from the Territory of Papua and New Guinea (1970s). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the evolving security practices of one of the key actors in the handling of asylum-seekers and migrants at the external borders of the European Union (EU) Member States, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, widely referred to as 'Frontex'. It does so by applying a revised version of the Copenhagen School's securitisation framework, which focuses on security practices and is underpinned by an understanding of security as belonging to a continuum. The article compares and contrasts the practices of Frontex in the context of two significant 'migration crises' in the Mediterranean, in 2005–2006 and 2015–2016, respectively. The analysis of the more recent practices of the Agency following the 2015–2016 'migration crisis' shows that this 'crisis' has led to an intensification of the security practices of the Agency. Frontex has moved towards the end point of the continuum, which is characterised by survival, existential threats, and militarisation. This has contributed to a spiralling of the securitisation of migration in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies have analysed different aspects of Turkey's authoritarianisation under the AKP rule. However, there is still a gap in this literature with regards to the role of instrumentalization of narratives and discursive strategies in this authoritarian turn which has been successfully engineered by the AKP. This article addresses this gap and shows how securitizing narratives based on fear, trauma, nostalgia, ontological insecurity, grievances, and conspiracy theories have been used by President Erdoğan and his AKP as psycho-political tools of authoritarianisation. It argues that these tools have shown to be useful in securitizing the opposition to consolidate power, change the governing structure, and take other extraordinary measures, while legitimizing these acts for the public. In an attempt to provide a holistic picture, this article analyses how the AKP has securitized almost all of the significant opposition socio-political identities, groups and parties in Turkey. This study contributes to securitization theory by shedding light on the use of traumas, conspiracy theories, and fear in the securitization process, in legitimizing securitization and authoritarianisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study engages in an analysis of the media discourse regarding African asylum seekers in Israel, examining how populist and elite Hebrew language news websites utilize securitized and desecuritized discourses to depict asylum seekers in both a period of perceived acute threat (2011–2012) and a period in which the perceived threat has dissipated (2018–2019). Utilizing a Dialectic Discourse Analysis approach, this study aims to disclose how similar discursive resources and societal values can be dialectically employed to advance both securitized and desecuritized migration discourses. Specifically, the study illustrates how paradigmatic lexical choices, collective memory narratives, religious values, and vox populi discourses can be utilized to advance both securitized and desecuritized approaches to asylum seekers, with no significant different between the two periods studied. The study posits that by appropriating central societal values towards each position, the discourse become fixed in opposition, as neither side is able to engage in a constructive dialogue with the opposing side. The discussion suggests a possibility for engaging in a productive discourse which shifts beyond fixed oppositions with respect to asylum seekers and other perceived threats to the ontological security of a society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]