Securitisation Theory and the Internationalisation of Threat Images.

The proposed paper will critically analyse the securitisation theory of the Copenhagen School and examine how their thoughts may be applied to the internationalisation of threat images. The Copenhagen School has come up with the idea of understanding security as a result of speech acts through which perceived problems become a national security threat. In the original articulation of the Copenhagen School securitisation theory has neither explicitly taken into account the role of images nor the internationalisation of securitisations. Instead the concept of securitisation is primarily conceived of in linguistic terms, referring to concepts such as speakers, speech acts or grammars, and on processes of evolution, i.e. processes of how a threat takes on societal salience. This paper will argue that the current understanding of securitisation theory needs further elaboration and modification. First, the Copenhagen School has underestimated the power of agents to define meaning and the influence of intersubjective context in which speech acts are situated. By concentrating only on the speech acts themselves the Copenhagen School has put too much weight on the mere linguistic act of securitisation. Second, the current concept of securitisation refers to processes within social systems, be they national, regional or global. As a result it does not provide a framework for processes of internationalisation, i.e. processes between social systems. Based on a critique of the current articulation of securitisation theory the paper will propose a more embedded understanding which elaborates the idea of securitisation as a situated social process of producing meaning. Such a more embedded understanding will then be applied to the internationalisation of threat images. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]