The vulnerability of securitisation: the missing link of critical security studies

Abstract

This article proposes to focus on vulnerability in the operationalisation of securitisation theory. It argues that in empirical investigations we often fail to acknowledge that security acts may reflect weakness, not strength. Employing second-generation securitisation research, it first problematizes the common approach to securitisation. Namely, that the self-referential conceptualisation of security acts, together with the realist understanding of power, lead to interpretations of securitisation as a tool of unprincipled statecraft. Secondly, drawing on Brown’s work on border walling, the article reasons that securitisation is predicated on vulnerability. Vulnerability is a legitimising necessity of securitisation. One cannot designate a threat without tying it to vulnerability (real/imagined). Securitisations are essentially claims of vulnerability. Thirdly, utilising contextual and narrative analysis of two case studies, this paper illustrates how securitisations are coupled with vulnerability. The article formalizes a generative research avenue of securitisation. One that better accounts for the intersubjective aspects of security acts.