In Search of the Politics of Security

This article

• Provides an exploration of why security politics might change the behaviour of parliaments or legislatures, bringing together theory from diverse fields;
• Illustrates a series of potential ways of measuring legislative behaviour;
• Is a systematic quantitative test for the existence of security politics in a field which relies almost exclusively on qualitative methodology;
• Contributes to the current debate in the field of critical security studies over the definition of the politics of security.

This article takes up the recent challenge to critical security studies posed by Browning and McDonald to define the effects of ‘the politics of security’. It focuses in particular on the behaviour of legislatures during the passage of legislation relating to crime and security. Effective scrutiny of this type of policy is crucial, but legislatures are often accused of failing to provide it. However, empirical work in the area remains limited: we know little about exactly how legislatures change their behaviour at such critical junctures. This article seeks to fill this gap. It offers firstly an exploration of diverse strands of work on the notion of ‘security politics’. Secondly, it offers an empirical test based on a dataset covering UK legislation from the period 2007–2012. The results suggest the appearance of security legislation causes parliament to heighten scrutiny, raising questions about the real nature of ‘security politics’.