Securitization Theory ─ How Security Problems Emerge and Dissolve

This volume aims to provide a new framework for the analysis of securitization processes, increasing our understanding of how security issues emerge, evolve and dissolve.
Securitisation theory has become one of the key components of security studies and IR courses in recent years, and this book represents the first attempt to provide an integrated and rigorous overview of securitization practices within a coherent framework. To do so, it organizes securitization around three core assumptions which make the theory applicable to empirical studies: the centrality of audience, the co-dependency of agency and context and the structuring force of the dispositif. These assumptions are then investigated through discourse analysis, process-tracing, ethnographic research, and content analysis and discussed in relation to extensive case studies.
This innovative new book will be of much interest to students of securitisation and critical security studies, as well as IR theory and sociology.
Thierry Balzacq is holder of the Tocqueville Chair on Security Policies and Professor at the University of Namur. He is Research Director at the University of Louvain and Associate Researcher at the Centre for European Studies at Sciences Po Paris.

Thierry Balzacq is holder of the Tocqueville Chair on Security Policies and Professor at the University of Namur. He is Research Director at the University of Louvain and Associate Researcher at the Centre for European Studies at Sciences Po Paris.

1. A Theory of Securitization: Origins, Core Assumptions, and Variants Thierry Balzacq 2. Enquiries Into Methods: A New Framework for Securitization Analysis Thierry Balzacq Part 1: The Rules of Securitization 3.Reconceptualizing the Audience in Securitization Theory Sarah Léonard and Christian Kaunert 4. Securitization as a Media Frame Fred Vultee 5. The Limits of Spoken Words: From Meta-narratives to Experiences of Security Claire Wilkinson 6. When Securitization Fails: The Hard Case of Counter-terrorism Programmes Mark B. Salter Part 2: Securitization and De-securitization in Practice 7. Rethinking the Securitization of Environment: Old Beliefs, New Insights Julia Trombetta 8. Health Issues and Securitization: HIV/AIDS as a US National Security Threat Roxanna Sjostedt 9. Securitization, Culture and Power: Rogue States in US and German Discourse Holger Stritzel and Dirk Schmittchen 10. Religion Bites: The Securitization of – and Desecuritization Moves by – Falungong Practitioners in the People’s Republic of China Juha A. Vuori 11. The Continuing Evolution of Securitization Theory Michael C. Williams