aftermath of 9/11 there was a collective public feeling of vulnerability, and they
sought a response from the state. The audience therefore played a significant
role in the shaping of the discourse surrounding ‘national security’ and ‘terror’
that were used by Bush in his speech acts to legitimise the ‘War on Terror;’ ‘such
Iraqi actions pose a continuing unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security.’ 51 Thus, a post-structural stance that incorporates discourse analysis, is
able to reconstruct the fixedness of the CS securitisation paradigm.
Although proponents of the Welsh School represent one of the fierce
critics to securitisation theory, I will make the case for a critical securitisation
theory by expanding the sectors of security to include humanitarianism; whilst
working within the original framework of the process of securitisation. Although
proponents of CS are resistant to incorporate a normative approach, Waever
actually incorporates some emancipatory thinking with the desecuritisation process, as the concept itself represents progressive changes to the status quo. 52
He also demonstrates similar methods of analysis during this process of knowing
whether to securitise or desecuritise an issue, in the same way humanitarianism
provides the analyst with a sense of agency in assessing whether the response
will have the intended positive outcome. It this shared assumption between the
CS and CSS, which allows for a normative framework of securitisation.
By working within this framework, Watson convincingly outlines the three
components of humanitarianism securitisation: 1) issues that become an
existential threat can vary greatly depending on the securitizing actor making the
claim; 2) vast amounts of different means for implementing emergency
measures; 3) ‘Securitization can refer to a range of practices situated along a
51 George W. Bush stated the following in a letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate, (2002).
52 Buzan et al., Security, p 34.
22
Made with FlippingBook HTML5