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J Int Relat Dev DOI 10.1057/s41268-017-0110-4 ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Towards a process-orientated account of the securitisation trinity: the speech act, the securitiser and the audience R. Guy Emerson1

Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2017

Abstract This paper concerns how we understand and deploy securitisation—following speech act theory—from within a constative–performative continuum. The oscillation between each pole not only has analytical implications—moving from Schmitt-inspired prescriptive politics to performativity informed by Derrida—but also informs the actors and agency involved in the securitising move. Using this continuum as a point of departure, the paper has two aims. The first is to provide a state-of-the-art account of the Copenhagen school by locating the speech act, the securitiser and the audience within this continuum. Here, the securitiser shifts from a fixed agent to one constituted through the securitising move, while the audience moves from a proscriptive subject interpellated by the securitiser to an agent whose everyday life is integral to securitisation. The second aim is to interrogate the performative side of the spectrum wherein both the securitiser and the audience are subjects-in-process. A process-orientated account of securitisation is put forth in which the securitiser and the audience are enacted through the securitising move. Such an account rethinks the chronology of securitisation—placing greater emphasis on the enabling conditions that precede the utterance—and underlines the quotidian nature of security. Keywords Austin Copenhagen school Derrida Performativity Process-orientated securitisation

& R. Guy Emerson [email protected] 1

Universidad de las Ame´ricas Puebla, Sta. Catarina Ma´rtir, Cholula, Puebla, Mexico

R. G. Emerson

Introduction Central to the theory of securitisation is speech act theory. Whether it is derived from the initial work of John L. Austin or from the reworkings of John Searle or Jacques Derrida, the speech act—how it arises and how it circulates—is integral to how we understand securitisation. Wæver (2004, p. 13), for example, maintains that security is a speech act, as ‘[i]t is by labeling something a security issue that it becomes one’. Moreover, in Security: A New Framework for Analysis—where securitisation receives its fullest treatment—its authors maintain that ‘it is the utterance itself that is the act. By saying the words, something is done’ (Buzan et al. 1998, p. 26); an assertion that mirrors Austin’s famous description of the performative as an utterance ‘in which to say something is to do something; or in which by saying something we are doing something’ (Austin 1980, p. 12, emphasis in original). Rather than employing this Austin-inspired line of investigation, however, the paper adopts an approach informed by Derrida so as to demonstrate the scope and application of securitisation. The paper offers a ‘state-of-the-art’ account of the Copenhagen school by highlighting a tension within the securitised speech act between the performative and the constative. At a cursory level, this tension is apparent to the extent that it is unclear whether the existential threat voiced in the securitised speech act is simply stated or it is in fact produced by the securitised utterance. Is it, for example, at the time of its voicing that the referent object is endangered with the threat simply restated by official representatives? Or does it become threatening in the instant of the utterance? Instead of resolving this tension, however, and more than an investigation into these discursive modalities alone, the aim is to demonstrate how variation within these two positions highlights different dimensions of securitisation. Indeed, it argues that variation in the constative–performative continuum invokes different actors and degrees of agency, and thus has important implications for how we understand securitisation. Viewed in relation to the securitising decision, and again employing the constative–performative spectrum, it is at one end a Schmitt-inspired politics of the decision determined by sovereign will, while at the other end it is a decision informed by Derrida wherein it must reflect the already established gestures of power. Placing these positions within speech act theory itself, it is to view the decision as an intentional act that is authored and controlled by the securitiser, or as a re-iteration of past practices with which the securitiser must comply in order to be intelligible. Similarly, with respect to the audience, on the one hand it is understood as following the speech act with its agency confined to backing up (or not) the securitising move. On the other hand, however, the audience operates not only after the utterance but also before the utterance insofar as it is integral to establishing the social field that must first enable the securitised speech act. An appreciation of the securitised speech act thus moves from a fixed instantiation (of a singular act voiced by a stable actor) towards a more process-orientated account (an iterable event through which the securitiser and audience are continually drawn).

Towards a process-orientated account of the securitisation…

More than a state-of-the-art account of securitisation, however, the paper also explores new lines of investigation that are made possible by a process-orientated understanding of the securitisation trinity: the speech act, the securitiser and the audience. In this setting, a process-orientated view of the securitiser demonstrates how it is drawn iteratively through both linguistic and non-linguistic practices of security. Linguistically, the work of Ernesto Laclau is employed to highlight how the securitised decision is itself the moment of the securitiser; while, nonlinguistically, it is the management of danger and the various practices of security— ranging from geopolitical to airport security—that become the basis of the state. So too is the audience re-examined in the light of this process-orientated approach. No longer proscribed in the securitised speech act, the audience is modulated, exhibiting agency via their investment—both ideational and material—in the securitising move. Ideationally, it is their recognition of the subject positions and discursive apparatuses that enable the securitised utterance to circulate (their beliefs and expectations). And materially, it is their implicit, embodied assumptions that are incarnated in audience behaviour that make securitisation possible (their everyday habits and practices). The paper is divided into three sections. The first concerns the development of securitisation and its analytical dependence on speech act theory. Here, the paper sets out the analytical scope for its later investigation, outlining the impact of John L. Austin and also the radical reworking of the speech act by Derrida. From this introduction, the constative–performative spectrum is drawn, which is then examined in the second section in relation to securitisation. It begins at the constative end, reading the utterance of an existential threat as a definitive act and a calculable decision reflective of sovereign will. More specifically, it examines the prescriptive/proscriptive dimensions of the securitised speech act to instantiate both an endangered referent object and the audience. Moving further towards the performative end, attention turns to the retroactive construction of the audience through the insights of Paul Ricoeur, before examining the construction of the securitiser itself through the securitising move. The third section examines what a process-orientated account of the securitiser and the audience would look like. It reveals how post-structuralist literature may mobilise the Copenhagen school and it highlights a potentially productive overlap between securitisation, the so-called Paris school and research on biopolitical security.

Security as a speech act Central to speech act theory—and by extension securitisation—is the work of John L. Austin. In How to Do Things with Words, Austin (1980, p. 5) maintains that particular utterances—usually promises, orders, greetings, warnings or invitations— are not constative in that they can be proven either true or false, but are performative in that the utterance involves the doing of certain actions. Austin demonstrates how language is not, in the main, a series of constative statements about the world that can be verified, but acts that exist in themselves. Spoken by the right person in the correct circumstances—first person singular present indicative active form—the

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performative speech act brings about what it says (ibid., pp. 56–64). The statements ‘I pronounce you husband and wife’, or ‘I christen thee the Queen Mary’, are not constative statements of fact, Austin argues, but constitute what they speak of, producing that which they name. A marriage or the christening of a ship appears by virtue of the power of the subject and her will to constitute a phenomenon into being. In short, while constatation indexes a state of affairs in the world, the performative enacts the world by bringing into being a new state of affairs. In a significant reworking of Austin, however, Derrida recalibrates an appreciation of the performative beyond the subject and her intentions. While performativity became increasingly central to Derrida’s later work—featuring prominently in ‘Living On: Borderlines’ (1979) and in a series of lectures published in Memoires: for Paul de Man (1989)—the concept was outlined most explicitly in his 1972 engagement with Austin’s speech act theory entitled ‘Signature Event Context’ (in Derrida 1988). In a critical reformulation of speech act theory, Derrida reveals that the performative is not the function of an originating will, but is always derivative. That is, in contrast to Austin’s performatives that require the communication of intentional meaning by a stable subject—i.e. for securitisation, calls for a state of emergency by government officials—for Derrida the presence of the subject and her intentions are coloured by the iterable structure of the performative. At its most basic, iterability reveals how the performative is not a singular act, but part of a larger discursive operation. Rather than a one-time-only event in the present, for Derrida the iterable structure of the performative means that it is derivative of broader social practices that it must cite in order to be intelligible. The utterance is only able to function to the extent that it conforms to established conventions. Unable to ‘create or engender a context on its own, much less dominate it’, the performative never creates itself ex nihilo, but is tied to already existing ways of thinking, acting and behaving (Derrida 1988, pp. 79, 97). While Austin claims that the statements ‘I pronounce you husband and wife’, or ‘I christen thee the Queen Mary’, produce what they name—and thus appear by virtue of the power of the subject to constitute a phenomenon into being—Derrida counters: ‘[c]ould a performative utterance succeed if its formulation did not repeat a ‘‘coded’’ or iterable utterance, or in other words, if the formula I pronounce in order to […] launch a ship or a marriage were not identifiable as conforming with an iterable model’ (Derrida 1988, p. 18)? In short, both the speaker and that which is said are only made possible through their operation within already established conventions. In practice, this means that the felicitous condition for the performative is less the power of the subject to constitute what she names, than it is the citation of existing conventions. Subjective intention is thus reworked. No longer does the speech act concern the expression of individual will—the power of the securitiser to identify a threat—but is a particular expression of broader conventions that shape what can(not) be identified and who can(not) do the identifying; a position at the heart of ‘contextualist’ approaches to securitisation (Williams 2015, p. 118). The performative is recast as a specific modality of power as discourse, with the speech ‘act’ historicised insofar as attention now concerns the regimes of power within which it is embedded (Stritzel 2007, p. 370).


Having outlined, albeit briefly, the analytical parameters of the constative and the performative (for both Austin and Derrida), the aim below is to chart their implications for the securitised speech act. While the paper continues to interrogate the abovementioned themes, it does so in reference to the securitisation trinity: the speech act, the securitiser and the audience—with an appreciation of each being coloured by its positioning on the constative–performative spectrum.

Securitisation and the constative end of the spectrum An intentional sovereign decision and a proscribed audience Beginning analysis with constatation, at its most basic the securitised speech act reflects an already existing state of affairs. The referent object—typically the nationstate—is endangered by an existential threat and thus requires extraordinary measures to deal with it. The securitised speech act transparently indexes an already existing threat, with both the endangered nation and the protective state instantiated as fact. In this setting, the securitised utterance reveals the necessarily ambiguous nature of the referent object of security, as the state on the one hand and the common identity that ‘we’, the nation, share Wæver (1993, p. 42) on the other hand. Indeed, more than simply relaying a state of affairs—a threat that exists independently of its representation—the subjects of security are stabilised too. The fixed nature of state officials is affirmed, as they exert intentional control over the securitised utterance. It is the state that has the legitimacy to speak most authoritatively on what is considered a threat, and how to mitigate it. Meanwhile, ‘we’, the polity, are afforded protection to the extent that we are mobilised by the securitised speech act, to the extent that we ‘back up’ official representations (Buzan et al. 1998, p. 25). With agency largely confined to the state, the process of securitisation is therefore dependent upon sovereign will. Williams (2003) highlights this dependency and traces it back to the thinking of Carl Schmitt and his reading of the political process. Williams (2003, pp. 515–517) reveals how Schmitt’s concept of the political coincides with the Copenhagen school’s formulation of security insofar as the content of security is indeterminate in itself—in that any issue is capable of being presented as an existential threat—and is therefore reliant on actor mediation as reflected through the speech act. As made clear by Ole Wæver, ‘by uttering ‘‘security’’ a state-representative moves a particular development into a specific area, and thereby claims a special right to use whatever means are necessary to block it’ (Wæver 1995, p. 55). The threat is founded on a decision in which the sovereign has the authority to grant a state of exception and deem what is (not) threatening. Indeed, it is the Sovereign who ‘decides whether there is to be an extreme emergency as well as what must be done to eliminate it […] it is he [sic] who must decide whether the constitution needs to be suspended in its entirety’ (Schmitt 1985, p. 7). In short, the sovereign is the locus of the decision. This intersection between Schmitt and securitisation is important as it moves us incrementally away from constatation and closer to Austin’s appreciation of the

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performative. Indeed, rather than a transparent indexation of the state of affairs, author mediation is integral to the decision over what constitutes the threat. To repeat, it is the state that has the legitimacy to speak most authoritatively on what is considered a threat. Accordingly, while it would be wrong to confine the securitised decision to an objective statement of fact—as it involves a degree of subjective will—there is nonetheless an assumption of a stable actor exercising subjective intention in a determinable context—a` la Austin’s performative. Moreover, so too is this reading of the securitised speech act dependent on forging a new setting. Not only is the decision dependent on stable actors exerting their will, but it also declares that the current normative order is unable to cope with the threat and thus requires new possibilities within a state of emergency (Huysmans 2011, p. 374). Focusing on these new possibilities, it is in this context that the securitised speech act has a projective quality. More than indexing a state of affairs, the speech act aims to bring about a logic of urgency and exceptionalism. However, rather than a performative of bringing about what it says, it is better to appreciate this projective enactment of emergency as operating in the separate modalities of constatation and prescription. According to this perspective, the gap between the security utterance itself and the resulting state of emergency can be understood in terms of outlining ‘what is’ (constatation) and designating ‘what ought to be’ (prescription) (Derrida 1986, p. 12). The speech act remains a reflection of the state of the world, but is also projective insofar as it posits what should be in the near future. It designates what measures are to be taken so as to bring into being a new state of affairs. Implicit in this prescriptive dimension is an understanding of the audience. The movement between ‘what is’ and ‘what ought to be’ assumes that the speaker’s intention corresponds with the statement’s impact on the audience. By designating a threat, so too is the securitiser instilling the required sense of caution among the audience so as to satisfy the state of emergency. Returning to Austin, the securitised speech act can be understood to collapse the illocutionary and perlocutionary effects of the utterance. The illocution of designating a threat and positing a necessary state of exception is presumed to produce the desired effect on the audience (perlocution), with the audience thus denied agency outside of the role already designated for them. This collapse is criticised by Juha Vuori (2008, pp. 66, 73) who argues that the illocution of declaring an emergency condition cannot guarantee the success of securitising a particular issue because the utterance can have different perlocutionary effects. Rather than supporting the prescriptive state of exception, for example, the audience may rebuke this meaning and thus undermine the illocutionary force of the utterance. We thus reach a limit in the capacity of linguistic theory to explain, for example, how a threat image may become prevalent in the absence of consent (Balzacq 2015, p. 108). Similarly, critics like Floyd (2011, p. 428) conclude that securitisation cannot simultaneously operate as an illocutionary speech act and be dependent on the speech act’s acceptance by the relevant audience because illocution denies the audience a meaningful role. In response to these limits, and returning to Balzacq, a sociological account of securitisation may offer an interesting way forward. Rather than negating the audience, such a position might suggest that the prescriptive dimension of the


speech act can also be understood to actually create—or better, proscribe—the audience. And importantly, this proscription (rather than negation) becomes integral to the securitising move. In order to demonstrate this move, the gap between ‘what is’ and ‘what ought to be’ is explored in relation to the work of Paul Ricoeur to reveal how the audience becomes a proscriptive effect of the securitised speech act. Describing it as part of a larger paradox of politics, Ricoeur (1984, p. 254) claims that a political act or decision is only legitimate if it reflects the previous consent of sovereign authority. Translated into securitisation, the securitised utterance is only legitimate if the audience ‘backs [it] up’ (Buzan et al. 1998, p. 25). However, rather than merely collapsing the illocutionary and perlocutionary dimensions of the speech act, Ricoeur argues that no political act ever conforms perfectly to such a standard. That is, no decision reflects fully the consent of the audience, for if it did it would not be a political, but rather an administrative act. Accordingly, the political act always lacks full legitimacy at the moment of its enactment. Rather, it invokes ‘in its retrospective justification of the act, presumptions, standards, and judgments incompletely thematized and consented to at its inception’ (Connolly 1995, p. 138). The gap between the act and consent, then, is not understood in prescriptive terms— what the audience ‘ought to be’ or ‘ought to do’ in the future—but is proscriptive in that the audience is already posited, already condemned to a particular form of being and behaving in the utterance. The audience is proscribed in the act itself, with this retroactive subject position of a submissive, consensual polity necessary to enable the securitised utterance in the first place. The audience thus takes on meaning through the utterance in ‘retrospection’, while the utterance is ‘prospective’ in that it projects (Ricoeur 1984, p. 256). Hansen (2000, 2011) recognises the importance of this distinction and the inferred character of the audience. No longer understood exclusively as an actor that ‘backs up’ (or not) the securitiser, the audience is regulated through the decision. The securitised utterance thus provides particular subjects with authority (the securitiser), while closing off others (the audience) (Hansen 2011, p. 358). Rather than an issue of consent, or of voluntarily held beliefs within the polity, the proscriptive audience now concerns issues of coercion, repression and silence (Stritzel 2007). It is this positioning of the audience and this act of closure that becomes the condition of possibility for the securitised speech act. Analogous in this regard is the practice of interpellation, wherein the subject is retroactively incited by a prior authority. Following Althusser (1971), interpellation involves an individual becoming a subject by turning and recognising herself in the police officer’s call. Translated into securitisation, just as Althusser’s subject is assimilated to the logic of law and order through the act of hailing, so too does the individual citizen become the audience through her assimilation into the logic of the securitiser. To be hailed is to be constituted discursively and subjected to various modalities of power. Expanding proscription: from the audience to the securitiser While recognising the retroactive instantiation of the subject—or, for securitisation, the audience—in order to move further towards the performative end of the spectrum, according to Derrida, it is necessary to acknowledge the constitutive

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character of the hailer/securitiser. That is, it is necessary to not only acknowledge the audience as a discursive effect, but also the securitiser. Turning to some of the foundational texts on performativity in order to enable this shift, Friedrich Nietzsche foreshadows such a move in his own account of subject formation. While section 13 of Essay One in On the Genealogy of Morals (1989) is famous in performative circles for its maxim (the deed constitutes the doer), of greater relevance here are the consequences attached to constituting the subject. If, for example, the subject is animated retroactively—for Nietzsche through accountability and accusation—then the operation of interpellation not only precedes the subject (the audience for securitisation) but presupposes a prior operator (the securitiser). In Judith Butler’s words (1997, p. 46): ‘Is this not, in some sense, the conjecturing by Nietzsche of a prior and more powerful subject?’ The aim below is to examine this prior subject, the deliverer of the proscriptive judgment, and to interrogate the basis of their authority. However, rather than simply to reduce this subject to an already given actor—and thereby to return to the performative position of Austin—the aim is instead to decentre the securitiser. That is, as much as the audience is instantiated in the speech act, so too is the securitiser. The paragraphs to follow are dedicated to substantiating this claim. In order to decentre the securitiser, it is first necessary to move beyond sovereign will. Rather, the securitiser operates within and is therefore conditioned by already established conventions as per the ‘contextualist’ approach. In short, the securitising move cannot be reduced to agency without recourse to the regimes that circumscribe it, with the state and its practices of security abiding by and thus reaffirming these very regimes. This means that, rather than sovereign will, the securitised decision is reworked—or better, politicised—by revealing its dependence on the conventions that first inform the decision. The securitising move—be it a securitised speech act, the sending of troops or the voting patterns within the UN General Assembly—is less a singular and deliberate ‘act’ than a reflection of already established gestures of power. While it may appear that the power of this action derives from domestic resolve (an intentional, stable subject), the opposite is more accurate: it is through the citation of conventions that the state’s will is produced and the identity of the actors it evokes re-instantiated (always provisionally). To the extent that the securitiser stands behind the speech act, then, she only does so by drawing on and covering over the constitutive conventions by which she is mobilised (Butler 1993, pp. 225–227). For Derrida, then, the performative is irreducible to intentionality or sovereign will. Rather, it is dependent on the Other. In the Politics of Friendship (Derrida 2005, p. 219), he outlines this non-foundational position by claiming that any decision is always open and cannot exclude a responsibility to the (wholly) Other. However, rather than an ‘other’ understood in terms of a politics of enmity, Derrida’s Other is better translated into the Copenhagen school as intersubjectivity, and it is to this intersubjective field that the securitiser is responsible when uttering security. It is the intersubjective field that makes possible not only the speech act, but also the securitiser. In contrast to a closed ‘programmable effect of determinate causes’, Derrida thus thinks about the speech ‘act’ outside of subjective determination by capturing a non-foundational basis of the decision—no sovereign/sovereign will—yet this is not some arbitrary determination but a


relation of politics founded upon the Other’s decision in me—the intersubjective basis of the decision (ibid., pp. 67–70). In short, both the utterance and the securitiser are first responsible to the intersubjective forces that make each possible. This insight is significant because intersubjectivity is no longer concerned exclusively with the reception (or not) of the securitised speech act, but also involves how the intersubjective field first informs what can be said. The recognition is consistent with moving beyond—in the words of McDonald (2008, p. 564)—the narrow context of the securitising move in the Copenhagen school. Intersubjectivity in the securitising move concerns not only whether or not an audience receives ‘an existential threat with a saliency sufficient to have substantial political effects’ (Buzan et al. 1998, p. 25). It also concerns the role of the audience before the speech act, in terms of their beliefs and expectations that make the securitised decision possible. The securitising move is now constructed over time through a range of incremental processes and representations that are irreducible to a singular act (McDonald 2008, p. 564). Both the act and the audience are mutually constitutive, with securitisation context-sensitive, depending on how it is conceptualised and politically practiced differently in different places and at different times (Ciuta˘ 2009, pp. 317, 320; Bubandt 2005, p. 291). The audience is not auxiliary to the identification of the threat, but integral to the socio-cultural setting from which the threat is drawn. Accordingly, if the decision is first responsible to the intersubjective forces that make it possible, then the audience is involved in the securitising move from the very beginning. In this setting, the established conventions that shape the securitising move are also the beliefs, interests and demands of the polity, without which the identification of the threat would be hamstrung. Far from a unidirectional process or reducible to sovereign will, the securitising move becomes multidirectional insofar as it is as reliant on the audience as it is the securitiser. Consequences of an expanded intersubjectivity: an agential audience Questions of audience agency and mobilisation are now added to an understanding of securitisation. Rather than conceiving the securitised speech act as a top-down incitement, it is more informative to see it as a performative signifier that functions as a bottom-up rallying point for audience expectations. It is to recognise that the securitiser is unable to necessarily inscribe the intended meaning among the recipients, as this meaning can be reproduced, manipulated, exchanged and/or combined with already existing practices. Accordingly, the power of the performative signifier is as much its capacity to become a site of investment for the audience(s) as it is to bring into being a new state of affairs. To this end—and following Balzacq (2005, p. 172)—the securitising move must be mindful of the ‘psycho-cultural disposition of the audience’ so as to explore the ‘power that both the speaker and the listener bring to the interaction’. A multidirectional approach to securitisation recognises how the audience invests in security before the speech act. Put alternatively, it is an investment in the larger social field that makes the utterance possible. For example, it is the ‘commonsensical’ investment in the authority of the state to speak most forcefully on issues of security, and/or investment in a politics of enmity that already distinguishes us

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from them, inside from outside, safety from danger. In Mark Salter’s words (2008, p. 330), there is an ‘internal grammar’ to the securitising move that is irreducible to the statement itself. Moreover, rather than a singular audience and social field, there is a greater degree of plurality to the securitising move. Stritzel (2007, p. 359, 2011, p. 343), for example, builds on the contextual appreciation of securitisation by arguing that the securitised utterance is ‘embedded’ within particular locales, with their own discursive characteristics. Accordingly, rather than a monolithic audience, there are a range of audiences that are likely to identify and invest in differing accounts of what constitutes a threat. As argued by Salter (2008, p. 326), popular audiences might invest in an existential threat that elite and scientific audiences would not. Various audiences—be they associated with different social, political or organisational contexts—are thus acknowledged within a populace. To borrow terminology from the enlargement process of the European Union, a multidirectional approach to audience mobilisation becomes a question of widening and deepening. Widening insofar as it concerns the variety of audiences mobilised—the general public, diplomats, academics—and deepening in terms of the larger apparatuses within which the audience(s) is embedded. The task of analysis thus centres on discovering the conditions within which discourses emerge—their localised rules of formation—and the effects they have on various actors. In this setting, if widening measures the proximity of the audience to the securitising move—which audiences are incited—deepening measures the intensity of the securitised social field and its capacity to affect the audience(s). The depth of mobilisation becomes an exploration into the rates of change within the audience(s) as a consequence of the securitising move (more on this below in relation to modulation). It is less a distinction between already established audiences—be they popular, elite or scientific—than a topological tool through which to chart the intensity of the social field and its impact on individuals. Rather than distinct trajectories, however, both widening and deepening are entwined. Put alternatively, and in relation to the work of Foucault (1972, pp. 183–184), the different discourses (scientific, popular, analytical, cultural, religious) should not be simply accepted as constitutive of distinctive unities (scientists, civil society, analysts, particular cultural or religious groups). Rather, these unities themselves ought to be interrogated; they too must become the object of analysis. Through this more nuanced approach, audience(s) investment can be disaggregated into multiple steps so as to chart the range of success/failure (Balzacq 2008, p. 76). Securitisation becomes a heterogeneous and multidimensional phenomenon, in which there are multiple contexts and agents involved in the securitising move. To recap, by charting the constative–performative continuum (as per Austin and then Derrida) the securitised speech act has moved from a fixed instantiation towards a more process-orientated account. Understood in relation to the securitisation trinity, on the one hand we have (1) the speech act as a singular event reflecting (2) the subjective will of a stable actor, and (3) a prescriptive audience in terms of what it ought to do. On the other hand, in contrast, we have (1) an iterable appreciation of the speech act as needing to conform to a larger series of conventions, (2) a decentred securitiser who is drawn from the intersubjective Other and (3) an audience that invests in both the utterance itself and the larger social field


so as to enable the securitised speech act. To repeat, the positioning within the constative–performative continuum informs the actors and degrees of agency involved in securitisation.

A process-orientated approach The aim below is to use the latter process-orientated account to reveal how it mobilises securitisation by providing a different set of analytical tools to understand the securitising move. More specifically, the securitiser is further decentred to reveal how it is drawn from both linguistic and non-linguistic security practices, while the audience(s) and its more subtle mobilisation are examined in relation to its material, not-necessarily conscious investment in securitisation. In so doing, the paper highlights a potentially productive overlap between securitisation, the so-called Paris school and research on biopolitical security. The subject/securitiser-in-process While the decentred nature of the securitiser has already been highlighted through its responsibility to the intersubjective Other, the aim below is to demonstrate how the securitiser is drawn from security initiatives. Put simply, the securitising move is itself the moment of the securitiser. The state not only represents itself through the securitised speech act, but is in fact continually produced by multiple security practices. In demonstrating this connection, the ontological status of the state becomes increasingly fluid, as it is drawn from multiple linguistic and non-linguistic practices inherent to the securitising move. First focusing on the speech act and linguistic practices, attention returns to the securitised decision but this time as informed by Ernesto Laclau. Similar to Schmidt, Laclau too is concerned with how one arrives at the decision. In contrast, however, Laclau suggests that the process of arriving at the decision is also a process of identification that (partially and temporarily) constitutes the subject. The starting point for this argument is the undecidable structure of the decision itself: the distance between the plurality of arrangements that are possible and the actual arrangement that finally prevails. Put alternatively, and in relation to Schmitt, it is the distance between (1) the indeterminate content of security and (2) actor mediation to enact a particular arrangement. However, contra Schmitt, this mediation does not involve an already fixed subject. Rather, it is this movement from the indeterminate content to the decision itself that informs the securitiser. Translated into securitisation, it concerns how the securitised speech act itself actually posits the securitiser, with the securitising move constituting the subject/ securitiser as much as an existential threat. Let me expand. Echoing both Ricoeur and Derrida, Laclau (1996, pp. 53–54) maintains that any decision extends beyond sovereign/sovereign will, as it is ‘something other and more than an effect derived from a calculating rule’. Consequently, if the decision is irreducible to calculation it therefore must exceed the rule(s) that makes it possible. That is, while the passage through the undecidable—the range of conventionally

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recognised possibilities—shapes the decision, the decision itself takes on a singularity as it exceeds this rule. It goes beyond what made it possible. However, this is not a singularity in the sense that the decision is a one-time-only event in the present, but is singular as it has gone beyond the conventions that shaped it and, therefore, must now act as its own foundation. As a result, the decision has a peculiar ontological status: it is not a substance of its own (an act in itself), yet it has to be in some way self-determined because it cannot appeal to a ground outside anything other than itself. Seeking to resolve this ambiguity—and in the process offer an appreciation of the subject—Laclau (ibid., pp. 54–56) describes the decision as a simulation. It is a simulation in which to take a decision is like impersonating God, like proceeding as if one were the originator. It is from this simulation that the subject arises. As Laclau (ibid., pp. 54–55) affirms, ‘[t]his moment of decision as something left to itself and unable to provide its grounds through any system of rules transcending itself, is the moment of the subject’. As should be clear, however, this subject—hereafter: the subject/securitiser—is neither self-contained nor stable. Rather, it is a subject-in-process: enacted iteratively through simulation, with the constitution of the subject operating between its lack of being (not fixed) and that which provides the being with what it needs in order to act in the world (ibid., p. 55). Identification, then, is not an expression of what the subject already is, but rather the result of its lack of being. The subject is located in the ‘aporetic situation’ of having to act as if she were a subject, without being endowed with any of the means of a fully fledged subjectivity (ibid., pp. 56–57). Accordingly, for Laclau, self-determination proceeds through identification; through the movement from the plurality of arrangements that are possible to the actual arrangement that prevails. Identification becomes an inherent dimension of the decision, with the subject/securitiser continually positing herself in the movement from the undecidable plurality to the actual decision; in the movement from the indeterminate content of security to the securitised utterance. Understood in relation to security, the linguistic dimension of the securitising move becomes a boundary-producing practice through which the state and its identity are continually forged. No longer is security something subsequent or external to a pre-given national identity. Rather, the securitised decision continually locates the state within this discursive apparatus so that it can ‘stabilize over time to produce the effect of boundary, [and] fixity’ (Butler 1993, p. 9). Far from a fully fledged subject, it is through the securitising move that the state is made intelligible. Moreover, as intimated, a process-orientated perspective is by no means confined to linguistic practices. More than a politics of representation that concerns how the state represents itself through its securitising move, the state can also be understood as a subject-in-process that is materially constituted through practices of security. The work of Weber (1995, 1998) is important in this context as she recognises that the sovereignty of the state is not already given but continually instantiated in practices of intervention. The ontology of the state is a simulated presence produced by security. As Aradau and Munster (2007, p. 107) highlight, the management of danger, which results in increased surveillance, monitoring and vigilance, becomes the constitutive basis of the state. Security becomes an enactment integral to the state’s fluid ontology as process (Weber 1998, pp. 78, 88–89).


The subject/audience-in-process More than informing the subject/securitiser, a process-orientated approach can also provide insights into the role of the audience. While it has already been acknowledged that the audience plays a constitutive role in the securitising move both before and after the utterance—investing in both the social field and the utterance itself—the suggestion below is that this investment is not necessarily a conscious decision. Rather, it also concerns the implicit, embodied assumptions that are incarnated in audience behaviour (hereafter: subject/audience). Put alternatively, while subject/audience investment previously concerned their ideational investment in the securitising move—for example, a recognition of the subject positions and discursive settings (both before and after the utterance)—the approach below examines their material investment understood in terms of the everyday practices and performances of the subject/audience that are equally integral to the success of securitisation. As much as the securitising move must be resonant with the ideas, beliefs and expectations of the subject/audience, so too must it be consistent with their lived experiences. The first step towards moving in this direction is to recognise that there is a far less clear-cut separation between those who calculate and exercise power in securitisation and those who are its subjects. Indeed, from this perspective security is simultaneously local, unstable and diffuse, becoming part of the complex living condition within which questions of identity, difference, meaning and representation are elaborated. The locus of inquiry thus shifts from the speech act itself to the ‘field effect’ of security including the routinised, day-to-day practices that saturate and intersect individuals, societies and states alike (Bigo 2002, p. 73). However, rather than viewing the ‘field effect’ as necessarily foreign to the Copenhagen school, such an approach informs the intersubjective setting. Consistent with securitisation as an ideal type, it concerns the generation and ongoing operation of conventions that condition what can(not) be designated as a threat or endangered, and the relationship between the audience and securitiser (Balzacq 2015). To this extent, it operates before the utterance in informing the circulation of norms that colour the intentions of the securitiser and the intelligibility of the securitised speech act. The importance of recognising this greater constitutive role is that it provides a broader appreciation of the subject/audience in the process of securitisation. It moves beyond a proscriptive subject position to the modulation of the subject/audience, and consequently adds further complexity to their mobilisation. For example, rather than proscribing the polity, the behaviour of the subject/audience is modulated in an ongoing, less direct fashion. In this setting, mobilisation is less a zero-sum process of backing up or not the securitiser, nor it is a matter of prohibition (what you should (not) do). Rather, it actively encourages and fine-tunes particular performances (the roles the audience should play) in order to be a recognised, legitimate subject of security. Life becomes the referent object of security, with entire populations endlessly animated and provoked into performing in regular ways (Dillon 2008, p. 310). Securitisation becomes a complex play of incitement that involves multiple actors, multiple power relations and multiple performances.

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This focus on everyday life as the condition of possibility for the securitising move, points to a productive overlap with the growing literature on biopolitical security. In this setting, the audience is no longer treated as a proscribed being, but as a subject/audience that just like the state is an emergent rather than fixed entity. The securitising move is not simply a matter of fixing boundaries or of policing the identities of actors. Rather, security becomes an appreciation of the multiple possibilities and mutating potentialities of life, of the subject/audience-in-process (Dillon 2003, p. 538). Security becomes a range of ways of modulating the evolution in the behaviour of the subject/audience (Bigo 2002, p. 75). Everyday life is now the referent object of security, with attention focusing on life’s exposure to, and its productive and profitable exploitation of, contingent happenings and effects (Dillon 2007, p. 206, 2008, pp. 314–315). Translated into securitisation—and following Williams (2015, p. 118)—the politics of the extraordinary collide with the ordinary. That is, contra a Schmitt-inspired decisionistic exceptionalism or a neutral ‘normal’ politics, security logics are imbricated in the everyday. Turning more specifically to the question of mobilisation—to the deepening of mobilisation noted earlier—this process concerns how the individual engages continually with the securitised field from which she modulates/is modulated as subject/audience. However, more than the ideational investment in official accounts of security—including the discursive structures within which it operates—it is also the material investment in this setting. Securitisation involves the subject/audience literally incarnating the principles of social order that ensure the reproduction of security. The intersubjective setting is expanded to the socio-cultural habits through which the individual realises herself in an ongoing relationship to both security and the state. In short, the established conventions that shape the securitising move are also the habits and lived experiences of the polity, without which the identification of the threat would not be possible. Mobilisation becomes less an issue of conscious consent, and more an embodied commonsense. Echoing Aradau (2004, p. 400), the success of securitisation is dependent on the support it finds in everyday life. A process-orientated approach thus radically reworks the subject in securitisation. Whether it is the subject/securitiser or the subject/audience, both are enacted in an ongoing fashion through the securitising move. Rather than presuming an already existing entity prior to the speech act, a focus on the subject and subjectification reveals how the subject is constituted in discursive and material practices (Hansen 2011, p. 360). The subject/securitiser is treated within this appreciation of securitisation as enacted linguistically through the decision, through a process of identification inherent to the movement from the indeterminate content of security to the securitised utterance. So too is the subject/securitiser enacted in a non-linguistic fashion—through the management of danger that becomes the performative basis of the state. The subject/audience meanwhile is modulated—rather than proscribed— also in an ongoing fashion. Mobilisation in this context becomes more nuanced (than a zero-sum backing up) to concern the modulation of the subject/audiences. This takes both an ideational and material form. It is ideational insofar as the securitising move must be resonant with the ideas, beliefs and expectations of the subject/ audience. More than a conscious act, however, the subject/audiences must also invest in the securitised social field. Securitisation must be consistent with their lived


experiences, consistent with an embodied commonsense. It is this ongoing modulation of the subject/audience, so as to align their beliefs and experiences with the securitised social field, that becomes the backbone of securitisation. In an attempt to clarify this less clear-cut exercise of power, it is useful to turn to the chronology of the securitising move—before, during and after the utterance—and the various agents and actions involved in this process-orientated vision. First, before the securitising move, securitisation is shaped by conventionality. This concerns not only the subject/securitiser’s responsibility to the Other/intersubjective setting, insofar as these conventions inform the speech act, but also a degree of investment (both ideational and material) on the part of the subject/audience in the social field. The identification of the threat, then, is irreducible to either the securitiser or the audience, but involves both. Second, at the moment of the securitising move, securitisation is the drawing of the subject/securitiser. Far from a stable actor or a one-time-only event, however, the subject/securitiser is a subject-in-process drawn iterably through securitisation. On the one hand, it is drawn through the decision— through the movement from the indeterminate content of security to the particular decision. On the other hand, it is the management of security, the various performances that operate immanently to the social field so as to reproduce the state. And, finally, after the utterance, securitisation is the mobilisation of the subject/ audience. Here, mobilisation concerns the subject/audience’s (ideational) investment in (1) not only the securitised utterance, but the social field that enables the utterance, and (2) the (material) investment—conscious or otherwise—in the everyday practices that are integral to the success of securitisation.

Conclusions The theory of securitisation operates within a constative–performative continuum. The oscillation between each pole not only concerns questions of analytical preference, but is also integral to how the securitising move is understood in terms of the actors and degrees of agency involved. Understood in more practical terms, it concerns the movement from a fixed appreciation of securitisation towards a more process-orientated account. For example, on the one hand there is a greater emphasis placed on a self-contained subject (securitiser, state), the subjective intention exerted and its impact on an already given audience. On the other hand, however, the subject/securitiser is decentred—dependent on a larger series of conventions and drawn iterably through security (both linguistically and nonlinguistically)—while the subject/audience and its investment (both ideationally and materially) in the social field are integral to the securitising move. By beginning at the constative end of the spectrum, the paper first demonstrated how the threat is indexed transparently by a fixed state, before moving towards an appreciation of the prescriptive dimensions of the speech act. In this setting, the utterance of the securitised speech act and its consent operate in two discursive modalities: constatation and prescription. The former notes ‘what is’ while the latter speaks to ‘what ought to be’. Rather than enacting performatively what ought to be, however, the speech act instead stipulates the polity behaviour required in order to

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bring into being this state of affairs. Moving further towards the performative end of the spectrum—as per Derrida—attention then turned to the securitiser with the claim that, as much as the audience is instantiated in the speech act, so too is the securitiser. The subject/securitiser is enacted through the securitising move—the deed constituting the doer—with the state no longer exclusively a referent object, but a subject-in-process produced iteratively through the securitising move. Moreover, with respect to the subject/audience, the issue of mobilisation is no longer confined to backing up the speech act but becomes an issue of investment, of modulation/self-modulation rather than proscription. The securitising move is now reliant on the subject/audience and their ongoing investment in the social field. This investment, both material and ideational, concerns the beliefs, expectations and the everyday habituated forms of security that are lived and experienced by the subject/ audience. It is through the iterative performance of these roles that both the subject/ securitiser and the subject/audience are reproduced. And it is through an appreciation of both the constative and performative dimensions of the speech act, securitiser and audience that the breadth of securitisation is best understood.

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R. Guy Emerson is a Professor at the Department of International Relations and Political Science at the Universidad de las Americas Puebla. He has recently published in New Political Economy, Contemporary Politics, International Studies Perspectives , Social Identities, Alternatives, Humanities Research and the Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies.