Securitization (international relations)

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Scholars Michael Barnett Zbigniew Brzezinski Hedley Bull E. H. Carr Daniel Deudney Michael W. Doyle Cynthia Enloe James Fearon Martha Finnemore Robert Gilpin Samuel P. Huntington John Ikenberry Robert Jervis Peter J. Katzenstein Robert Keohane Henry Kissinger Stephen D. Krasner John Mearsheimer Hans Morgenthau Joseph Nye Kathryn Sikkink Susan Strange J. Ann Tickner Immanuel Wallerstein Stephen Walt Kenneth Waltz Alexander Wendt Yan Xuetong Qin Yaqing
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Securitization in international relations and national politics is the process of state actors transforming subjects from regular political issues into matters of "security": thus enabling extraordinary means to be used in the name of security.^[1] Issues that become securitized do not necessarily represent issues that are essential to the objective survival of a state, but rather represent issues where someone was successful in constructing an issue into an existential problem.^[2]

Securitization theorists assert that successfully securitized subjects receive disproportionate amounts of attention and resources compared to unsuccessfully securitized subjects causing more human damage. A common example used by theorists is how terrorism is a top priority in security discussions, even though people are much more likely to be killed by automobiles or preventable diseases than from terrorism. Securitization studies aims to understand "who securitizes (securitizing actor), on what issues (threats), for whom (referent object), why, with what results, and not least, under what conditions."^[3]