Security: A New Framework for Analysis

by Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver, Jaap De Wilde

Traditionalists in the field of security studies tend to restrict the subject to politico military issues; while wideners want to extend it to the economic, societal, and environmental sectors. This book sets out a comprehensive statement of the new security studies, establishing the case for the broader agenda.

The authors argue that security is a particular type of politics applicable to a wide range of issues. Answering the traditionalist charge that this model makes the subject incoherent, they offer a constructivist operational method for distinguishing the process of securitization from that of politicization. Their approach incorporates the traditionalist agenda and dissolves the artificial boundary between security studies and international political economy, opening the way for a fruitful interplay between the two fields. It also shows how the theory of regional security complexes remains relevant in today's world.

Genres: International Relations, Politics, Political Science, Nonfiction, Academic, War, Philosophy

239 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1997

About the author

Barry Buzan is Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (formerly Montague Burton Professor), and honorary professor at Copenhagen and Jilin Universities. In 1998 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. He has written, co-authored or edited over twenty books, written or co-authored more than one hundred and thirty articles and chapters, and lectured, broadcast or presented papers in over twenty countries. Among his books are: People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations (1983, revised 2nd edition 1991); The Logic of Anarchy: Neorealism to Structural Realism (1993, with Charles Jones and Richard Little); Security: A New Framework for Analysis (1998, with Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde); International Systems in World History: Remaking the Study of International Relations (2000, with Richard Little); Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security (2003, with Ole Wæver); From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation (2004); The Evolution of International Security Studies (2009, with Lene Hansen) and Non-Western International Relations Theory (2010, co-edited with Amitav Acharya). Work in progress includes The Global Transformation: The 19th Century and the Making of Modern International Relations (2013, with George Lawson).

Reviews

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Update re the real world, June 2022. Although this book (and my review) is about the securitization process, the politicization process is of even broader interest and applicability. I recognized this while reading the New York Times article, «A Mental Health Clinic in School? No, Thanks, Says the School Board» and decided to add a small note referencing this in the comments, below.

Security: A New Framework for Analysis is a very important book in many schools of the social sciences, even if its origins lie in international relations. The securitization that it defines has become, through several evolutions, one of the dominant lenses through which security and insecurity are studied.

“Security” and “insecurity” have a lot of meanings, but one easy way to think of this is that the feeling of security means one perceives no threats. So security studies are an examination of what is threatened, and by whom. The securitization framework in the book lays out an explicit methodology intended to identify the components that go into that threat.

It starts by locating “securitization” on the spectrum of politicization. At one end lie topics which aren’t politicized at all. For example, whether parents read bedtime stories to their children is not currently something that is part of public debate. Formerly, child abuse or spousal rape weren’t either, but they’ve since been politicized, and so are discussed as things which are, potentially, subject to public policy. Securitization lies at the other end of the spectrum, when something becomes so threatening that “normal” discussions need to be avoided. As in: “The house is on fire; now is not the time to worry about whether we’ve got enough fire insurance coverage.” Or, more pertinent: “Hannibal is leading his elephants over the Alps. Do you really think it is useful to discuss our relationship with Carthage?”



There are two key elements in that transformation that Buzan et al. make explicit many times in the book. First, there must be an existential threat that kicks the issue out of normal political debate. Second, the situation must be an emergency, not just threatening. While climate change might indeed be an existential threat for civilization, for existence, discussion about how to deal with it goes on, ergo it hasn’t been “securitized” as an issue. (Although those living on an island sinking below sea level might feel differently.) The emergency aspect also permits, critically, permission for “breaking the rules” — violating established norms, procedures, or even laws.

Securitization contains its own methodology as well. There are a number of specific components which should (must?) be identified in the analysis. Underlying this is the idea that insecurity is an emotion — something humans have, not something organizations have. Since it is essentially subjective, and shared, the term “intersubjective” raises its unruly grin.

Securitization — at least as it is officially defined in this book — is the result of an intersubjective agreement between whoever raises the concern that there is a threat and the appropriate audience, who approves that message as well as the conclusion that “breaking the rules” is appropriate.

So the components are:

• The securitizing actor. This is the individual who points to the threat and makes a lot of noise about it. It actually doesn’t have to be a human individual; it could be a committee or other group acting in unison. But that’s still the term.

• The threat. What is it that is being pointed at as threatening? Be specific, dammit!

• The referent object. What is being threatened? This will often be something tightly affiliated to the securitizing actor, but not necessarily. For example, when the United States was gathering partners and approval for the 1991 Gulf War, the actor was (nominally) George H.W. Bush, whereas the referent object was the territorial integrity of the Middle East, with the entailed risk of destabilization of the price of oil.

• The speech act. This is the sales pitch wherein the securitizing actor makes clear what that threat is. Does it have to be one explicit and unitary speech? Well, no, and not even actually a speech. The devil, it turns out, is in the details. More on that later.

• The audience. The community that receives the speech act and approves of the need for emergency action to deal with the existential threat.

• Facilitating conditions. These are other factors with either are necessary or contributory to the success of the securitization. For example, the Soviet Union or China could have vetoed the United Nations sanction of the counterattack against Iraq via a Security Council veto, but they didn’t.

• The intended outcome. Well, strictly speaking, this book never mentions this. It might be implied in the speech act, but some theorists using this framework want this separated. Given that the component analysis is one of the strengths of this methodology over a holistic security analysis, this makes sense.



An especially crucial aspect of Buzan et al.’s securitization theory is sectoral widening. In most of the history of Security Studies, the focus has been on the country, and specifically the offensive and defensive use of the military. This pattern came under stress due to a lot of modern changes, foremost among them the economic “insecurity” from globalized trade patterns, environmental “insecurity”, and social insecurity that arose as the European Community struggled to become the European Union, and especially salient as migrants and refugees transform societies.

This book makes quite clear that this securitization framework can be applied to other contexts:

Generally speaking, the military security concerns the two-level interplay of the armed offensive and defensive capabilities of states, and states’ perceptions of each others’ intentions. Political security concerns the organizational stability of states, systems of governments and the ideologies that give them legitimacy. Economic security concerns access to the resources, finance and markets necessary to sustain acceptable levels of welfare and state power. Societal security concerns the sustainability, within acceptable conditions for evolution, of traditional patterns of language, culture and religious and national identity and custom. Environmental security concerns the maintenance of the local and the planetary biosphere as the essential support system on which all other human enterprises depend (page 8).

Using the framework in a state-centric analysis is pretty clear.

In the run-up to the 1991 Gulf War, the components were:
• The securitizing actor. The primary actor in this role was the U.S. President, although sometimes others took part, too. Thomas Pickering, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, would have been negotiating with China and the Soviet Union, for example.

• The threat. Saddam Hussein had just invaded another country, Kuwait, which meant that someone who thought territorial expansion via war was a pretty cool idea. At the time, he controlled one of the largest armies in the world, and now he was sitting right next to Saudi Arabia, and would have no problem overwhelming that country as well. He claimed he wasn’t interested in that, but that’s what Hitler said, wasn’t it?

• The referent object. President Bush quite explicitly said that the “acquisition of territory by force is unacceptable”, but everyone knew the world looked the other way quite often. He also happened to mention the global dependence on oil, and everyone nodded, yup.

• The speech act. Lotsa speeches were made. The book makes a big point of how speech acts are performative, and can create “social magic”, and there’s a really interesting discussion in footnote 5 on page 46, pulling in Bourdieu and Butler and Derrida. This could point to a speech Bush made on television to the United States, but it doesn’t seem too useful to narrow it down, although in other cases a textual analysis of a speech or speeches could be very interesting.

• The audience. The citizens of the United States were pretty supportive of the invasion, but then it turned out Kuwait had paid a U.S. public relations firm to create some really nasty anti-Iraq propaganda. The Senate approved action 52 to 47, and later complained they’d been swayed by that same propaganda. Which audience was important?

• Facilitating conditions. As mentioned earlier, the Soviet Union or China didn’t veto this. Why? It’s believed that the Soviet Union, facing imminent dissolution, wanted to play nice with the developed nations they might soon need help from, and China was still mending their relationship after Tiananmen. It would be difficult to find empirical evidence to support either of those, perhaps, but the assertion can still be useful.

• The intended outcome. The go-ahead to counterattack Hussein’s forces was the goal. In some alternate reality, this might have been enough to persuade him to retire his forces, avoiding war. So war, per se, wasn’t the goal, although it was the obvious outcome of that permission and Hussein’s intransigence.

But it is illustrative to use the same framework in non-military sectors:

Consider the takeover in early 2016 of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge.
» The securitizing actor was Ammon Bundy, et al.;
» The threat was an over-powerful Federal government;
» The referent object was an idealization of “real America”;
» The speech acts were the manifestos and proclamations calling for an uprising;
» The audience was the collection of “true Americans” Bundy et al. thought only needed a push to revolt;
» Facilitating conditions included mistrust of Obama and the Federal government; and
» The intended outcome was a grassroots “Constitutional” revolution.

In this case, the securitization failed because the expected audience either didn’t exist, or wasn’t persuaded that the situation wasn’t yet dire enough to warrant this kind of “breaking the rules”.

Consider the effort to prevent Donald Trump from securing the GOP nomination, specifically through manipulation of the primary process, perhaps including a brokered convention.
» The securitizing actors were the GOP elites;
» The threat was of a Trump nomination;
» The referent object was the Republican identity;
» The speech acts were the overt and covert #StopTrump and #AnyoneButTrump campaigns;
» The audience was the GOP delegates who might cooperate in the manipulation;
» Facilitating conditions included media complicity; and
» The intended outcome was the denial of the nomination of the presumptive candidate.

In this case, the securitization failed because it would have required Trump to only have a plurality, and the withdrawal of all the other candidates guaranteed him a pure majority.

Consider the pro-life/anti-abortion movement, specifically the violence that is associated with that movement;
» The securitizing actors are the extremists among pro-life leadership;
» The threat is of the societal tolerance of abortion;
» The referent object is “pre-born children”;
» The speech acts are the explicit association of abortion with murder;
» The audience is extreme believers among conservative Christians;
» Facilitating conditions include the ambivalence of U.S. society on the ethical nature of abortion; and
» The intended outcome is the killing of those performing or assisting abortion, and the deterrence of abortion.

In this case, the securitization has largely succeeded, resulting in sporadic violence, which is then dismissed as aberrant and the result of disturbed individuals and unconnected to the overall campaign.


Securitization as a methodology is a powerful forensic tool. Examination of the components that make up a securitization event creates a finer-grained analysis than in most analyses, and a subsequent discussion can involve disagreements at the component level. Even so, many situations won’t permit that level of granularity. For example, when the Bush administration “broke the rules” with “extraordinary renditions” and torture, there was clearly something akin to a securitization happening, but it was hidden within the workings of the military and security agencies.

Securitization as an explanatory theory has different problems. Buzan et al. claim in some places that it isn’t a securitization unless there is an intersubjective agreement the actor and appropriate audience, but in other places state that the critical elements are just the existential threat and emergency. While all the ideas herein are powerful and provocative, there’s quite a bit of theoretical and practical confusion.

Of course, this book is almost twenty years old, so a lot of this has been discussed. (See, for example, 2010's Securitization Theory: How Security Problems Emerge and Dissolve , by Thierry Balzacq).

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a revised edition that addresses these concerns, so any social theorist using securitization needs to start with this book, and discover those critiques and their answers that are most pertinent to their cases. Hopefully this oversight will someday be remedied, although I think it is more likely that the accumulation of problems is insurmountable, and the usages of these concepts will sadly continue to propagate and diverge.
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[Daniel Clausen · Rating 5 out of 5]

One might think of this book as a key effort to mainstream constructivist analysis in IR and show how security (or securitization) is used as an alternative and extreme form of politics.

This book redefines how we think about security. Instead of treating threats as objective facts, the authors argue that “security” is created through a process called securitization—a type of speech act where an issue is presented as an existential threat requiring emergency measures. To count as a security issue, three conditions must be met: the issue must be framed as an existential threat, it must justify urgent action, and it must allow actors to bypass normal political rules. Whether or not an issue becomes “security” depends not only on who makes the claim but also on how the audience responds.

The authors also show that not all actors can speak security equally. Power, position, and skill in using the language of security matter. This leads to a broader point: security isn’t just about military threats—it can involve environmental, political, economic, or social issues, depending on how they are framed.

This framework challenges traditional realist approaches, which assume that threats exist independently of discourse. Here, threats must be constructed and accepted as such before they take on political weight.

The book balances two goals: expanding what can be seen as security, and offering a method for analyzing securitization without making value judgments. It avoids saying what should or shouldn’t count as a security issue, focusing instead on how such claims are made and accepted.

While the framework may not offer clear tools for policymakers or military analysts, it is useful for understanding how issues move into the realm of security and what that move entails. It doesn’t replace traditional security studies but offers a way to study the politics behind them.

A valuable read for those interested in international relations, discourse, and the role of language in shaping global politics.

[Trav · Rating 4 out of 5]

A seminal work on the Copenhagen School. Buzan, Waever and de Wilde provide an updated framework for analyzing international relations. Building on the Classical Security Complex Theory (CSCT) this book lays the groundwork for the Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT) of "Regions and Power".

The main concepts discussed are securitization and sectoral analysis.

Securitization is a "radically constructivist" approach to understanding how a unit views threats: Threats are socially constructed. Buzan et al are not concerned with objective existence of "real threats", but rather what do the units of analysis view the threats to be. "'Security' is thus a self-referential practice, because it is in this practice that the issue becomes a security issue—not necessarily because a real existential threat exists but because the issue is presented as such a threat." (p.24)

Sectoral analysis takes securitization beyond the military-political sector to look at how units may view threats in the economic, societal and environmental sectors. These sectors do not exist independently of each other, a threat to a nation's identity may lead to perceptions of threat of military action which in turns leads to threat in the military sector, for example. Accordingly, the sectoral analysis process is useful primarily as a means to simplify the analysis process. To understand the how securitization shapes the actions and interactions of units within the international system it is necessary to synthesize the analysis of the sectors to develop an holistic picture of the way a unit sees the the system and subsystem within which it operates.

Overall, a very interesting book. It is well written and the examples are useful in providing clarity to the concepts developed. The heavy European focus of the examples may make the book more readily accessible to those with a European interest; however, the concepts can be easily applied in other areas.

[mharipin · Rating 4 out of 5]

emm, buzan's is my favourite text book. eventhough published years ago, i find it really usefull to understand the contemporary security studies.

please try to read this book, mate. u'll get a usefull point of view, and theoretical approach on contemporary security.

regards,
mh.

[Miriam Cihodariu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mandatory reading in college (Sociology, International Relations major). It was thorough and one of the 'OK' books I had to deal with in the geopolitics niche, as an intro.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think seeing and naming the practice of securitization is a hugely helpful contribution to thinking about how states, in particular, function. Naming and drawing distinctions between referent objects and securitizing actors is, likewise, a helpful contribution. Classical security complex theory should be obvious and is awkwardly named, but in a world of theoretical literature that treats regions either merely as subsets of a divided global order or as the physical foundations of kind of fundamental civilizational groupings, it's a breakthrough of sorts. And, the recognition that security is about more than military abilities, relations, and interactions, is important, even though breaking security into divided sectors, even if we're later going to acknowledge their interrelatedness, is awkward. I do think the authors entirely miss the boat on explanation: why securitize?.

[Yaumil]

i think feel so good

[Evelina Gaurilčikaitė · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has altered my brain chemistry. It made me hate my degree less and even inspired me to write my thesis on something that I find fascinating and worth of analysis.

Buzan can undoubtedly be considered a trustworthy, heavyweight titan of political science and security studies. This book has helped me to set the basis for my bachelor’s thesis and to build upon it using an interdisciplinary approach that combines securitization and agenda-setting theories. This new model can thus be used for analyzing security agenda-setting—essentially, allowing us to explore why certain threat images succeed in appearing on the political agenda while others do not.

Even though I don’t consider myself very academic, this book gets the mind going and drives many research opportunities to build upon. I wish there were more widely known developments or interdisciplinary approaches to this theory—most of the research I've come across is based on this relatively old and unaltered theory. A reviewed version from Buzan himself might be groundbreaking.

[Ryan Hanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Buzan et al. tackle a new framework studying issues of security. Dealing with a post cold war world and the debate between traditional theorists of military-political theorists and those who want to widen the field into the economic, environmental, and societal realms

The premise of the book is that the field of Security should be widened, but carefully so. When and how an issue is "securitized" is an important factor in this determination. Ultimately they are arguing for a measured widening of the security sector. An attempt to bring together the two parties.

Their argument has some very good points, though some of their assumptions have ben proven to be different throughout the course of history. The book is very theoretical and at times their main points can get lost.

[Miranda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read and reread this for my PhD thesis. Barry Buzan is an IR titan when it comes to securitization theory. His writing is very clear and concise even for those who don't have IR or Political Science background. I wish Buzan would write more on the topic though. This theory has not really been much altered or developed in the last couple of decades.

[Abdiwahab Zayid]

i wanna to know how security important in real life

[Patrik Persson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great new way to analyse security

[Ricky · Rating 2 out of 5]

seminal; surpassed.

[Şinca Marius · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was interested in the Military and Political Security Framework topics and about some informations regarding this security analysis or this new framework for security analysis. Anyway it's a very good book, it's part of my security research books archive.

[Hallo Wulandari]

just begin to read it :)

[Simona Cass]

Not gonna rate it as I don't have nearly enough expertise in this field to do so.
I feel like this book was way more complex and more philosophical than should be for a book suggested as a sort of introduction to IR. Then again, it did have some really interesting things that even a layperson like me could understand.