How far does ‘societal security’ travel? Securitization in South African immigration policies

Abstract

Responding to political developments in Europe during the 1990s, the Copenhagen School drew on speech act theory to argue that state leaders represent certain issues, including immigration, as existential threats to society. Two decades of friendly amendments and vociferous critiques have raised questions about how well the Copenhagen School's core concept of 'societal security' travels outside Europe. To assess the scope of this 'securitization' framework more systematically, we examine South Africa, a democracy that recently liberalized its immigration policies despite ethno-nationalist and racist traditions. Specifically, we test four claims: (1) that official discourses will target certain foreigners as an existential threat to collective identity;(2) that bureaucracies will consistently institutionalize these discourses; (3) that identity-oriented groups will be crucial to any societal contestation over these discourses; and (4) that successful securitization produces regionalization. These securitization claims hold up well, even though the nature of threats to societal security shift over time. Keeping in mind that no theory is without weaknesses, we recommend wider integration of the societal security concept into comparative studies of immigration policy, especially in democracies outside Europe.

Refugee rights or refugees as threats? Germany’s new Asylum policy

“…Since few securitisation studies delineate alternative forms of contestation or avenues of influence, this article derives potentially competing or complementary claims from the immigration literature (expanding upon Ilgit and Klotz, 2014: 141–142, 147–148). In particular, so-called ‘rights – markets’ theory highlights the prevalence of two key actors in advanced industrial democracies: pro-immigration coalitions within the electoral system and non-governmental rights advocates employing the courts (notably, Hollifield, 1992; Tichenor, 2002).…”

“…Crucially, these state-generated categories used in governing migration do reflect the predominant discursive representations of foreigners, as securitisation would predict (Ilgit and Klotz, 2014: Table 2). Despite a wide range of responsibilities, from labour market regulation and border control to human trafficking and ‘anti-constitutional activities’, these bureaucracies consistently replicate a hierarchy between German repatriates and citizens of the EU, on the one hand, and citizens of non-EU member states and immigrant workers on the other.…”

Discourses of Exclusion: The Societal Securitization of Burma’s Rohingya (2012–2018)

“…Thein Sein’s rhetorical attacks against the Rohingya fit a traditional account of the securitization process, whereby the state acts as the primary securitizing voice. Yet, as alluded to earlier, there is a healthy debate among critical security scholars as to whether state elites act alone as a securitizing voice (for an important theoretical discussion of relevant securitization actors, see Ilgit & Klotz, 2014). The preceding analysis suggests a reciprocal relationship between state and non-state actors in the Burma context.…”

Demagogues of hate or shepherds of peace? Examining the threat construction processes of warlord democrats in Sierra Leone and Liberia

“…A multitude of different issue areasincluding migration, minorities, epidemics, environment, as well as terrorism and other military threatshave been analysed in a number of different empirical contexts (e.g. Huysmans 2000; Wilkinson 2007;Curley and Wong 2008;Roe 2008;Sjöstedt 2008;Vuori 2008;Ilgit and Klotz 2014). However, prior applications of the framework to threat constructions in post-war settings have been limited, with some important exceptions, notably Buur et al (2007), Haacke and Williams (2008), MacKenzie (2009), and Fischer and Anderson (2015).…”