Securitization and counter-securitization in Afghanistan

Abstract

This article confronts securitization theory with the war in Afghanistan and thus explores questions and dynamics of securitization in a specific communicative situation of military combat. The confrontation highlights not only less well researched questions of implementation, resistance, legitimacy and difficulties of establishing authority in securitizations, but it also inspires a conceptualization of counter-securitization within the theory. In Afghanistan sovereign power to control and realize a securitization at the implementation stage was significantly fragmented so that processes of securitization became more iterative and interactive, and acts of acceptance versus resistance with regard to securitizing moves were more complex than traditionally assumed by the theory. Reflecting on securitization theory, the article thus explores the case of Afghanistan through a conceptualization of its dynamics as a prolonged political game of moves and counter-moves marked by securitizing and counter-securitizing speech acts in which the communicative situation of war becomes visible as a process of strategic interactions in continuous sequences of action and reaction.

Understanding the social construction of crises: Comparing the crisis‐as‐claim model with securitization theory

“…While early securitization scholars also concentrated on (political) power holders and emphasized the importance of a securitizing actor's position (Buzan et al, ; Waever, ), later securitization scholars have argued that other actors may engage in securitization as well (e.g., Vaughn, ). Additionally, the audience is no longer seen as a passive group of enablers but is now viewed as an active agent that can engage in counter‐securitization (Stritzel & Chang, ). Thus, crisis claims are contested and negotiated.…”

In the name of (de)securitization: Speaking security to protect migrants, refugees and internally displaced persons?

“…From their point of view securitization is, "as a game of moves and countermoves in a communicative struggle of adversarial wills". 50 Envisioning securitization as a game illustrates that the beginning and ending of (de)securitization processes are not clear cut. how security, and securitization, is spoken, enacted and altered.…”

The Tibetan Self-Immolations as Counter-Securitization: Towards an Inter-Unit Theory of Securitization

“…Stritzel and Chang are more precise in interrogating the relationship between resistance and counter-securitization. 29 They conceptualise counter-securitization as a 'specific form of resistance against the securitization process that takes the linguistically regulated form of a securitizing speech act'. 30 Using the post-9/11 NATO-Taliban war in Afghanistan, Stritzel and…”

“…Chang depict securitization and counter-securitization as elements in an interactive 'political game constituted by moves and counter-moves in a continuous struggle for authority and legitimacy'. 31 Counter-securitization is thus a particular expression of resistance:…”

“…We thus define counter-securitizing moves resisting crucial elements of the securitization process for the purposes of this article narrowly and rather technically as indeed counter-securitizing in the sense that counter-securitizing moves also follow the ideal-type of the grammar of securitizing speech acts of claim, warning, directive (typically demand)…. 32 While this is an important conceptualisation of counter-securitization, it leaves a number of questions unanswered. Inter-discursivity means interconnections between two or more apparently discrete, across time and space, discourse.…”