Theories, methods and practices – a longitudinal spatial analysis of the (de)securitization of the insurgency threat in Russia

This article considers the significance of trolling for security processes through a contextual analysis of industrialized pro-Kremlin trolling in the Russian blogosphere. The publicity surrounding Russia’s hacking activities in international politics conceals the significance of the domestic trolling culture in Russia and its role in the ‘trolling turn’ in Russia’s foreign policy. We contextually identify the practice of ‘neutrollization’ – a type of localized desecuritization where the regime adopts trolling to prevent being cast as a societal security threat by civil society. Neutrollization relies on counterfeit internet activism, ostensibly originating from the citizenry, that produces political disengagement by breeding radical doubt in a manner that is non-securitizing. Rather than advocating a distinct political agenda, and in contrast to conventional understandings of the operations of propaganda, neutrollization precludes the very possibility of meaning, obviating the need to block the internet in an openly authoritarian manner. It operates by preventing perlocution – that is, the social consequences of the security speech act. This prevention is achieved through the breaking or disrupting of the context in which acts of securitization could possibly materialize, and is made possible by a condition of ‘politics without telos’ that is different from the varieties of depoliticization more familiar in Western societies.

Section: The Language Game Of Desecuritizationmentioning

confidence: 70%

Neutrollization: Industrialized trolling as a pro-Kremlin strategy of desecuritization

Kurowska

Reshetnikov²

2018

“…Desecuritization has been interpreted and applied differently (Cocksun, 2008; Hansen, 2012; Snetkov, 2017). But there has been minimal focus on how it might apply to a non-state armed group who by its very nature already embodies the securitized ‘friend–enemy’ distinction.…”

Section: Studying the Effects Of Proscription On Peacementioning

confidence: 99%

The ‘linguistic ceasefire’: Negotiating in an age of proscription

Haspeslagh

2020

Villains need to be de-villainized for talking to begin; this is a cornerstone of negotiation literature. But what happens when villains are proscribed, or listed as terrorists? While an emerging body of work has started to explore the effects of proscription by emphasizing aspects of demonization and banishment, it has not so far explored how banishment ends. This article offers a theoretical and empirical contribution to this discussion by exploring the effects of proscription on the dynamic interaction between conflict parties and how negotiations still do take place with armed groups listed as terrorists. To do this it maps representations made by the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia through a qualitative discourse analysis of 335 statements triangulated with 50 personal interviews. The article argues that proscription makes the initiation of negotiations impossible because it leads to a form of extreme vilification. This is especially true for the government, unable to switch directly to de-vilifying its proscribed enemy. First it has to normalize its vilification – a concept I describe here as a ‘linguistic ceasefire’. This helps explain how banishment can end and peace negotiations can be initiated in an age of proscription.

Section: Spatiality the Radically Threatening Figure Of The 'Returnimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is important in the context of the returning foreign fighter issue in that by viewing securitization as a process rather than an event, it is possible to identify how this concern first emerged and how the perception of the threat has evolved over time. Such an approach draws inspiration from the longitudinal methods favoured by Aglaya Snetkov (2017), which allow the analyst to highlight the evolutionary, multifaceted and incremental processes through which the securitization of an issue occurs.…”

Section: Analysing the Eu’s ‘Returning Foreign Fighter’ Discourse: Sementioning

confidence: 99%

“…A concern with the spatial dimensions of securitization is informed by the aim of moving beyond understanding spatiality as the space associated, narrowly, with the geographical territory of the nation-state (Agnew, 1999; Croft, 2012; Hansen, 2006; Snetkov, 2017). Instead, spatiality in this context highlights the way in which delineation of space is central to the process of securitization.…”

Section: Mapping and Analysing The Securitization Of Migration Bordementioning

confidence: 99%

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The threat of the ‘returning foreign fighter’: The securitization of EU migration and border control policy

Baker-Beall

2019

This article analyses the European Union’s response to the threat of the ‘returning foreign fighter’ (referred to with increasing frequency as the ‘foreign terrorist fighter’), arguing that it has been characterized by a move to (re)frame migration and border control as essential aspects of EU counter-terrorism policy. The article offers three important observations on the significance of this move. First, it critiques the way in which the EU’s response to this problem is based upon and reinforces a narrow understanding of returning foreign fighters. Second, it argues that the EU has invoked the threat from returning foreign fighters not with the sole intention of preventing terrorism but rather as part of the ongoing securitization of migration and the EU border. Third, it suggests that the threat from returning foreign fighters has been invoked as a way of further legitimizing the EU’s emerging role as a security actor and its embrace of preemptive security practice. The article argues throughout that the move to construct the returning foreign fighter issue in this way has important political and social implications for all categories of migrant, with migrant populations now deemed a potential source of terrorist threat.