Security: A New Framework for Analysis. By Barry Buzan, Ole Weaver and Jaap de Wilde. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998. 239P. $??? Cloth.

David Skidmore, Drake University

This book offers a reconceptualization of the field of security studies, proposing to broaden the scholarly agenda beyond the traditional focus on states and political-military competition. The authors argue for a constructivist approach that extends the analysis of international security to culture, economics and the environment. As the authors contend, a rethinking of the boundaries and tools of security studies is indeed badly needed. Unfortunately, the alternative route proposed in the present volume leads instead to a dead end.

The authors argue that the label security should be attached to those issues which are "staged as existential threats to referent objects by a securitizing actor who thereby generates endorsement of emergency measures beyond rules that would otherwise bind (p. 5)." This compact but jargon-laden definition turns on three elements: the concept of security, the nature of referent objects and the role of securitizing actors.

Security is defined to involve perceived threats to the survival of some highly valued referent object. The objects of such threats can be varied, including not only territorial states but also non-state actors (e.g., nations, tribes, classes), sets of abstract principles (e.g., the rules of the liberal international economic order) or even nature itself (e.g., the global environment). Similarly, threats can arise from any source, including aggressive states, unfavorable social trends (e.g., rapid population growth) or cultural imperialism (e.g., Westernization). Existential threats can manifest themselves across a number of different policy contexts or "sectors," including economic, environmental, cultural and the more traditional political and military spheres.

Security threats, however, exist only to the extent that they are experienced subjectively. A new issue is placed on the security agenda after a leading actor has successfully carried out a securitizing speech act. The latter term refers to discursive practices designed to persuade a given target audience that some valued referent object faces an existential threat. If successful, such an appeal transforms a merely political problem into a security problem. The normal rules and procedures governing politics and decision-making give way to extreme responses in recognition of the special seriousness and stakes attached to what is now perceived to be an existential threat.

Security studies, the authors contend, should focus on identifying, locating and measuring the salience of securitizing moves by leading actors. They illustrate this proposed framework for security studies by applying it to both traditional and non-traditional policy contexts or sectors. This exercise leads to a gridlike map of contemporary security problems, each situated along several dimensions defined by spatial characteristics (local, regional, and global), sectoral location (military, political, economic, cultural and environmental), actor identity (states, societal actors, international organizations) and the nature of the referent objects (states, nations, principals, nature).

Several facets of this approach to reconceptualizing the study of security deserve critical scrutiny. The most important shortcoming of this project stems from the way in which its purposes are framed. The best starting place for pursuing theoretical innovation is with a compelling and concrete puzzle: a real world problem or anomaly that cannot be adequately solved through the employment of existing theoretical tools. The authors of this book never identify such a puzzle. Instead, they begin with definitional and methodological questions such as whether security should be narrowly or broadly defined or whether analysts should proceed from objectivist or subjectivist assumptions. The end result is a "framework for analysis" that lacks clear direction or purpose. A solution proposed in the absence of a clear question is bound to lead to the sort of unfocused conceptual wandering found here.

The consequences of this way of framing the problem can be seen in the schematic nature of the authorís proposed framework. Given the complexity of the multidimensional security grid constructed by means of their conceptual framework, the authors largely eschew causal analysis. The number of variables and the complex nature of their relationships to one another render efforts to specify cause and effect far too difficult in such a broadly-gauged exercise. Instead, the authors focus on weighing the perceived relevance of security to various policy sectors and in specifying the salience of security issues along the spatial dimension (i.e., whether security dynamics primarily congeal at the local, regional or global levels). This approach produces a snapshot of which issues dominate concerns over security in various countries and regions at a given point in time. Without a complementary causal theory, however, we are left with little understanding of why certain issues evoke security concerns, why they are addressed at one level rather than another and how these dynamics change over time.

The authorís emphasis on discursive practices also raises problems. Language matters. But it matters more if closely tied to the capacity for action. What political actors say is typically judged by what they are able and willing to do as a predictable consequence of their words. Yet the language of security is here privileged over action and the material bases for power and interests. A preoccupation with what actors say to the near-exclusion of what they actually do (or have the potential to do) leaves out much of what we want to know about international relations.

The authorís distinction between politicization and securitization is also problematic. In the space of two sentences, the authors variously characterize securitization as "a special kind of politics," "beyond politics," and an "extreme version of politicization (p. 23)." The notion that security issues are somehow elevated beyond "the normal political rules of the game (p. 24)" presupposes that politics is indeed a rule-governed realm of social life.

Successful securitization, according to the authors, requires widespread acceptance among a target audience that an existential threat to some valued referent object does in fact exist. This seems to rule out the possibility that security issues can be subject to serious political contention since an issue cannot, by definition, carry the security label until a societal consensus has been achieved. Securitization serves to justify "emergency measures (p. 21)" to cope with the perceived threat, yet the authors do not insist that such measures actually be taken before an issue can be considered securitized. While the authors strive to present a clear distinction between the realms of politics and security, the threshold at which an issue becomes a candidate for treatment under the rubric of security remains fuzzy in conceptual terms, not to mention the difficulties of applying such standards in practice.

Given that the authors choose to build their framework around the anchors of language and intersubjectivity, some questions that might seem to flow naturally from such an approach are virtually ignored. In the only extended application (as opposed to brief glosses) of their conceptual framework to an empirical case, the authors search selected documentary records of the European Union for evidence of securitizing moves. Yet the authors forswear any interest in the motivations, intentions or interests of the political actors who make such rhetorical maneuvers. They propose instead to treat the scrutinized texts (e.g., speeches, expert reports, etc.) as disembodied discourse. Similarly, the authors say relatively little about why securitizing moves either succeed or fail. This approach renders it virtually impossible to explore why some issues are posed in terms of security while others are not. It also detaches the analysis from the rich political context in which security issues arise and are debated.

What can be salvaged from this exercise is the initial insight that perceptions of threat and insecurity are not limited to states alone or to military competition. Intimately shaped by the Cold War context in which it was born, the field of security studies should indeed broaden its horizons and sharpen its analytical tools. Yet the contribution of this present study to this broader goal is meager.