Abstract
Within the field of International Relations, approaches drawing on the Copenhagen School’s concept of securitization have emphasized that security is a socially, discursively, and intersubjectively constructed process. Nevertheless, few attempts to date have sought to combine this approach with ideas from Critical Discourse Studies to provide an analytic framework that can refine the explanatory and operational potential of this notion. Holger Stritzel’s Security in Translation is an extraordinary exception. Practically, it aims to examine the processes of international spread and domestic localization of threat discourse. Theoretically, it hopes to strengthen the securitization framework by grounding it in the post-Marxist theory of Critical Discourse Studies and to make it applicable to empirical analysis.
The book consists of three parts: theory, case studies, and implications. Part I, consisting of Chapters 1–3, deals with the main concepts and theoretical claims of the book. Chapter 1 begins with a critical reading of the Copenhagen School’s securitization theory, reviewing the poststructuralist ideas it draws from Derrida, Butler, Arendt, and Bourdieu, as well as the speech act theory it takes from Austin. Stritzel identifies many tensions and contradictions in the theoretical construction. For instance, Austin’s emphasis on grasping a speech act’s ‘total situation (context)’ contradicts Derrida’s notion of ‘un-totalizable’ contexts (p. 25). These tensions and contradictions can cause difficulties for security analysts seeking clear operational definitions. Therefore, in Chapter 2, Stritzel suggests an alternative, neo- or post-Marxist reading of securitization process, by theorizing securitization as discourse dynamics which involve both the sociopolitical dimension (i.e. the embeddedness of social action within and across social structures) and the sociolinguistic dimension (i.e. the intertextuality and interrelatedness of linguistic acts). Such a ‘double structuration’ can help securitizing actors improve the legitimacy and authoritativeness of their voice. In Chapter 3, Stritzel adapts and modifies the general theory of securitization for a specific analysis of the spread and localization of securitizations concerning ‘organized crime’ and ‘rogue states’. It is in this chapter that Stritzel puts forward his new understanding of securitization as translation, the central idea of which is that any production of security or threat images in specific temporal and spatial sequences transforms past or related meanings. Successful translation and localization of threat images depend on the elusiveness, compatibility, and sociolinguistic and sociopolitical adaptation of the threat text to the new context.
Part II (Chapters 4–8) presents four empirical studies from a comparative perspective, reconstructing the genesis, securitization, and translation of the threat images of ‘organized crime’ and ‘rogue states’ to show what justifies successful securitization as translation and what does not. Methodologically, these studies first trace the historical genealogy of both threat images and then adopt a discourse approach to analyze American, German, and European official debates, policies, and other security discourses. These studies look into both the sociopolitical and sociolinguistic dimensions of securitization as translation, the former focusing on the securitizing actors’ struggles over access to and control over relevant political or institutional discourses and the latter focusing on the specific language of securitizing moves in the relevant cultural context. Chapters 4–6 examine, first, the processes of securitizing ‘organized crime’ in the United States and then the successful translation and localization of ‘organized crime’ in the German locale, while Chapters 7 and 8 compare these processes with the failed translation of the American notion of ‘rogue states’ into the German context. The author concludes that, although both threat images are incompatible with the German locale and both securitizing moves of translation and localization use similar discursive/linguistic strategies, the localization of ‘organized crime’ succeeded because of its textual elusiveness, its international presence and the universal pop-cultural vocabulary associated with it, while the localization of ‘rogue states’ could not adapt, for its securitizing moves failed to adapt the US rogue states narrative for the German locale and the few securitizing actors and translators have no direct access to the German government.
Part III, the concluding chapter, argues that ‘translations matter’ in world politics, especially with regard to processes of localization and the travel of discourse. It also proposes a pathway for future research into the circulation of concepts or narratives in and across specific organizational, professional, or disciplinary settings, as well as national, regional, and global sites. Theoretically, the book pioneers an elaboration of the Copenhagen School’s securitization theory as discourse theory in the tradition of the neo-/post-Marxist approach, outweighing previous securitization research, which is rigidly sociopolitical and neglects questions of power and context. Stritzel’s re-conceptualization of securitization as translation is also innovative, which not only allows a more processual, iterative, and dynamic understanding of securitization, but also provides a coherent framework of analysis for travel of threat discourses.
Empirically and methodologically, this book is the first to examine cross-cultural securitization, that is, the incremental processes of international spread and domestic localization of threat discourse. The comparative perspective and historical genealogy tracing it adopts is innovative in security studies and makes his conclusion reliable and convincing. The book is not, however, without flaws. For example, it mentions but under-specifies the role of audience in the process of securitization; how audiences interplayed and negotiated with official discourses and thus lent (de)legitimacy to securitization actors is inadequately explored. In addition, the generalizability of the (failed) securitization of ‘rogue states’ in German that ‘did not happen’ due to a lack of securitizing enunciations may be limited. An incorporation of a successful translation realized elsewhere may be more revealing.
Overall, this book’s dual attempts to examine the empirical phenomenon of the travel of threat discourse and to build its theoretical claim are effective. To those engaged in securitization studies, International Relations, as well as German and American security affairs, this book will make a valuable read. It also constitutes a fresh read for (critical) discourse analysts (especially Chapter 2, which showcases where and how to integrate security studies with Critical Discourse Studies) seeking further to fully integrate the securitization theory with linguistics-based Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to exploit the emancipatory potential through security.