If the ambition of Rita Floyd had been to apply securitization theory to U.S. environmental policies, this book would have been a straightforward success. Chapters 3–5 give an excellent, almost insider's view of how the U.S. government has struggled with environmental issues from 1990 to 2009, two decades of post–Cold War policymaking in a very complex realm. Floyd spoke with hosts of key players in U.S. policymaking. The result is a detailed account of politicians, civil servants, and academics sailing bureaucratic vessels on domestic waves in global storms. Floyd's ambition, however, is to test her version of securitization theory as developed by the Copenhagen School in Security Studies. This school combines traditional levels of analysis (system, subsystem, unit and subunit levels in international relations) with clusters of existential values (i.e., military, political, economic, societal, and environmental security sectors) and a social constructivist analysis of security discourses: tracing securitization practices. Securitization theory analyses how risks and threat perceptions are prioritized in security discourses: Who are the “securitising actors”? What values are at stake in their claims? Whose security is referred to? Which audience is addressed? And what are the consequences? The test is in Chapter 6; her revised theory is in Chapter 2.
Floyd's central claim is that the Copenhagen School argues that securitizations are morally wrong and desecuritizations morally right. Desecuritization points at a process opposite to securitization, that is, how risks and threat perceptions lose their presumed urgency. The claim that desecuritization is morally right comes to me as a big surprise. Normally, I would have concluded that Floyd has misread one of the primary works in this school: Security: A New Framework for Analysis, by Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver, and Jaap de Wilde (1998). The support she finds in A New Framework is circumstantial; the book does not address morality. Closest to an exception is the intention “to underline the responsibility of talking security, the responsibility of actors as well as of analysts who choose to frame an issue as a security issue” (New Framework, p. 34; emphasis added). But Floyd notices a moral mission and turns it into a mantra: The Copenhagen School apparently maintains that “securitisations are necessarily morally wrong whilst they hold that desecuritisations are necessarily morally right” (p. 56; also pp. 3–4, 27, 33, 47, 118, 174). Beyond New Framework, the support comes from notes taken at a course given by Wæver (p. 4).
None of her references points at the moral superiority of desecuritization. They are about the logic that desecuritization is inherent to the structure of a securitization speech act: “If we do not act now, it will be too late!” The securitizing actor points the way out. Desecuritization is the inherent purpose of securitization. If an existential threat is identified and extraordinary measures are called for to counter it, the optimal outcome is that the problem is solved. “We are safe now; security has been achieved”—a speech act echoing a past threat. Desecuritization can occur for several reasons: 1) Problem solved (the aforementioned logic); 2) learn to live with it, for example, institutional adaptation to the continued presence and occasional execution of the threat (close to that logic); 3) change of discourse (other securitizations override or replace the original concern); and 4) case lost (the values and/or referent objects at stake are lost; survivors have to do without them). But in none of these types is morality at stake; desecuritization is not right or wrong; it simply happens or not.
Adding a moral dimension to the Copenhagen School's framework of analysis is obstructing the original project. The moral dimension moves the analysis into the realm of critical security studies (CSS). CSS has an opinion about correct and wrong securitizations, and aims at emancipation. If some securitizations are good and others bad, obviously the same accounts for desecuritizations. Floyd's version of securitization theory moves it from the Copenhagen School to CSS. Presented as such, her contribution deserves a paperback edition.
This, however, implies that we know what the Copenhagen School is. Floyd provides no answer. Most of the time she writes about Wæver as a synonym of the Copenhagen School, but occasionally she writes about “Wæver and the Copenhagen School” (e.g., p. 59), thus separating them; and thirdly he is treated as a dominant thinker within the school—which is the correct view. Wæver is the intellectual godfather of securitization theory. In Chapter 1, Floyd traces the “intellectual ancestors of securitisation theory,” meaning Wæver's intellectual ancestors, yet referring to the Copenhagen School (p. 41). John L. Austin is there, as is Jacques Derrida, Carl Schmitt, and Kenneth Waltz. But not a word about Buzan's impact on Wæver's thinking. The roots of securitization theory predate their cooperation, but the two worked together for over a decade. Neglecting Buzan is even stranger when the Copenhagen School is the subject, since he is its second central author.
The presence of Schmitt as an ancestor is likewise surprising. Michael Williams has successfully linked securitization theory to Schmitt's work, but in the discussions on New Framework, Schmitt appeared only marginally. Others, like Hannah Arendt, surfaced more often, and Floyd admits on page 41 that Arendt should have been treated separately as one of the ancestors. (So why is she not?) If we include Williams in the Copenhagen School, Schmitt rightly belongs to the intellectual family, but if Wæver is the Copenhagen School, Schmitt is out. Therefore, defining the Copenhagen School is important. Bill McSweeney (not discussed by Floyd) coined the term in writing about the revised edition of Buzan's People, States and Fear (1991) and the first three books of Buzan's cooperation with Wæver in wider teams at the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute (COPRI): European Polyphony (1990); The European Security Order Recast (1990); and Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda in Europe (1991). New Framework was next in line, and Regions and Powers (2003) thus far completed the series. The core of the Copenhagen School is this series of publications, centered on the cooperation between Buzan and Wæver, as facilitated by COPRI. The research seminars at COPRI came closest to a true school, and the publications contributed to a new phase in security studies—parallel to the development of critical security studies and works on human security. In my view, the school is defined by publications rather than persons. Both Buzan and Wæver have published a lot outside of the Copenhagen School, and many others, including Williams, have actively contributed to it.
In contrast to what she writes, Floyd does not pick up the moral dimension but adds it to securitization theory. By distinguishing between “referent object benefitting securitisation” from “agent benefitting securitisation,” she hopes to reveal intentions behind securitizing moves. But how to study motives? Al Gore is the obvious figurehead to follow in this account of American (lack of) environmental policies. His career is a typical example of “where you stand depends on where you sit.” From a reluctant U.S. government negotiator in the Kyoto deliberations to a Noble Peace Prize winner as a nongovernmental actor, Gore illustrates the complexities of the moral dimension. In this book he mainly figures as a hero. This probably results from Floyd's choice to let outcomes decide whether (de)securitization is morally permissible or prohibited (p. 33). If the outcome “improves human well-being,” (de)securitization is morally good.
This is a difficult benchmark and a hopeless criterion. By definition, the analyst decides what an outcome is; outcomes are constructed. Moreover, how is one to establish criteria for human well-being and for its improvement? Floyd's solution is to study outcomes in terms of “consequentialist logic” in line with moral philosophy. It is worthwhile to follow her argument, but for a different purpose. The question “What moral judgments are made about (de)securitizations?” is a welcome addition to the existing framework for analysis. Taking a position in that judgment, however, is a political move beyond the analysis. Acknowledging that we cannot escape taking a position is different from embracing it.
In conclusion, Floyd's revision of securitization theory conflates critical diagnosis of (de)securitizations with moral judgments about them. Although I share her concern that American governmental securitizations of the environment have hardly left the level of rhetoric, the separation of diagnosis and concern about its results needs to remain intact.
