COPENHAGEN SCHOOL PRESENTATION MADE FOR A RISK AND UNCERTAINTY CLASS AT KINGS COLLEGE LONDON'S WAR STUDIES DEPT.

1. the copenhagen school
a constructivist approach to security studies

2. copenhagen school
introduction
„500 British nuclear weapons are less
threatening to the United States than 5 North
Korean nuclear weapons‟ because „the British
are friends and the North Koreans are not‟
(wendt 1995: 73)

3. copenhagen school
introduction
the three core components of what has been
called the most concerted attempt of making a
constructivist framework for analysis in security
studies are;
sectors
regional security complexes
securitization

4. sectors
post-cold war broadening of security studies
realist focus on the military and economic sectors
adds new sectors to security studies: political,
environmental and societal

5. regional security complexes
”a group of states whose primary security
concerns link together sufficiently closely that
their national securities cannot realistically be
considered apart from one another” (buzan in
lake and morgan, 1997: 25)

6. regional security complexes
1. “Boundary, which differentiates the RSC from its
neighbours;
2. anarchic structure, which means that the RSC
must be composed of two or more autonomous
units;
3. polarity, which covers the distribution of power
among the units; and
4. social construction, which covers the patterns of
amity and enmity among the units” (buzan and
wæver, 2003: 53).

7. securitization
simplified guide to a successful securitization:
an actor identifies an existential threat to a
referent object
and constructs a plot that involves the
existentially threatened referent object, a point of
no return and a possible way out
which a relevant audience accepts

8. securitization
the non-politicization – politicization –
securitization continuum
non-p: no public mentioning of a threat
p: advocating an ordinary response to a threat
s: advocating an extraordinary response to a
threat
if the audience accept the securitizing move: the
s-actor is given a mandate to invoke a schmittian
„state of exception‟

9. securitization
facilitating conditions
”1. The demand internal to the speech act following
the grammar of security
2. The social conditions regarding the position of
authority for the securitizing actor [...]
3. Features of the alleged threats that either facilitate
or impede securitization” (buzan, wæver and de
wilde, 1998: 33)

10. securitization
referent objects
things that are seen to be existentially threatened
and that have a legitimate claim to survival
- micro-level
- e.g. a sick person (individual-level)
- middle-level
- e.g. terrorism (state-level) (most regular in cph-school)
- system level
- e.g. global warming (international-level)

11. critique of neal, 2009
I believe he correctly identifies the lack of a clear-
cut sovereign in the EU‟s institutional setup.
I disagree with his classification of the three
proposed securitizing moves (I believe they are
politicizations), as they do not follow the
„grammar of security‟.
in buzan and wæver‟s 2003 book „regions and
powers‟, they are pretty explicit about the
copenhagen school‟s limitations when it comes
to the EU, as it is an institution which are
developing, but has not yet, developed actor
qualities.