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http://hdl.handle.net/1956/2081
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| Tittel: | The Making and Unmaking of the Politics of Exceptionality : Studying Processes of Securitisation and Desecuritisation in the Orange and Okavango River Basins |
| Forfattere: | Davidsen, Pål Arne |
| Dato: | Nov-2006 |
| Forlag: | The University of Bergen |
| Sammendrag: | This study acknowledges the shortcomings of, on the one side, keeping the concept of
security in international relations limited and confined to state protection by military means
from perceived internal and/or external threats and, on the other side, widening and
broadening the concept of security to encompass all aspects of social life perceived to threaten
a specific referent objects of security. By drawing upon the work of the Copenhagen School
of International Relations (CoS), the study develops a comprehensive framework which
examines how securitising actors discursively attempt to construct certain state of affairs or
developments as threatening to specific referent objects of security. By also paying attention
to the concept of desecuritisation, how to unmake security, which has received scant attention
by the Copenhagen School, the thesis delineates the complex dynamics between securitisation
and desecuritisation in the context of perceived water scarcity in two international river basins
in Southern Africa, the Orange and the Okavango. It is argued that the foundation of the
interaction between securitisation and desecuritisation is much dependent on the different
ways in which nature has been constructed; the Orange River has become a symbol of
“Humankind’s conquest of nature” while the Okavango has been constructed as “God’s gift to
humankind”. Drawing upon the discourse theoretical framework of Ernesto Laclau and
Chantal Mouffe, it is argued that when enacted through the logic of equivalence, securitisation
invokes a Schmittian understanding of the political which reduces social antagonisms between
stakeholders in the river basins to a dichotomy between friend and enemy. It is further argued
that where attempts of desecuritisation take place, these have the potential of creating a more
cooperative climate between the respective stakeholders in the basin states. However, by
employing the logic of difference most of these cooperative endeavours are identified as
carrying important and unattended side effects, leaving central, contentious issues aside,
ultimately making desecuritisation appear in a bleaker light in the Orange and Okavango
River Basins. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/1956/2081 |
| Vises i samlingene: | Department of Comparative Politics
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