Incorporating emotion into securitisation studies: fear-based psychological models of securitisation attitudes

Securitisation Studies seeks to explain the conditions in which security threat perceptions are created and support for security countermeasures established. However, due to the ontological and epistemological preferences of the two main approaches in the field, minimal attention has been paid to the role emotions may play in influencing securitisation outcomes. This thesis addresses this gap in the literature by incorporating emotion into a refined securitisation framework to explain varying levels of securitisation attitudes - a concept created to denote an audience’s security threat perception levels, and the extent of their support for a security response following a securitisation move. Interdisciplinary theory building is first undertaken. With insight drawn from the fields of social psychology and affective science, hypotheses are proposed which offer to illuminate the dynamics of how emotions - namely threat-based and existential fear - affect securitisation attitudes. Four experiments are conducted to test these hypotheses. Data is examined via an innovative analytical strategy employing advanced statistical methods i.e., structural equation modelling and latent basis models to identify how the rate of change of an emotional experience over time affects securitisation attitudes. A key finding is that securitisation moves which arouse then reduce fear are most effective. In contrast, securitisation moves which elicit fear, but fail to sufficiently diminish it, are associated with higher levels of defensive reactions from the audience, which contributes to lower levels of securitisation attitudes. Contrary to expectations, existential fear was not found to affect securitisation attitudes. This theoretical contribution is formalised into two novel models which outline the configurations of securitisation move content, and emotional and cognitive responses associated with higher or lower levels of securitisation attitudes. This thesis therefore creates the foundation for an experimentally driven psychological branch of Securitisation Studies which complements the focus of existing approaches, while opening new, interdisciplinary research avenues.Securitisation Studies seeks to explain the conditions in which security threat perceptions are created and support for security countermeasures established. However, due to the ontological and epistemological preferences of the two main approaches in the field, minimal attention has been paid to the role emotions may play in influencing securitisation outcomes. This thesis addresses this gap in the literature by incorporating emotion into a refined securitisation framework to explain varying levels of securitisation attitudes - a concept created to denote an audience’s security threat perception levels, and the extent of their support for a security response following a securitisation move. Interdisciplinary theory building is first undertaken. With insight drawn from the fields of social psychology and affective science, hypotheses are proposed which offer to illuminate the dynamics of how emotions - namely threat-based and existential fear - affect securitisation attitudes. Four experiments are conducted to test these hypotheses. Data is examined via an innovative analytical strategy employing advanced statistical methods i.e., structural equation modelling and latent basis models to identify how the rate of change of an emotional experience over time affects securitisation attitudes. A key finding is that securitisation moves which arouse then reduce fear are most effective. In contrast, securitisation moves which elicit fear, but fail to sufficiently diminish it, are associated with higher levels of defensive reactions from the audience, which contributes to lower levels of securitisation attitudes. Contrary to expectations, existential fear was not found to affect securitisation attitudes. This theoretical contribution is formalised into two novel models which outline the configurations of securitisation move content, and emotional and cognitive responses associated with higher or lower levels of securitisation attitudes. This thesis therefore creates the foundation for an experimentally driven psychological branch of Securitisation Studies which complements the focus of existing approaches, while opening new, interdisciplinary research avenues

In defence of fear: COVID-19, crises and democracy

The COVID-19 crisis has served not just to instil fear in the populace but to highlight the importance of fear as a motivating dynamic in politics. The gradual emergence of political-philosophical approaches calling for concern for ‘positive’ emotions may have made sense under non-pandemic conditions. Now, however, describing fear in the face of a deadly pandemic as ‘irrational’ or born of ‘ignorance’ seems ‘irrational’ and ‘ignorant’. In this article, we draw upon the work of John Gray and behavioural science to present a defence of fear. We show how the pandemic has highlighted deficits in the work of four thinkers highly critical of fear: Martha Nussbaum, Zygmunt Bauman, Hannah Arendt and Sara Ahmed. We argue that, if such approaches are to be of value in anything other than optimal conditions, then they have to acknowledge the fundamental role of fear in helping human beings to pursue fundamental interests

A Reasonable Possibility of Refoulement: The Inadequacies of Procedures to Protect Vulnerable Noncitizens from Return to Persecution, Torture, or Death

Due primarily to increases in individuals fleeing violence and turmoil in Central America, over 40% of noncitizens arriving in the United States are put on a fast-track removal process and subsequently claim fear of returning to their home countries. A decade ago, the number was only 5%. This influx of asylum-seekers at the border has led to tension between those who wish to protect them and those who view such migrants as “invaders.” In 2019 and 2020, the Trump Administration proffered sweeping regulatory changes with the aim to substantively and procedurally restrict noncitizens’ access to protection from persecution and torture in their home countries. Although not all of these proposals may ultimately go into effect, it is vital to explore the legality of such provisions lest they reappear in subsequent administrations. Pursuant to domestic and international law, the United States is subject to the non-refoulement obligation, which prohibits forcibly returning a refugee to a country that threatens their life or freedom. All humans have the fundamental right to not be returned to a country where they will be persecuted or tortured, regardless of their legal status in the country where they seek protection. In the United States, noncitizens facing qualifying persecution or torture upon return to their home countries are entitled to protection in the form of statutory withholding of removal (“withholding”) or withholding or deferral of removal pursuant to the Convention Against Torture (“CAT protection”). This Comment argues that noncitizens vindicating their non-refoulement rights by seeking withholding or CAT protection must receive stronger procedural protections because of the fundamental interests at stake. Specifically, two issues are addressed. First, the use of the “reasonable possibility” standard of proof at the fear screening stage, a practice expanded in recent years, is inappropriate and a violation of the non-refoulement obligation. This standard is suited for final determinations on the merits, not threshold screenings. Because of the well-documented problems with fear screenings, even absent an increased standard of proof, this practice would result in an impermissible risk that individuals with valid claims would be returned to face persecution, torture, or even death without ever being fairly heard. Second, the unique position of these noncitizens, from legal and humanitarian perspectives, should entitle them to Constitutional Due Process Clause protections. Because their right to non-refoulement is not subject to the discretion of the Executive, the denial of due process cannot be justified by the “entry fiction,” the legal doctrine that gives certain noncitizens inside the United States limited constitutional protections because the law considers them to be detained at the border

Discovering “Immployment” Law: The Constitutionality of Subfederal Immigration Regulation at Work

[Excerpt] This Article develops two general preemption frameworks that feature federal employment law. It first devises and applies an implied-preemption analysis of subfederal employer-sanctions laws based on the preemptive force of FLSA and Title VII. In doing so, this Article reveals that the four subfederal employer-sanctions laws that have produced conflicting court decisions are unconstitutional because they stand as obstacles to fundamental policies underlying FLSA and Title VII. Specifically, these four subfederal laws, along with other subfederal laws that share their qualities, conflict with core federal employment policy goals of protecting employees from employment discrimination and encouraging valid employee-initiated complaints from marginalized workers for the benefit of employees more broadly. Second, this Article develops a hybrid preemption framework that simultaneously considers the policy goals of federal immigration law and federal employment law. This new hybrid framework highlights an additional theory for preemption of these subfederal employer-sanctions laws. This Article’s analytical focus on legal theories for preemption of subfederal employer-sanctions also indirectly exposes a number of policy tensions between workplace-based immigration regulation and federal workplace protections more generally

The commodification of security in the risk society

Expanding on the works of Beck and others on the growing business of risk, this paper examines the role of private industry in the creation, management and perpetuation of the world risk society. It observes that the replacement of the concept of security with risk over the past decades has permitted private firms to identify a growing range of unknown and unknown-unknown dangers which cannot be eliminated and require continuous risk management. Using the discourse of risk and its strategies of commercialized, individualized and reactive risk management, the private risk industry has thus contributed to the rise of a world risk society in which the demand for security can never be satisfied and so guarantees continuous profits

Coded Language: The History, the Message, and 2016

How do politicians, particularly presidential candidates, talk about race without talking about race? Since the 1960s, race baiting in American politics has gone increasingly underground into the realm of coded language and dog-whistle rhetoric; that was until 2016 when the election of Donald Trump brought much of this conversation from the covert and into the over. The old codes were not gone, but they seemingly meant less. Through an examination of campaign ads and convention speeches from the elections of 1968, 1988, and 2008, this paper explores the history of coded language to provide a partial explanation of what made President Trump\u27s rhetoric so powerful. This paper incorporates two intermediate theses to illustrate its ultimate thesis. First, that as times change race baiting language must also change in order to incite the greatest following from backlash voters. Second, that this language must occur alongside social turmoil and anxiety amongst the backlash electorate. These two theses come together to generate an ultimate thesis that Trump took years of coded practices, broke many of them, and played to backlash voters fears of outsiders, particularly Muslims and Latinos