92 research outputs found
OVERHEATED SECURITY? The Securitisation of Climate Change and the Governmentalisation of Security
Since the mid-2000s, climate change has become one of the defining security issues in political as well as academic debates and amongst others has repeatedly been discussed in the UN Security Council and countless high level government reports in various countries. Beyond the question whether the characterisation as âsecurity issueâ is backed up by any robust empirical findings, this begs the question whether the âsecuritisationâ of climate change itself has had tangible political consequences. Moreover, within this research area there is still a lively discussion about which security conceptions apply, how to conceptualise (successful) securitisation and whether it is a (politically and normatively) desirable approach to deal with climate change. The aim of this dissertation is to shed light on these issues and particularly to contribute to a more thorough understanding of different forms or âdiscoursesâ of securitisation and their political effects on a theoretical and empirical level. Theoretically, it conceptualises securitisation as resting on different forms of power, which are derived from Michel Foucaultâs governmentality lectures. The main argument is that this framework allows me to better capture the ambiguous and diverse variants of securitisation and the ever-changing concept of security as well as to come to a more thorough understanding of the political consequences and powerful effects of constructing issues in terms of security. Empirically, the thesis looks at three country cases, namely the United States, Germany and Mexico. This comparative angle allows me to go beyond the existing literature on the securitisation of climate change that mostly looks at the global level, and to come to a more comprehensive and detailed understanding of different climate security discourses and their political consequences. Concerning the main results, the thesis finds that climate change has indeed been securitised very differently in the three countries and thus has facilitated diverse political consequences. These range from an incorporation of climate change into the defence sector in the US, the legitimisation of far-reaching climate policies in Germany, to the integration of climate change into several civil protection and agricultural insurance schemes in Mexico. Moreover, resting on different forms of power, the securitisation of climate change has played a key role in constructing specific actors and forms of knowledge as legitimate as well as in shaping certain identities in the face of the dangers of climate change. From a normative perspective, neither of these political consequences is purely good or bad but highly ambiguous and necessitates a careful, contextual assessment
When NGOs engage in online campaigning:A theory-based critique drawing on Habermas and Foucault
Nachhaltigkeit, Partizipation und Macht - oder: Warum Partizipation nicht unbedingt zu Nachhaltigkeit fĂŒhrt
Climate migration multiple: climate refugee, climate migrant, climate warrior or none of these?
When NGOs engage in online campaigning:A theory-based critique drawing on Habermas and Foucault
Wir ertrinken nicht, wir kĂ€mpfen!â:Warum die Kategorie KlimaflĂŒchtling gut gemeint, aber schlecht gedacht ist
The power of visioning An evaluation of community-based Future Search conferences in England and Germany
SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN036769 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo
Rendering climate change governable by risk: From probability to contingency
In this paper, I use Foucault's concept of governmentality to investigate changes in the risk management of climate change. In an exploratory analysis of primary and secondary sources, I demonstrate that the risk construction of climate change has shifted significantly from 1988 to 2010. Risk construction has broadened, and related policies now include mitigation, adaptation and disaster preparedness. Furthermore, I demonstrate that the meaning of 'security' and the related modes of risk management have shifted over time. I show that traditional science-based risk management has been dominant in mitigation and adaptation policy. The articulation of climate change as a security issue since 2003 indicates risk management through contingency. I argue that what the Copenhagen School has studied as the 'failed securitization' of climate change and a lack of extraordinary measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions are better understood as the 'climatization' of security. The governmental rationale since 2007 has been to prepare for and manage the 'inevitable' primary and secondary impacts of unmitigated climate change. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
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