Desecuritization has empirically worked well in the past

In asking questions about the politics of the process of desecuritisation, this article seeks to engage with what Stritzel calls the ‘second generation…contextual securitization scholars’ that seek to combine the formal aspects of the securitization model with a greater emphasis on examining the interrelationship between security politics and its context. With the aim to ‘construct a more comprehensive understanding of underlying processes’, by focusing on the ‘socio-linguistic and/or socio-political micro-dynamics of generating threats’ (Stritzel, 2012: 2, for other example of these types of studies see Balzacq, 2005, 2011; Guzzini, 2011; Salter, 2008; Stritzel, 2007, 2011; McDonald, 2008, 2011). In so doing, this article argues that it is vital to investigate not only the way in which (de)securitizations are enacted within a specific context at a particular time, but also to consider what happens to the different referent objects identified in the initial securitization once de-securitization processes are introduced. Secondly, it considers the case of Russia’s policy of normalization towards Chechnya since 2000, as an exemplary case-study to illustrate the politics at play in the nature and practice of de-securitizations, especially if and how this plays out across multiple referent objects. In the initial period of securitization, the Russian authorities securitized the threat emanating from Chechnya as posing an existential danger to three principle referent objects, namely Chechnya, the North Caucasus region and Russia. Once the Russian authorities moved towards a policy of normalization, however, three different strands of desecuritization discourses emerged related to these three securitized referent objects, following different trajectories from one another. Indeed, whilst the sum total of these discursive strands adds up to an overall de-securitization narrative, their exact nature and specifics were largely dependent on the referent object in question. This suggests that processes of de-securitization across multiple referent objects can 3 and do follow very different trajectories from each other, whilst continuing to retain a certain degree of inter-dependence and overlap. In practice, this can both support the parallel de-securitization processes vis-à-vis the other referent objects, and problematize the overall de-securitization strategy carried out by the main de-securitizing actor. In addition, and in view of the recent discussions about the widening and deepening of methods and methodology in critical security studies (see Aradau and Huysmans, 2014, Salter and Mutlu 2013, Shepherd 2013, Aradau, Huysmans, Neal and Voelkner 2015, Hansen 2006, Jackson 2011), the papers also calls for greater use of longitudinal and process-orientated analysis in (de)securitization to allow researchers to better capture the evolutionary dynamics within security policies. Indeed, as set out below, a contradiction remains within the current (de)securitization literature between the second generation suggestion that (de)securitizations may develop not only as a result of one-off speech acts, but also incrementally across longer periods of time (Åtland 2008, McDonald 2008, 2011), and the methodological practice of most empirical studies that tend to focus on narrow time periods that provide only a snap shot of how (de)securitizations processes emerge and develop. Yet, as will be demonstrated below, a longitudinal methodological lens is particularly apt in enabling analysts to trace the multifaceted processes of de-securitization. Methodologically, this article draws on the longitudinal approach combined with the single ‘case plus study’ method championed by Hansen in her study of the Western actors’ security discourses/practices during the Bosnian war (2006). However, whereas Hanson applied her ‘single case study’ method to investigate the way in which security policies were presented and enacted across time, in this case the aim is to outline the utility of longitudinal methods of analysis through the single-case study method by examining the evolution of a single case, from being securitized to de-securitized: the (de)securitization of Chechnya in Russian official discourse across an extended period of time, 2000- 2009. This is analyzed by a focus on the official discourses of the Russian federal authorities as the main (de)securitizing actor that drove both the securitization and the de-securitization of Chechnya, as the actor with both the authority and the facilitating capacity to put forward these particular discourses and processes (Koltsova 2006, Ortmann 2008, p.366). This article, firstly, charts the current debate on the nature of de-securitization processes, highlighting the current shortage of studies examining (de)securitization discourses across multiple referent objects. It then sets out its empirical case of Russia’s policy of normalization towards Chechnya. In so doing, it lays out a brief context of the Russian authorities’ initial securitization of Chechnya in 1999-2000. Using longitudinal process-tracing analysis, it then considers, chronologically, this case of desecuritisation according to two periods - Putin’s first (2000-4) and second (2004-8) terms in power. This temporal division broadly corresponds to Oelsner’s (2005) suggestion that de-securitizations often proceed in two-steps, namely peace stabilization and peace consolidation. The article concludes by outlining its key implications for (de)securitization studies.