And, if they win policymaking good endorse the aff without the justifications we’re critiquing

Securitization and desecuritization ¶ The ceteris paribus normative push, and political recommendation of the securitization approach has been ‘less security, more politics’, and the development of ‘possible modalities’ for the desecuritization of politics (Wæver 1989a, 52): it is generally (which can only be assessed in practice though) more conducive to treat identities as identities, religion as religion, the environment as the environment, and so on, and to engage their politics through the particular modalities and rationalities of those fields rather than those of security. In the received reading, whilst securitization raises issues into the realm of security policies and practices (arrow 2a in Figure 1), desecuritization lowers issues back into the realm of ‘regular politics’ or removes issues from the political agenda altogether (arrow 1 in Figure 1). ¶ Desecuritization can be achieved through a number of options: by simply not talking about issues in terms of security, by keeping responses to securitized issues in forms that do not create security dilemmas or other vicious spirals, and by moving security issues back into ‘normal politics’ (Wæver 2000, 253). These options can follow objectivist, constructivist or deconstructivist strategies in bringing about desecuritization (Huysmans (1995, 65–67). These strategies differ in regard to how the process relates to the claimed threat: has the threat been dealt with, can the security drama be somehow handled from without, or can identities beyond security threats be produced from within the process. ¶ Beyond conceptualizing desecuritization as an option or a strategy, it has also been viewed from the viewpoint of political actors (de Wilde 2008, 597), and their political moves in games of contestation and resistance (Vuori 2011a, 2015). There can be desecuritizing actors who evade, circumvent or directly oppose securitizing moves by, for example, emphasizing competing threats (de Wilde 2008, 597). Security policies aim at desecuritization (the solution to the threatening situation), but desecuritization can also happen independently from the actions of securitizing or desecuritizing actors: the original security problem may be solved, institutions may adapt through new reproductive structures, discourses may change (e.g., with the loss of interest or audiences), and the original referent object may be lost (de Wilde 2008). ¶ A key issue of debate has been on whether desecuritization can be considered to be an active political process, or whether desecuritization can only happen as a fading away of the issue (Behnke 2006, 65): the question is whether the logic and possibility of securitization is necessarily retained in explicit discussions of whether an issue has retained the status of a security issue. As empirical studies of securitization and desecuritization dynamics (e.g., Salter and Mutlu 2013; Lupovici 2014; Vuori 2015; Donnelly 2015) have shown, it is difficult to point to a definitive end point for either securitization or desecuritization: political and social situations evolve. Whichever the philosophical stance on how and whether desecuritization can be achieved (Vuori 2011a), such empirical studies show that political actors do make active desecuritization moves. ¶ Indeed, systematizing empirical studies of desecuritization, Hansen (2012, 529; 539–545) has identified four ideal type forms for the concept. In regard to its issues of concern, namely the status of enmity and the possibility of a public sphere, when a larger conflict is still within the realm of possibility, but when a particular issue is presented with terms other than security, we have an instance of (1) ‘change through stabilisation’ (arrow 2b in Figure 1); when another issue takes the place of a previously securitized issue, we have (2) ‘replacement’; when the originally phrased threat is resolved, we have (3) rearticulation; and finally, when potentially insecure subjects are marginalized through depoliticization, we have (4) ‘silencing’ (types 2–3 are represented by arrow 1 in Figure 1). ¶ The previous literature on both securitization (arrow 2a in Figure 1) and desecuritization (arrow 1 in Figure 1) has produced ample illustrations of both dynamics. As a brief example of how both dynamics can alter between the same political actors, we can use some of the vicissitudes of Sino-Soviet relations. ¶ China entered the Cold War in the Soviet camp and relied on the Soviet Union as the guarantee of the international security of the new People’s Republic. Chinese views in the late 1940s clearly structured the world into two opposing camps, with China firmly in the Soviet one (Mao 1949). In the 1950s, however, Sino-Soviet relations soured, and the following ‘Sino-Soviet split’ (Lüthi 2008) has been used as an example of the capacity of ‘parochial’ securitizations to become disaffected by or even be withdrawn from dominant ‘macrosecuritizations’ (Buzan and Wæver 2009, 257). ¶ Following the split, Sino-Soviet relations in the 1960s were characterized by intensive ideological conflict, and Mao Zedong securitized Soviet revisionism as a major threat for the Chinese Communist Party (Vuori 2011b). Indeed, newly available documents suggest that it was the Chinese side, in effect Mao Zedong, which was more active in the pursuit of ideological conflict (Lüthi 2008, 2). In his securitization of the Soviet Union, Mao linked the revisionism he identified there to that which he also securitized domestically (Vuori 2011b), and the issue of revisionism was presented as an issue of life and death for the party. ¶ Sino-Soviet relations began to mend in the 1980s with the removal of a number of political obstacles and with the intensification of the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union (Wishnick 2001). Yet, it is only with the fall of the Soviet Union that we can see an overall desecuritization in the form of rearticulation (Hansen 2012, 542–544) taking place in Sino-Russian relations. In the aftermath of the end of the Cold War, China’s line was not to take the lead in international affairs. China worked towards ‘world multipolarization’, which was exemplified with China and Russia forming a ‘strategic partnership’ in 1996. China and Russia even shared the same ‘threat package’ of ‘terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism’ (the ‘three evils’) within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Jackson 2006, 310). These are strong indicators of how the two states have managed to reform their identities away from the Sino-Soviet antagonism. In the overall state relations then, we can see a rearticulative desecuritization tactic at play on both sides: ever since the early 1980s, China’s policy towards the Soviet Union (and later Russia) shifted from antagonism to one of collaboration and negotiation rather than securitization.¶ Desecuritization can be conceptualized in the above manner as a negative ontological corollary to securitization. Yet, it is also prudent to investigate securitization and desecuritization as political moves in order to potentially understand the logic of when and how they are wielded in practical politics. It is proposed here that in addition to instances where a securitized situation is dismantled (arrow 1 in Figure 1), desecuritization can also be viewed as a political move that can be deployed before ‘securitization plays’ in a game of securitization (arrow 2a in Figure 1). In other words, desecuritization moves – both in terms of discourse and practice – can be used in a pre-emptive manner before the threshold of securitization is reached (arrow 2b in Figure 1). For Wæver (2000, 254), silencing can be a strategy to ‘pre-empt or forestall securitization’. We argue here that beyond silencing, active desecuritization efforts can be made to block the escalation of a contention. Thereby, in addition to change through stabilization (Hansen 2012) and the silencing of an issue (Wæver 2000), there can be explicit rebuttals of security frames and claims before they are solidified into policy. This tactic can be termed ‘pre-emptive desecuritization through rebuttal’.