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Securitization—or the representation of a particular issue as an existential threat to national security—can be a powerful means to mobilize support for and legitimate certain policies. Securitization theorists hold that “national security” is a social and political construct, rather than a rational response to an external world rife with self-evident dangers. Political actors use discourse to identify existential threats and seek legitimation from an audience for the exceptional measures necessary to handle them. An appeal to “national security” denotes urgency and necessity, and successfully securitizing can make a swift and powerful response to an issue appear logical and natural. Speaking and practicing security, then, has the potential to reorganize social reality by mobilizing resources and legitimating the actions required to address existential threats, however these may be defined. The task for scholars, then, is not to try to observe what threats are out there in the world, but to look at discourse and identify what issues are framed as so threatening that they might require the breaking of normal political rules.

Since its inception, securitization theory has had a normative edge. The original securitization scholars of the Copenhagen School write that:

One of the purposes of [securitization theory] should be that it becomes possible to evaluate whether one finds it good or bad to securitize a certain issue. One rarely manages to counter a securitizing attempt by saying as an analyst “You are not really threatened, you only think so.” But it is possible to ask with some force whether it is a good idea to make this issue a security issue—to transfer it to the agenda of panic politics—or whether it is better handled within normal politics. (Buzan, Wæver, and de Wilde 1998, 34)

More recently, Eric Van Ryhtoven has argued that scholars ought to urge caution and restraint on the part of securitizing actors due to the possibility of “perverse, unintended consequences” in securitization. Andrew Szarejko argues that securitization theory ought to be used as a “chastening tool” that can “bring a critical lens to bear” on any and all processes of (de)securitization (Van Rythoven 2020; Szarejko 2022, 794). Most ambitiously, Rita Floyd has developed a “just securitization theory” based on just war theory, which takes the form of universal moral criteria that are intended to be used to evaluate the morality of any and all instances of securitization (Floyd 2019).

Van Rythoven and Szarejko are skeptical about the prospects of developing universal theories of the morality of securitization of the kind that Floyd develops—of “imposing moral certitude where there often is none” (Van Rythoven 2020, 488; Szarejko 2022, 793). However, while they are right to be skeptical about universalism, it would be a mistake to eschew ethical theorizing altogether. Scholars—especially critically inclined scholars—are better suited to deploy the conceptual tools of securitization theory to contest securitizing moves if their critiques are placed on well-defined theoretical ground (cf. Browning and McDonald 2013). Thus, rather than abandoning general ethical theorizing on securitization, what is needed is an ethics that is adapted to the particularities of securitization and that does not rely on excessively universal moral criteria.

In this paper, taking Aristotle’s notion of phronesis (commonly translated as “prudence” or “practical wisdom”) and Hans Morgenthau’s formulation of prudence as points of departure,1 I lay out such an ethics, which takes the form of an ethical practice or mode of reasoning rather than a set of universal rules to follow. When securitizing actors demonstrate a lack of phronesis—which takes the form of hubris or incompetence—they are more likely to generate “perverse, unintended consequences” and fail to securitize ethically, even if their actions meet the criteria of “just securitization theory.” In simple terms, for ethical securitization to be possible, political actors must reason and deliberate well, learn from both theoretical knowledge and experience, demonstrate competence, and ask themselves some tough, reflexive questions, which securitization scholars can help provoke.

This paper intersects with and contributes to three related literatures. As a work of critical security studies, it contributes to the long-running conversation on the normative dimension of securitization theory by developing an explicit ethical framework intended to help orient thinking on the moral issues surrounding securitization and to aid the task of criticism that has long been a part of securitization scholars’ agenda. Similarly, it contributes to the recent reinterpretations of classical realism by taking up its advocacy for “a common, critical, reflective, and responsible rhetoric for framing debates over interests and strategy” and applying classical realist principles to securitization theory (Tjalve and Williams 2015, 49). Finally, as a work of international ethics, it further develops what might be termed the growing “phronetic turn” by applying the notion of phronesis to and demonstrating its utility in the case of securitization. In all, I aim to demonstrate the importance of thinking through securitization as an important part of power politics that must be guided by a suitably power-political ethics. Indeed, while Floyd’s dominant approach tries to analogize securitization to war, this is unnecessary. When one understands politics as Morgenthau and many other realists do—as a contest over values and for influence over communities without violence—it becomes clear that securitization is only distinct from other aspects of political life in its radicality and that just war theory alone cannot serve as the basis for an ethics of securitization (Morgenthau 1978, 9; Goddard and Nexon 2016, 5).

This paper will proceed as follows: First, I situate my argument within the ongoing normative debate about securitization and provide a critique of existing “just securitization theory.” Importantly, however, I do not disregard the importance of just securitization theory entirely. Instead, in the remainder of the paper, I articulate how central aspects of just war/just securitization thinking—namely, just cause and proportionality—provide orienting questions for a phronetic approach and, crucially, how they can serve as rhetorical devices for scholars aiming to push back against securitizing moves. Finally, I conclude by elaborating on the implications of the theory detailed here for future research and political practice by securitization scholars.

Just War and Just Securitization

Scholars have written extensively about the normativity of securitization. Many—including the Copenhagen School itself—assume that securitization is inherently problematic and assert an inherent preference for desecuritization, or the removal of issues from the security agenda. These scholars warn of the loss of democratic oversight on securitized issues, the institutionalization of radical, exclusionary politics, and the use of fear of existential threats to legitimate the state’s rule (Buzan, Waever, and de Wilde 1998, 29; Huysmans 1998; Aradau 2004). Some critics argue that securitization will simply be ineffective for dealing with global issues that require long-term cooperation, like climate change or disease (Deudney 1990; Peterson 2002). Conversely, others argue for a more nuanced approach, asserting that we ought to evaluate the morality of (de)securitization processes on a case-by-case basis. For these scholars, because of its potent ability to mobilize action, securitization represents a potential means to pursue morally desirable “positive” conceptions of security and to garner support for important political projects like fighting climate change or the alleviation of global poverty (Floyd 2007; Roe 2008, 2012; Bell 2018).

In light of this debate, Rita Floyd (2019) has drawn on just war theory to develop a “just securitization theory” that can be used to evaluate the morality of any and all processes of securitization and desecuritization. She develops a list of criteria that provides coverage of many of the moral issues involved in the initiation, conduct, and termination of securitization, and this list is intended to be universal across all cases of securitization. Among these criteria are an “objective existential threat,” “a just referent object,” a “right intention” on the part of securitizing actors, “targeted security measures,” and appropriate timing for desecuritization. For Floyd, when a given instance of securitization meets all of the criteria of just securitization theory, securitization is morally justified; conversely, if securitization falls short on any one of the criteria, it is unjustified.

Floyd’s just securitization theory is remarkably thorough, comprehensive, and compelling. However, there are, I posit, three interlocking issues that undermine the utility of her theory for analyzing and morally evaluating actual instances of securitization. One need not accept all of my criticisms of Floyd to buy into a phronetic ethics of securitization. Accepting at least one of the three claims below—that securitization is best understood as a process, that determining the objectivity of existential threats is difficult or impossible, or that universal moral criteria are of limited utility—clears the way for a phronetic reconstruction of the ethics of securitization, which focuses on reasoning rather than rules and on means rather than ends.

Intersubjective Process, Not Singular Event

The first issue concerns Floyd’s theory of how securitization can be studied as an empirical phenomenon. She is only concerned with instances of securitization that manifest as “the exception,” or a concrete policy change in response to speech from securitizing actors (2019, 59–60). She only counts “those actors who utter a speech act and either act on it, or are powerful enough to instruct others to act on it” as securitizing actors (53). She argues further that audience acceptance is not a particularly important criterion for determining the success of securitization, because securitizing speech acts are not directed toward a legitimating audience, but instead toward either those at the source of the threat as “a warning” or those being threatened as “a promise for protection” (54). Together, these claims depict securitization as a singular action that takes place at a particular point in time by a particular, politically powerful actor. For Floyd, this narrow definition of securitization is essential for developing just securitization theory. “In order to say when something is right (morally justifiable),” she writes, “we need to know what that something is, and for that it has to be more concrete than simply what actors make of it” (59).

However, many scholars disagree that securitization can be reduced to a singular policy change emanating from a singular, powerful actor. Securitization should be conceived not as a singular speech act but as a process that is composed of many iterated utterances and/or material practices that reinforce each other and make an exceptional, potentially violent mode of response more logical and legitimate (Balzacq 2005; Stritzel 2007; Léonard and Kaunert 2022; Hayes 2015, 16–7). From this point of view, securitization’s mobilizing power lies not in its singularity as an authoritative statement of impending security action, but in a repeatability that naturalizes the apparent threatingness of a particular issue (Wilhelmsen 2017, 171). This conceptualization comports better with reality; for example, it was only after many invocations of the presence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq and multiple UN inspections that skepticism and opposition to war were drowned out in a hawkish chorus of calls for US invasion (Oren and Solomon 2015).

Additionally, minimizing the role of the audience in securitization causes one to miss the source of securitization’s potentially dramatic mobilizing power and its distinct ethical issues. As Van Ryhtoven (2020) explicates, securitization does not merely represent a performative speech act that promises or provokes action. When securitization is successful, it constitutes a broader shift in social relations; “what is uniquely “radical” about [securitization]. . . is that its transformative potential resides not just at the level of policy, but at the level of the polity” (485). This radicality is the source of what Van Rythoven calls “the securitization dilemma.” Securitization, as an intersubjective process, relies on interpretation. “Security” and “existential threat” are subject to multiple and varied interpretations, and thus do not necessarily offer audiences the same picture of social reality as securitizing actors might initially assume.

Therefore, securitizing discourse may entail different radical social transformations than intended, leading to “perverse, unintended consequences.”

For example, some supporters of the PATRIOT Act were surprised by just how widespread the surveillance it authorized was as an example of the dramatic social consequences that securitizing discourse may have, but Van Rythoven points out that such consequences are an inherent risk in the use of the language of national security (485; 488). Similarly, some argue that the hypervigilance of the Red Scare in the United States later made détente with the Soviet Union politically untenable with a fervidly anti-Communist audience (Williams 1985; Brands 2014, 51; cf. Morgenthau 1952, 236 for a similar criticism).The securitization dilemma, then, comes from the choice one must make: either to forgo one of the most powerful means of political mobilization or to utilize it and assume all the risks that it entails. This understanding of securitization—as an intersubjective process the effects of which are not entirely in the control of particular political actors—–implies that ethical securitization requires continuous attention to security discourse and to how exactly security claims are articulated, and to continuous contestation when discourse goes awry.

Objective Existential Threats?

Moving to the second issue, Floyd stipulates that only “objective existential threats” can justify securitization. This is to be determined by a calculation of the potential aggressors’ malign intentions and their capacity to actually follow through and cause real harm to the proposed referent object (2019, 77–82). Few would deny that it is possible to identify such objective existential threats—those that will definitely harm or kill people regardless of their sociopolitical context and framing. However, all security issues must be represented discursively, and are therefore constituted by inherently political and contestable claims; as Bigo argues, “the wording is never innocent” (2002, 71).

“Objectivity,” then, is only possible regarding the most unambiguous and uninteresting cases of securitization. This is because it is often via securitization that the essential nature of a referent object is defined. The process of intersubjectively identifying and agreeing on what crises are so grave for a polity that they constitute existential threats is how some threats become real. As Williams writes, “a successful securitization... involves precisely the capacity to decide on the limits of a given identity, to oppose it to what it is not, to cast this relationship of threat or even enmity, and to have this decision and declaration accepted by a relevant group” (2003, 519).2

For example, the question of whether or not migration poses an existential threat to the European Union is in part determined via securitization, a process in which the essential character of the EU, its future, and those who are and are not “foreign” to the EU are in part determined (cf. Huysmans 2000). Even the issue of climate change, which to many appears unambiguously and objectively existentially threatening, faces contestation, as some claim that proposed responses to climate change threaten a particular consumption-focused “way of life” (McLaren and Corry 2023). Therefore, it seems that the ontological status of many threats can only be determined intersubjectively by the actors and audience themselves, and can seldom be known a priori except, again, in all but the most banal cases.3