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Energy Securitisation: Applying the Copenhagen School’s Framework to Energy

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Energy Security in Europe

Part of the book series: Energy, Climate and the Environment ((ECE))

Abstract

Drawing on Buzan, Wæver and Wilde—central to the so-called Copenhagen School in Security Studies—the chapter proposes a way of applying the classic formulation of the securitisation model to energy security. Signalling some important critique that the Copenhagen School model picked up over the last two decades, we propose some reformulations. This proves necessary, as ‘securitisation theory’ does not provide clear guidance for empirical research. Most importantly, extra-ordinary measures which should result from a securitising move—and so, the changes in political practice going beyond what is usually accepted—are specified in a way which enables empirical research of securitisation in the energy sector. Furthermore, we expand the idea of a security speech act, and shift the focus onto securitised discourses, rather than individual utterances. Finally, we delineate ‘securitisation proper’ from similar notions of riskification, security jargon and draw a (de-)securitisation ‘pendulum’, which can move from de-politicisation, through politicisation to securitisation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Despite its importance for the success of a securitisation move, however, the audience is not among Buzan’s et al. (1998: 36) units of analysis. This has been seen as problematic and a weakness of this approach (e.g., Balzacq 2011a). However, the methodological challenges of addressing audienc e acceptance have been too difficult to tackle in a comparative project like ours. Some of the studies do address the question of acceptance, but this issue has been left to the researchers’ discretion.

  2. 2.

    Even Buzan et al. (1998: 179–189) do not mention em ergency measures in their case study on EU policy.

  3. 3.

    The notion of a ‘security imagin ary’ draws on Weldes (1999) and Guzzini (2012) and is understood as ‘a structure of well-established meanings and social relations out of which representations about the world of international relations are created’ (Weldes 1999: 10). This suggests that securitisation, by invoking (most often) national security positions, an issue in an inherently inter-national us-them, Self-Other dyadic frame, even if it occurs in a domestic debate without a clear reference to foreign policy.

  4. 4.

    Entman’s def inition comes very close to a description of the mechanism of securitisation: ‘To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described’ (Entman 1993: 52).

  5. 5.

    For a detailed description of the operationalisation of the research project, see ‘Documentation of data collection’, available at: http://www.forschungsstelle.uni-bremen.de/UserFiles/file/04-Forschung/documentation_data-collection.pdf.

  6. 6.

    No interviews were conducted for the case study on the Nord Stream gas pipeline.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Centre for East European Studies, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Andreas Heinrich

  2. Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Kacper Szulecki

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  1. Andreas Heinrich
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  1. Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Kacper Szulecki

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Heinrich, A., Szulecki, K. (2018). Energy Securitisation: Applying the Copenhagen School’s Framework to Energy. In: Szulecki, K. (eds) Energy Security in Europe. Energy, Climate and the Environment. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64964-1_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64964-1_2

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