This paradigm de-emphasizes the role of state power in guaranteeing security by confronting threats, highlighting instead questions of community identity and social dynamics.
[2] Societal security relates to: "the ability of a society to persist in its essential character under changing conditions and possible or actual threats.
According to the theory's primary proponents, governments may portray any problem as an existential danger to a selected referent object, justifying the deployment of extreme means to deal with it (Buzan et al. 1998).
However, Hough (2004) defines a security threat as anything that threatens the safety of a people or limits the government's ability to make policy decisions.
In light of the Copenhagen School's concept of securitization, virtually any problem may constitute an existential threat, expanding the scope of national security beyond traditional concerns about military danger (Buzan et al. 1998).
Despite the ostensible evasiveness of the notion, identity can function as a referent object to be defended and securitized against a perceived threat (Balzacq, 2010).
A 'we feeling' and an exceptionalism that broadens the notion that the nation is special, which makes it vulnerable to protection, give birth to these social or identity concerns (Hough, 2004).
Because it conforms to the typical behaviour, which is rooted in socially accepted speaking actions, the established routines of security apparatus and danger perception are likely to be repeated.
Some authors, like Debrix (2015), who cite Foucault, argue that the labels we use to categorise and describe the world influence what we learn and how we think about it conceptually and discursively.
This research explicitly examines the hypothesis that audiences that are exposed to a wide variety of perspectives within a given discursive space are more likely to accept processes of securitization.
This move towards a “post-sovereign” nation-state is due to “internationalization and Europeanization” processes, as international institutions assume increased influence over domestic affairs.
[5] In 'Security: a new framework for analysis', Busan et al. formalize their broader understanding of security by introducing five sectors, each governed by “distinctive characteristics and dynamics”, and conceptualized around particular referent objects and actors (i.e. military, environmental, economic, societal and political).
So the final goal of societal security is comfort and understanding the beauty of collective life – not an interest for government, not eliminating enemies, not confronting perceived threats to the nation.
“Thus, the exact definition and criteria of securitization is constituted by the intersubjective establishment of an existential threat with a saliency sufficient to have substantial political effects.”[12]Not all speech-acts are successful.
The qualitative discourse study involved extensive source data collecting, including documents from state institutions, papers from think tanks, and joint remarks from EU and Chinese government leaders.
Theiler also states that a too vague definition of identity is deployed when discussing the concept and there is a failure to 'demonstrate sufficiently that social security matters to individuals'.
[citation needed] The exhibition of securitization may be deemed successful when the audience embraces this positioning which, then, would warrant 'emergency measures' (Buzan et al., 1998).
There is a strong emphasis on the consideration of the language aspect as a crucial discourse structure in finding solutions to issues (Buzan et al. 1998).
A comprehensive linguistic analysis is therefore necessary to arrive at the core of the issue and determine the discursive themes that reinforce the existing power structures.
Although rationalist theories of International Relations have often disregarded the linguistic component and orientated instead towards material resources or institutions, several poststructuralist authors provide analytical tools to examine the speech acts.
However, there seems to be a broad consensus that the securitizing actor must carry some degree of discursive authority and represent a larger group or collective (e.g. a state, political party, or rebel faction) (Sjöstedt, 2017).
In this regard, the theory presupposes a level of centralization, entailing that merely actors in high and distinguished positions in society can produce legitimate security discourses (Karyotis, 2011).