[Blog post] "On the Securitization of COVID-19"

2021

The 2020 Covid-19 Pandemic has caused unprecedented chaos throughout the global community. It has wrought havoc on people's lives and health and has continued to dangerously threaten peoples' wellbeing. It has ruined the economy of nations worldwide. One of the most visible responses that nations and territories have resorted to is a turn towards increased securitization. These are represented by the introduction of new laws, often draconian, that limit the movements of people, the widespread closure of government offices, private business, educational systems and the shutting down of borders. These highly securitised policies have been designed to diminish the deadly spread of the global pandemic. In light of these contemporary realities, this exploratory article interrogates the theoretical underpinnings of securitization by exploring the case of the Philippines. One main question is addressed in this inquiry: What is the impact of securitization in addressing the Covid-19...

International virtual conference on “New research in international development, human rights, and international relations at a time of disruption” 29 - 30 July 2020, 2020

The present exploratory paper tackles some of the challenges presented by the COVID-19 Pandemic from a public policy and foreign policy perspective. COVID-19 has resulted in unprecedented public policy challenges and has brought to the fore disciplinary cleavages in terms of how to frame the crisis and more importantly in terms of how to rise to the challenge. The paper concludes that a more holistic approach is necessary which takes a more macro level approach and which borrows from the disciplinary tools kits of sociology, anthropology, political science, and public health.

Renaissance University Journal of Management and Social Sciences (RUJMASS), 2021

It is often said that our massive world has shrunk to become a 'global village'. Much as mankind has benefitted immensely from a globalised world, sovereign states have not escaped from the consequences of becoming increasingly integrated. Since the 21 st century began, a number of countries have infrequently counted their losses during and after the outbreak of an existing or novel infectious disease that claimed thousands of lives and disrupted socioeconomic activities. In the December of 2019, a new strain of coronavirus 'COVID-19' broke out in Wuhan, China, which in the first quarter of 2020, started spreading in Asia and other regions of the world. Hence, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared COVID-19 a 'pandemic' while states national governments, following the usage of security parlance, appropriately took extraordinary measures to contain and possibly eradicate the deadly disease. This paper, hinged on the Securitisation Theory, examines the securitisation of COVID-19 in a globalised world. For the cursory study, data were garnered from secondary sources. The paper concludes that COVID-19 was successfully securitised by WHO and several states national governments. However, the exceptional measures taken by them cannot be said to be effective until the respiratory disease has been contained to a large extent the world over.

Global-e, 2020

Global Studies Quarterly

The suggestion that we “are at war” with the coronavirus pandemic was not uncommon in national representations of the challenge posed by the virus. Such a representation was in turn frequently linked to the imperative of emergency responses, including expanded police powers, national lockdowns, and border closures. For theorists of securitization, this is not surprising. For them, the language of security and existential threat enables extraordinary and exceptional practices. This paper interrogates these assumptions about the performative and enabling role of securitizing language by beginning with emergency measures and asking how these were justified, how they became possible, and how prominent the language of “security” was to this politics of exceptionalism. It examines justifications for emergency responses—national lockdown and/or border closures—in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand in March 2020. Ultimately, the cases examined demonstrate significant variability...

The suggestion that we "are at war" with the coronavirus pandemic was not uncommon in national representations of the challenge posed by the virus. Such a representation was in turn frequently linked to the imperative of emergency responses, including expanded police powers, national lockdowns, and border closures. For theorists of securitization, this is not surprising. For them, the language of security and existential threat enables extraordinary and exceptional practices. This paper interrogates these assumptions about the performative and enabling role of securitizing language by beginning with emergency measures and asking how these were justified, how they became possible, and how prominent the language of "security" was to this politics of exceptionalism. It examines justifications for emergency responses-national lockdown and/or border closures-in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand in March 2020. Ultimately, the cases examined demonstrate significant variability in justifications for similar extreme measures. In the process, this analysis challenges core assumptions about the conditions in which extraordinary measures become possible, suggesting, in turn, the need for a context-specific understanding of both securitization and the conditions of exceptionalism. 1 An exception here is Buzan and Waever's Regions and Powers (2003, 73), in which the authors focus on "broad indicators of securitization rather than investigating each instance in detail," and "emergency measures (are taken) as indicators of securitization."

Stosunki Międzynarodowe – International Relations

Governments across the world resorted to different forms of narratives and measures to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. This study observed the responses of six administrations (China, Sweden, UK, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and New Zealand) through the lenses of the securitization theory as complemented with tailor-made methodological tools. Introducing the concept of the ‘securitization gap’ between the securitizing narratives’ intensity and the securitizing measures’ stringency this study argues that a consistency between the rhetoric’s intensity and measures’ severity did not impact the governments’ capacity to manage the COVID-19 outbreak. Further, this study finds a relation between the stringency of the securitizing measures and the management of COVID-19. Administrations that resorted to severe forms of securitization managed to spare more lives from the virus than administrations that did not enforce stringent securitizing tactics. Lastly, this study argues that the agreement of the ge...

As an epidemic that emerged in China in the last month of 2019 and caused political, social and economic changes at the international level in a very short time, the Covid19 pandemic started a period of isolation in social life and created a new process in which countries closed their borders politically. The epidemic, seen as a security threat by political authorities around the world, is considered as a new turning point in the transformation of security after the Cold War and September 11. In the article, the interventionist attitude on the implementation of curfews, restriction of entry and exit to the country, and tightening of controls during the continuation of the struggle under the conditions that emerged with the increase of the epidemic is analyzed on the basis of securitization. Threat perceptions in the pandemic period in which the role of the armed forces and the security understanding of the state are redefined, are evaluated as a result of extraordinary conditions and uncertainty. In today's world where restrictions are imposed by the state in every aspect of daily life, the gradual tightening of the security circle naturally brings along an isolationist process for individuals and states in social and political terms.

Contexto Internacional, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked controversies over health security strategies adopted in different countries. The urge to curb the spread of the virus has supported policies to restrict mobility and to build up state surveillance, which might induce authoritarian forms of government. In this context, the Copenhagen School has offered an analytical repertoire that informs many analyses in the fields of critical security studies and global health. Accordingly, the securitisation of COVID-19 might be necessary to deal with the crisis, but it risks unfolding discriminatory practices and undemocratic regimes, with potentially enduring effects. In this article, we look into controversies over pandemic-control strategies to discuss the political and analytical limitations of securitisation theory. On the one hand, we demonstrate that the focus on moments of rupture and exception conceals security practices that unfold in ongoing institutional disputes and over the construction of legitimate knowledge about public health. On the other hand, we point out that securitisation theory hinders a genealogy of modern apparatuses of control and neglects violent forms of government which are manifested not in major disruptive acts, but in the everyday dynamics of unequal societies. We conclude by suggesting that an analysis of the bureaucratic disputes and scientific controversies that constitute health security knowledges and practices enables critical approaches to engage with the multiple-and, at times, mundane-processes in which (in)security is produced, circulated, and contested.

Global Discourse, 2021

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has spurred extensive governmental reactions worldwide, such as the closure of borders, the lockdown of entire countries, unprecedented economic stimulus packages, and the invention of digital tracking devices that enable authorities to monitor infection rates and the movements of infected individuals. An important question is to what extent the more detailed surveillance of citizens established by health authorities and governments in many countries will outlive the COVID-19 crisis. What does the pandemic tell us about the ease by which governments have revived the timeworn instruments of state sovereignty, such as territorial closure, restrictions of access to public spaces, and the privileging of national populations as the ultimate object of government? Do we witness a certain convergence between countries considered liberal-democratic and authoritarian regimes in terms of the parallel enhancements of citizen surveillance, rule by appeals to fear, and restrictions of our freedom in terms of governments’ use of personal data? In their article, ‘Obedience in times of COVID-19 pandemics: a renewed governmentality of unease?’, Didier Bigo, Elspeth Guild and Elif Mendos Kuşkonmaz (2021) offer a series of timely reflections on the above questions.