ULUSLARARASI İLİŞKİLER TEORİLERİ II - Deneme Sınavı - 5

widen

political

hamper

Regional Security Complex

According to Realism, state is the primary ‘referent object’ that is to be secured and the focus is predominantly on the military sector and on other issues only to the extent that they ‘bear directly on the likelihood and character of war. The correct answer is C.

Balance of power, in international relations, is the posture and policy of a nation or group of nations protecting itself against another nation or group of nations by matching its power against the power of the other side. The correct answer is B.

The CS contributed to security studies in three major theoretical and conceptual ways: the theory of securitization, the notion of different sectors of security and regional security complex theory. The correct answer is C.

Things that are seen to be existentially threatened and that have a legitimate claim to survival are called referent objects. The correct answer is A.

For most scholars of security studies, security is not an easy term to define. At its base, the term ‘security’ involves the “alleviation of threats to cherished values” (Williams, 2008: 1). Both Realist and Liberal theories generally “explain security by identifying an objective situation as threatening to an objective entity” (Balzacq, 2011a: xiii). In other words, according to traditionalists, security means a freedom from any objective military threat to the state survival in an anarchic international system.

States pursue various strategies to guarantee their survival and fulfill their security needs. The most effective strategy that states employ to survive in the system, according to Realists, is balance of power not bandwagon. For Realists, threats to national security come from other states, especially from more powerful ones.

Theory of securitization assumes that security is an intersubjective and self-referential issue and rejects the objectivity of security issue. “Intersubjective issue refers to this important matter that security is built among the relationship among securitizing actor and his/ her audience”

Traditionalists argue that security is about the survival of the state. “It is when an issue is presented as posing an existential threat to a designated referent object (traditionally, but not necessarily, the state, incorporating government, territory, and society)” (Buzan et. al., 1998: 21). Referent objects: things that are seen to be existentially threatened and that have a legitimate claim to survival (Buzan et. al., 1998: 36)

This brings us to the conditions under which securitization is most likely to succeed. These conditions that are called by the CS as ‘felicity’ or ‘facilitating’ conditions increase the likelihood of successful securitization. The first of these conditions is an ‘existential threat’ that legitimizes the use of extraordinary measures to deal with that threat. As outlined before, in classical definition of security, the most important existential threat is the one that is directed toward the state

Even though the theory of securitization occupies a large part in the works of the CS, Buzan et. al. argue that “it is better to aim for desecuritization: the shifting of issues out of emergency mode and into the normal bargaining processes of the political sphere” (Buzan et. al., 1998: 4). According to the CS, the reason for aiming for desecuritization lies in the fact that securitization of an issue leads to a particular type of emergency politics where participation, bargaining and deliberation are strictly restricted. That is why bringing issues out of emergency politics and back into the boundaries of normal politics is much desirable

The debate about environmental security started in the 1980s and it represents the first attempt to broaden the security agenda. The environmental sector is the most controversial and the most difficult sector to define (Stone, 2009: 6). The complexity of the environmental sector arises from the fact that there is a great variety of issues related to the environment. The environmental sector has both scientific and political agendas and they often overlap and sometimes shape each other. The CS argues that securitizing actors in the environmental sector may vary according to the specific issue at hand. Depending on the problem at hand, states may also play down and work against the securitization of environmental issues.

RSCT, like Neorealism, focuses on security. However, the difference between them lies in the levels of analysis they adapted in studying security. In its original version, RSCT, which Buzan labels it Classical Security Complex Theory (CSCT), mainly focused on the state as the primary unit of analysis. The key premise of RSCT is that there exists a strong interdependence among the national security interests of a group of states located in a geographical proximity. RSCT argues that security of all states in the system is interrelated and security or insecurity of a state inevitably affects the security or insecurity of others. RSCT accepts the anarchical nature of international system in general, and of regional substructure in particular.

The following are the conditions on which securitization is most likely to succeed. These conditions are called by the CS ‘felicity’ or ‘facilitating’ conditions which increase the likelihood of successful securitization:

The correct answer is D.

One of the key concepts in Securitization Theory, securitization is shifting an issue out of the realm of ‘normal’ political debate into the realm of emergency politics by presenting it as an existential threat. The correct answer is B.

Governments, international organizations or civil society actors that securitize an issue by articulating the existence of threat(s) to the survival of specific referent object are called securitizing actors. The correct answer is D.

The security sectors are:

The correct answer is E.