Securitisation As Hegemonic Discourse Formation: An Integrative Model

This book offers a model for understanding securitization in terms of hegemonic discourse formations. It re-thinks the very meaning of security as well as the relationship between the understanding of security in traditional and critical approaches in security studies to find a common denominator between them. Deduced firmly from realist political philosophy and its analytic categories, such as state-based sovereignty, security is presented as a function of discursive formations. Providing a sound discourse-theoretical foundation which includes both linguistic and non-linguistic practices as well as a focus on relationships of power, the book offers a basis for the integration of insights generated by the different approaches to securitisation, and enhances the analytical and explanatory depth of the concept.

This book will appeal to students, researchers, and scholars of political science and international relations (IR) interested in a better understanding of IR theory, realism, critical security studies, and discourse analysis.

Hannah Broecker is a lecturer at the Department of Media and Communication Studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich (Germany).  Previously, she has worked and taught on issues of international security studies at the Collaborative Research Centre ‘Dynamics of Security’ of the Universities Marburg (Germany) and Gießen (Germany), as well as at the University of Stuttgart (Germany). She has also been engaged with issues of international security and development at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF, Germany), the African Development Bank (Uganda), and the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation (Nigeria and UK).