Is Securitisation a Natural and Useful Response to Existential Threats? Introducing the Idea of Peacification

The need to decide whether to securitise an issue area that poses an existential threat, and then treat it as a security matter, is often regarded as a choice without positive alternatives. This article introduces an alternative framing: the “peacification” of issue areas that pose existential threats. It also demonstrates that there is variation in the levels of security and peace framing in authoritative speech. By measuring these levels in authoritative US presidential papers and comparing them with levels of success in the US efforts to reduce organised violence, the article falsifies the assumption that securitisation is the only realistic way to frame existential threats. Correlative evidence fails to support the view that the securitisation of organised violence is useful. This finding is highly significant for challenging the naturalness of mainstream security framing, which, due to the very grammar of “security,” is premised on political othering. After all, security is a property of an agent, while security issues traditionally arise from threats posed by another agent. By disaggregating the elements of these two framings, this article offers plausible explanations as to why, in general, peacification may be a better framing for the prevention of organised violence than securitization.