The Securitisation of Climate Change: Actors, Processes and Consequences
Final Report Abstract
The project provides the first systematic comparative analysis of different climate security discourses on a country level basis. In the course of the project, the securitisation of climate change has been analysed in four different countries: USA, Germany, Mexico and Turkey. To this purpose, we developed a new and systematic analytical framework. Based on previous attempts to systematically explain and identify climate security discourses, the framework distinguishes between three levels of referent objects of securitisation (territorial, individual and planetary) and between two dimensions or “modes” in which securitisations have been articulated: a danger and a risk dimension. It thereby clarifies the ever-increasing literature on different forms of securitisation and the relationship between security, risk and politics. Whereas securitisation studies have traditionally focused on either a single country case study or a global overview, consequently failing to reconstruct detailed securitisation dynamics, ours was the first project to provide a systematic comparative analysis of climate security discourses in four countries and thus closes an empirical gap in the present literature. In addition, this comparative framework allows the drawing of conclusions about the conditions for and consequences of successful securitisation based on empirical and comparative analysis rather than theoretical debate only. The empirical analysis in our four country cases traced how specific climate security discourses have become dominant, which actors have driven this process, what political consequences this has had and what role the broader country context has played in enabling specific securitisations. The analysis uncovered decisive differences between the countries. While in the US the prevalence of the territorial danger discourse primarily led to political consequences in the defence sector that focused on adaptation, the individual danger discourse that prevailed in Germany facilitated mitigation measures and a focus on foreign policy and development policies. In Mexico, we found a less intense securitisation mostly based on the individual risk discourse that nevertheless together with a politicisation of climate change as environmental problem contributed to Mexico’s progressive climate policies. Finally, the absence of successful securitisation in combination with several counter-discourses such as rapid economic development and energy security contributed to preventing progressive climate policies in Turkey. Wellmann, Z. (2014) ´Iklim Degisikligi Türkiye´nin bir güvenlik sorunu olabilir mi?´ (Can climate change become a security problem for Turkey?), Cumhuriyet: 2 (Comments) Wellmann, Z. (2014) ´Iklim Degisikligi Türkiye´nin bir güvenlik sorunu olabilir mi?´ (Can climate change become a security problem for Turkey?), Star (Ege)
Publications
- (2016) Linking Climate Change and Security in Mexico: Explorations into an Attempted Securitisation in the Global South, Journal of International Relations and Development
von Lucke, F.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1057/jird.2016.19) - (2014) Framing und Versicherheitlichung: Die Diskursive Konstruktion des Klimawandels, Zeitschrift für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung 3(2): 203-232
Diez, T., Grauvogel, J.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.5771/2192-1741-2014-2-203) - (2014) What´s at stake at securitizing climate change? Towards a differentiated approach, Geopolitics 19(4): 857—884
von Lucke, F., Diez, T., Wellmann, Z.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2014.913028) - (2016) The Securitisation of Climate Change. Actors, processes and consequences, London: Routledge / PRIO New Security Studies Series, ISBN 978-1138956353 (pbk)
Diez, T., von Lucke, F., Wellmann, Z.
- Klimakämpfe: Eine komparative Studie der Versicherheitlichung von Klimawandel, ZIB Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen, Seite 112 - 143, ZIB, Jahrgang 23 (2016), Heft 2
von Lucke, F., Diez, T., Wellmann, Z.
(See online at https://dx.doi.org/10.5771/0946-7165-2016-2-112)
