Pregledni rad
https://doi.org/10.5673/sip.53.1.4
Environmental Security - Between Activism and Securatization
Dario Malnar
orcid.org/0000-0001-5041-1420
Vedran Matošić
Sažetak
Approaches to the study and definition of the concept of security have started to change rapidly
since the end of the Cold War. Today there is a high level of agreement among theorists
that security is a dynamic social process, hence threats to security are different, not necessarily
defined as military threats to national sovereignty. The definition of a security threat
depends on the time and place. One of the most important contributors to the study of the
contemporary phenomenon of security is the Copenhagen school of security studies. Buzan,
Waever and associates have established the theory of securitization and desecuritization as
a persuasive instrument for defining contemporary security threats in the context of modern
liberalism. Securitization marks a given phenomenon as a security threat and transfers it to the
sphere of the so-called emergency action which is, according to the critics of the Copenhagen
school, its major drawback since such situations may cause the erosion of democratic standards.
Therefore, the theory of desecuritization tries to prevent securitization from potentially
jeopardizing the democratic process. Specifically, emergency measures can be withdrawn
without a public debate and the matter handed over to political institutions when and if the
arguments in favor of withdrawal are sufficiently convincing. Regardless of different theoretical
approaches, one can argue that the state still remains the most dominant actor in defining
a specific problem as a security threat. When it comes to matters of environmental damage,
civil society is emerging as a credible securitizator and corrective to state institutions which
are often unable to adequately “control” levers of economic development. However, civil
society also has certain limitations which are most commonly manifested in the blockage of
reforms and social asymmetries of civic activism.
Ključne riječi
environmental security; securitization; desecuritization; activism; state; civil society
Hrčak ID:
136610
URI
Datum izdavanja:
17.3.2015.
Posjeta: 2.613 *