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11. Securitization of Disinformation in NATO’s Lexicon: A Computational Text Analysis

Author:
Akın Ünver and Ahmet Kurnaz
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
Following the Russian meddling in the 2016 US elections, disinformation and fake news became popular terms to help generate domestic awareness against foreign information operations globally. Today, a large number of politicians, diplomats, and civil society leaders identify disinformation and fake news as primary problems in both domestic and foreign policy contexts. But how do security institutions define disinformation and fake news in foreign and security policies, and how do their securitization strategies change over years? Using computational methods, this article explores 238,452 tweets from official NATO and affiliated accounts, as well as more than 2,000 NATO texts, news statements, and publications since January 2014, presenting an unsupervised structural topic model (stm) analysis to investigate the main thematic and discursive contexts of these texts. The study finds that NATO’s threat discourse and securitization strategies are heavily influenced by the US’ political lexicon, and that the organization’s word choice changes based on their likelihood of mobilizing alliance resources and cohesion. In addition, the study suggests that the recent disinformation agenda is, in fact, a continuity of NATO’s long-standing Russia-focused securitization strategy and their attempt to mobilize the Baltic states and Poland in support of NATO’s mission.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, NATO, Elections, Disinformation, and Securitization
Political Geography:
Russia, Eurasia, and United States of America

12. COVID-19 in the MENA: Two Years On

Author:
Marc Lynch, Vahid Abedini, Yasmina Abouzzohour, Meliha Benli Altunisik, and Mona Ali
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Abstract:
Early in the pandemic, POMEPS convened an online workshop with a diverse group of scholars working across the MENA region to discuss the initial impacts and to think through possible trajectories. That workshop resulted in POMEPS Studies 39, which included twenty-one essays ranging across the MENA region. Several major themes ran across those essays. We collectively expected regimes to securitize the pandemic, using the excuse of lockdowns to crack down on a protest wave that had reached multiple countries in 2019 and to further entrench authoritarian rule. We expected variation in state capacity to be a critical variable in terms of the ability of states to effectively respond to the pandemic. And several essays anticipated soft power international competition, as great powers used vaccine diplomacy to sway public attitudes their way. Two years on, how did those predictions hold up? In April 2022, POMEPS convened a follow-up workshop with some of the same scholars and a number of new contributors to assess how well those early projections panned out, and to assess the actual impacts of COVID on the region after two years. We are delighted to now publish the results of that workshop and ongoing conversations among a diverse group of scholars of the region.
Topic:
Civil Society, Health, Politics, Sectarianism, Authoritarianism, Economy, Solidarity, Soft Power, Violence, Public Health, Students, COVID-19, Securitization, Gender, and Regional Politics
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, North Africa, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and United Arab Emirates

13. La pobreza como vector de inseguridadglobal e interna: una aproximación regulatoria

Author:
Jordi Bonet
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on International Security Studies (RESI)
Institution:
International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:
Este estudiopretende realizar una reflexión, desde una aproximación esencialmente político-jurídica internacional, sobre la pobreza como un vector susceptible de generar amenazas a la seguridad, tanto desde una perspectiva global como interna de los Estados. Sin desdeñar un enfoque de este tenor (especialmente, si es un enfoque desde el prisma de la seguridad humana), se entiende que la securitización de la lucha contra la pobreza no es demasiado útil para abordarlos problemas que genera y potenciar el desarrollo. Se aboga por orientar la centralidad político-jurídica de la lucha contra la pobreza desde su comprensión como un asunto de interés público global, al que el planteamiento programático de los ODS y el Derecho internacional de los derechos humanos ofrecen una base regulatoria sólida (sin perjuicio de las dificultades reales de llevar a cabo este programa y ejecutar las normas jurídicas internacionales sobre derechos humanos). Asimismo, no se ha querido dejar de lado la importancia colateral, pero propia, de la desigualdad.
Topic:
Human Rights, Poverty, Governance, Inequality, Sustainable Development Goals, and Securitization
Political Geography:
Global Focus

14. Contemporary Ecological Paradigms and Emerging Challenges of Water Security Nexus for Pakistan

Author:
Asma Siddique
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Political Studies
Institution:
Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:
Water Securitization is key hindrance to socio-economic and human development for a water-based economy. The trajectory relations among states, hydrological vulnerabilities, multi-faced water meagerness with crucial water sharing challenges are prompting geo-strategic and geo-political arduousness in South Asia. The chief intension of research is to elaborate the eminence of extreme water belligerences related with traditional state security concerns predominantly in case of Pakistan and India which are co-basin rival states of Indus Rivers System. Pakistan being single basin and lower riparian is profoundly reliant on Indus Basin (a lifeline for the country) due to its agrarian economy. The ever-increasing gap between demand and supply is instigating water scarceness, possessing numerous domestic aspects, political and climatic factors, Indian hydro-hegemonic intensions, etc. The ideology of water securitization along with national security is toxic in body politics, ensuing hydrological security complexes, security dilemmas and sufferer anxiety syndrome for Pakistan, elaborated by Securitization Theory paradigms. The research is based on descriptive and deductive reasoning approaches, mixed research methodology and utilization of secondary data resources. There is a dire need of dynamic responses, establishment of operative institutions, mutual cooperation at all levels, with de-securitization of riparian and hydrological security discourses can be valued, if not then it could intensify the human, national and hydro-security challenges for concerning states.
Topic:
Water, Human Security, Ecology, Securitization, and Rivers
Political Geography:
Pakistan and South Asia

15. Securitization of Islam: The Lethal Combination of Threat and Identity Politics

Author:
Jocelyne Cesari
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
The work of Samuel Huntington, first presented in a 1993 article in Foreign Affairs and subsequently elaborated upon in his 1996 book Clash of Civiliza- tions, has shaped the perception of the role of religion in general, and Islam in particular, in international conflicts.1 Huntington argued that Islam is uniquely incompatible with and antagonistic to the core values of the West, values which he defines as democracy and equality of individuals. Since Huntington first presented his work, much ink has been spilled by scholars attempting to invali- date his thesis. They show that civilizations are not homogenous or monolithic players in world politics with an inclination to “clash,” but rather that they consist of pluralistic, divergent, and convergent actors and of practices that are constantly evolving.2 Nonetheless, Huntington’s concept of the “Clash” has remained relevant in political discourse and in the media.
Topic:
Islam, Identity Politics, Securitization, and Threat Perception
Political Geography:
Global Focus

16. The Securitisation of Hybrid Warfare through Practices within the Iran-Israel conflict – Israel’s practices for securitising Hezbollah’s Proxy War

Author:
Christian Kaunert and Ori Wertman
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Security and Defence Quarterly
Institution:
War Studies University
Abstract:
Iran has been waging a hybrid war against Israel since the Islamic revolution of 1979. In an era when conventional wars have given way to a different method, hybrid warfare, the main challenge facing states is how to deal with this new type of security threat. Thus, while states have previously faced security threats from regular enemy states’ armies, nowadays hybrid warfare in which non-state actors play a key role has become a widespread security threat that requires democratic states to use very different strategies and tactics to overcome it. Using securitisation theory, which explores how normal issues transform into security threats, this article analyses how the State of Israel has securitised Iranian hybrid warfare which has been mainly executed through its proxy terror organisations of Hezbollah. It does so by applying a revised version of the Copenhagen School’s securitisation framework, which focuses on security practices and is underpinned by an understanding of security as belonging to a continuum. The proxy terror organisations have moved towards the end point of the continuum, which is characterised by survival, existential threats, and militarisation, albeit without completely reaching the end point.
Topic:
Hezbollah, Hybrid Warfare, Securitization, and Proxy Groups
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, Israel, and Lebanon

17. This Time Was Different: The Global Safe Asset Shortage and Shadow Banking in Socio-Historical Perspective

Author:
Photis Lysandrou and Anastasia Nesvetailova
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
City Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC), University of London
Abstract:
Safe assets and shadow banking are two closely linked phenomena in contemporary finance. The link is loan securitisation: at a time of a global safe asset shortage, it falls on the shadow banking system to help make good that shortage by manufacturing extra quantities of asset backed securities. When these quantities cannot keep up with volume of safe asset demand, the shadow banking system comes under pressure to manufacture the type of complex structured securities that can potentially cause a financial crisis. That potentiality became reality with the great financial crisis of 2007-8. If a further financial crisis of this scale is to be averted, the regulation of the shadow banking system should be informed by an understanding of the contemporary socioeconomic circumstances that continue to cause a global safe asset shortage. This paper attempts to contribute to such an understanding.
Topic:
Financial Crisis, Banking, Securitization, and Safe Asset
Political Geography:
Global Focus

18. Privatized Returns and Socialized Risks: CEO Incentives, Securitization Accounting and the Financial Crisis

Author:
Michele Fabrizi and Antonio Parbonetti
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
City Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC), University of London
Abstract:
The paper investigates the role of CEO¶s equit\ and risk incentives in boosting securitization in the financial industry and in motivating executives to reduce the perceived risk while betting on it. Using a sample of US financial institutions over the period 2003-2009 we document that CEOs with high equity incentives have systematically engaged in securitization transactions to a larger extent than CEOs with low incentives. We also show that CEOs with high equity and risk-related incentives have engaged in the securitization of risky loans and have used securitization for transferring risks to outside investors. Finally, we show that executives incentivized on risk have provided outside investors with low quality disclosure about losses recorded on securitized loans thus contributing to increase the opacity of securitization transactions undertaken. Overall, we interpret our results as evidence that CEOs have foreseen in securitizations under US GAAP an opportunity for hiding risks while bearing them and generating profits and cash flows because of the risks. Our results are robust to several model specifications as well as to endogeneity concerns.
Topic:
Financial Crisis, Securitization, CEOS, and Compensation
Political Geography:
Global Focus