The relationship involving the unknown other has so far been exclusively translated into the language of fear as part of the securitised response to migration. The fear of the unknown other divides people into those who are associated with illegality and chaos and those who need to be protected from such ‘danger’. In contrast, the humanitarian approach to migration challenges the securitised response to the unknown other: it refuses to separate the self from the other and instead appeals to the idea of common humanity. This paper draws on the idea of the gothic to develop a humanitarian way of embracing the fear of the unknown. In the gothic framework, the other is feared not because of categorical differences between the self and the other, embodied in the securitised response to migration, but categorical ambiguity between the two. Using UK-based welcome activism as an example, I argue that gothic-inspired humanitarianism embraces the fear of the unknown other through the sharing of not knowing oneself. This offers a new basis for solidarity, in the language of fear, without resorting to the securitised relationship between the self and the other.

Tokenised assets are expected to transform finance, yet their legal treatment remains a source of uncertainty. This article presents an analytical framework for categorising legal structures of tokenised assets, addressing a gap in academic literature and regulatory approaches. We introduce a taxonomy based on the legal relationship between tokens and their underlying assets. In complete tokenisation tokens embody legally enforceable rights. It comprises direct tokenisation, where tokens are the primary form of the asset, and indirect tokenisation, where asset-backed tokens are created through intermediary structures. In contrast, incomplete tokenisation results in tokens that function as “digital twins” with limited or no legal value.

Our analysis reveals that the effectiveness of tokenisation depends on the robustness of this legal bond. We compare how these categories impact tokenisation features, including asset transferability, legal certainty, and composability. Furthermore, we identify limiting factors in current regulatory frameworks, such as form requirements, ownership models, and identity mechanisms. Drawing examples from various legal systems and asset classes, including financial instruments, property rights, and digital assets, this work provides a foundation for evaluating tokenisation strategies, with practical insights for regulators and market participants.

Despite one of the world's strictest and longest lockdown policies, the Philippines' securitized approach to containing the COVID-19 pandemic has led to unnecessary suffering, especially in poor communities. This article explores how the Philippine government's prioritizing of punitive policies such as detaining quarantine violators or attempting to decongest Manila by sending poor families to neighbouring provinces, magnifies existing socio-spatial inequalities and further spreads disease. In many of these communities, poverty is a co-morbidity. As local governments struggle to provide frontline health and social welfare services, high-profile arrests, media shutdowns, and the proposed Anti-Terrorism Bill spark concerns about restrictions on free speech while movement is curtailed. Nevertheless, community and private sector efforts around localized healthcare, food security, and inclusive mobility indicate potential paths towards a ‘better normal’ that goes beyond just survival.

The article explores how European Union (EU) democracies respond to the transnational repression phenomenon. Authoritarian transnational repression has become an increasingly recurrent phenomenon in recent years. However, we still have an inadequate understanding of how Western democracies respond to such forms of authoritarian interference. This article sheds light on the EU’s responses to the authoritarian transnational repression phenomenon by using the analytical framework of securitisation as its theoretical approach. In doing so, it aims to find out the extent to which transnational repression has been securitised in the EU. The study demonstrates that the EU’s response to the transnational repression phenomenon exhibits the case of a failed securitisation. The paper draws its analysis from policy documents, semi-structured interviews with EU stakeholders, and descriptive analysis from the Freedom House Transnational Repression Database.

This article makes a twofold contribution on the relationship between self/other securitisation, ambiguous threat constructions, and anxiety at the intersection of Securitisation Theory (ST) and Ontological Security Studies (OSS). First, we develop the concept topos of threat (TT) as a potent linguistic anchor in securitisation processes. TTs depict an entire self/other threat situation that warrants escape, serving identity needs while staying flexible and ambiguous. However, their frequent rhetorical deployment can blur the threat construction and increase anxiety: this challenges the classical scholarly assumption that antagonism necessarily alleviates anxiety. Second, we theorise metapolitics as an anxiety mediation strategy. Metapolitics is a mode of interpretation – a relentless analysis of surface clues to expose a deceptive, powerful adversary – which in the final event fails to alleviate anxiety. The dual practice of nurturing topoi of threat and metapolitics drives conflict because it sets in motion a vicious securitisation spiral that entrenches rigid patterns of self/other representation and fosters a bias of anticipating hostility. We employ abductive theorising: working with established theory alongside empirical discovery through a discourse analysis of Russia’s official rhetoric on NATO and the use of the TT ‘colour revolution’ since the conflict in Ukraine began in 2014.

How can we understand the audience agency and securitisation processes that can induce anxiety? The Copenhagen School of security studies conceptualises an audience as possessing political agency which is contingent on their capabilities to respond to securitising moves. Drawing on Anthony Giddens’s approach to ontological security, we argue that there is another type of agency supplementing political agency. Ontological agency refers to exercising control over the stability and continuity of one’s everyday routines and practices to minimise disruption to these routines caused by securitisation. Because routines of day-to-day life are central to bracketing sources of anxiety, people may choose to overlook and not react to securitising moves designating threats and implementing emergency measures that can undermine ontological security. We illustrate the analytical purchase of ontological agency by using unstructured observations of South Korean people’s responses to military practices that securitise North Korea. Our observations reveal that there is latent anxiety regarding North Korea that manifests in varying degrees ranging from inaction when routines are not disrupted by securitisation to outward bursts of emotional reactions and breakdown when securitisation practices disrupt people’s basic routines. This raises implications about the importance of ontological security driving the success or failure of securitisation and the politics of existentialism.

The significantly divergent trajectories of terrorism and climate change as security issues for Western states in the early years of the 21st century represent a puzzle. While sharing some attributes – uncertainty and the primacy of risk-management responses – climate change clearly represents a more fundamental threat to life than terrorism. Despite this, terrorism has occupied a prominent place on states’ security agendas, while climate change has been decidedly marginal. This paper explores this divergence. Employing the securitisation framework, the paper maps the approach to terrorism and climate change as ‘security’ issues among key proponents of the ‘war on terror’, before exploring why these two issues were treated in such different ways. This analysis suggests a clear inclination to define and approach terrorism as an urgent security threat necessitating emergency measures: a willingness not evident in the case of climate change. While noting elements of the latter that militated against its securitisation, the paper points to the role of ideology – the beliefs and commitments of political leaders in particular – in driving choices around the construction of the security agenda. It concludes by suggesting that unlike the response to terrorism, impediments to enacting emergency measures to address the climate crisis remain.

This article argues that covert action is subordinate to security narratives, with covert action demanded by, empowered through, and used to decisively impact the narratives of security threat that concern a state’s key power-granting audiences. A narrative approach to analysing covert action is developed based on narratology and securitisation. This approach reconciles the paradoxical historical record of implausible deniability with International Relations theory, and challenges other risk-led approaches to understanding covert action. The narrative approach is supported by a class-severity model which updates existing ladder models of covert action escalation, enabling scholars to both detect occurrences of covert action and suggest attribution to an actor – a vital initial step for the study of non-Western covert action in particular. The narrative approach also enables the effectiveness of covert action to be measured in terms of its impact on security narratives, overcoming the limitations of existing approaches. The article employs these tools to analyse Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, delivering new insight and identifying areas for further study for a key non-Western user of covert action.

The years following the financial crisis of 2008 have witnessed a revival of interest in both the Polanyian concept of ‘fictitious commodities’ and the Marxian concept of ‘fictitious capital’. The former, with its focus on the consequences of markets for the ‘fictitious commodities’ of land, labour, and money, appears as a plausible explanation for our present instability along environmental, social, and economic axes. The latter, with its focus on what sets financial capitalists apart from their industrial counterparts, sheds light on what really separates Wall Street from Main Street, and what it all means for the prospects of class struggle in the 21st century. Building on a decade and a half of discourse on the role of these phenomena in financialisation, this paper explores the kinds of limits the law can place on high finance’s most flagrant flights of fancy. Taking as case studies the post-crisis efforts by the European Union (EU) to intervene in two key financial markets – private equity and securitisation – it asks how far current regulatory frameworks go, and what more can be done to protect Europe from capitalism’s excesses.

Indonesia, like many other countries, has encountered a slew of social, political, economic, and public health challenges in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to these challenges, the Indonesian government implemented security measures by instituting large-scale social restrictions (Indonesian: Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar) and, later, micro-scale social restrictions (Pemberlakukan Pembatasan Kegiatan Masyarakat) to restrict people's mobility and virus transmission. Using securitisation theory as a framework, this article examines how the nationwide dilemma between public health and economic security arose. Based on official documents, government papers, and political speeches, this study reveals how the country's COVID-19 responses were largely defined by carefully constructed and flexible measures known as the ‘gas and brake’ policy (Kebijakan Gas dan Rem), which were aimed at resolving the health-economic dilemma. This policy is deemed appropriate given the country's limited public health and economic resources, despite the fact that many argue that such an approach reflects indecisiveness and a lack of coordination among the country's authorities. This article also demonstrates that policymakers in Indonesia use this policy to resolve the securitisation dilemma by reinforcing the hierarchical ordering of security sectors as a readjustment strategy. The policy is used to justify tightening or easing social restrictions by changing the security narrative throughout the pandemic.