Hostname: page-component-54dcc4c588-tfzs5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-04T16:40:10.146Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Securitization, history, and identity: some conceptual clarifications and examples from politics of Finnish war history

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Matti Jutila
Matti Jutila*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
*
* Email: matti.a.jutila@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This article shows how we can use the securitization framework to study extreme history politics. Securitization refers to a speech act or discursive process in which an actor makes a claim that some referent object, deemed worthy of survival, is existentially threatened. If successful, securitization justifies the use of extraordinary measures to counter the threat. After introducing the concept of securitization in detail, the article presents three ways in which history and securitization can be connected: history can serve as a facilitating condition of securitization; history can be explicitly used to strengthen a securitizing move; or history, or a particular interpretation of it, can be the referent object of securitization. The second half of the article is devoted to a discussion on the role of history in the securitization of national identities. Historical myths are the standard building blocks of national identities; challenging these myths can be presented as threats to the survival of the nation. The article also discusses potential forms of resistance against securitization of history/national identities. Illustrative examples from the political use of WWII history in Finland will be used to show the practical consequences of various conceptual choices.

Keywords

securitizationnational identityhistory politicsFinlandWWII

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 43 , Issue 6 , November 2015 , pp. 927 - 943
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Balzacq, Thierry. 2005. “The Three Faces of Securitization: Political Agency, Audience and Context.” European Journal of International Relations 11 (2): 171–201.Google Scholar
Balzacq, Thierry, ed. 2011. Securitization Theory: How Security Problems Emerge and Dissolve. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bell, Duncan S. A. 2003. “Mythscapes: Memory, Mythology, and National Identity.” British Journal of Sociology 54 (1): 63–81.Google Scholar
Bhabha, Homi K. 1990. “DissemiNation: Time, Narrative and the Margins of the Modern Nation.” In Nation and Narration, edited by Bhabha, H., 291–322. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 2002. “Ethnicity Without Groups.” Archives Européenes de Sociologie 43 (2): 163–189.Google Scholar
Buzan, Barry. 1993. “Societal Security, State Security and Internationalization.” In Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda in Europe, edited by Wæver, Ole, Buzan, Barry, Kelstrupand, Morten, and Lemaitre, Pierre, 41–58. London: Pinter.Google Scholar
Buzan, Barry, and Wæver, Ole. 2003. Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Buzan, Barry, Wæver, Ole, and de Wilde, Jaap. 1998. Security: A New Framework for Analysis. London: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Calhoun, Craig. 1997. Nationalism. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Forss, Stefan, Kiianlinna, Lauri, Inkinen, Pertti, and Hult, Heikki. 2013. The Development of Russian Military Policy and Finland. Helsinki: National Defense University.Google Scholar
Hansen, Lene. 2006. Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Haukkala, Hiski. 2012. “Ne jyrää meitin? Suomalainen tutkimusuutisointi ja Venäjä.” In Journalismikritiikin vuosikirja 2012, edited by Vehkoo, Johanna, 118–122. Tampere, Finland: COMET.Google Scholar
Huysmans, Jef. 1995. “Migrants as a Security Problem: Dangers of ‘Securitizing’ Societal Issues.” In Migration and European Integration: Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion, edited by Miles, Robert and Thranhardt, Dietrich, 53–72. London: Pinter.Google Scholar
Jutila, Matti. 2006. “Desecuritizing Minority Rights: Against Determinism.” Security Dialogue 37 (2): 167–185.Google Scholar
Kalela, Jorma. 2004. “Politics of History and History Politics. Some Conceptual Suggestions as to Political Aspects of History.” In Ajankohta: Finnish Yearbook of Contemporary History 2004, edited by Valenius, Johanna, 5–26. Turku: Universities of Helsinki and Turku.Google Scholar
Kalela, Jorma. 2012. Making History: The Historian and Uses of the Past. Houndmills, UK: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Kivimäki, Ville. 2012. “Between Defeat and Victory: Finnish Memory Culture of the Second World War.” Scandinavian Journal of History 37 (4): 482–504.Google Scholar
Kuusisto, Riikka. 2009. “Comic Plot as a Conflict Resolution Strategy.” European Journal of International Relations 15 (4): 601–626.Google Scholar
Lehti, Marko, Jutila, Matti, and Jokisipilä, Markku, 2008. “Never-Ending Second World War: Public Performances of National Dignity and the Drama of the Bronze Soldier.” Journal of Baltic Studies 39 (4): 393–418.Google Scholar
Mälksoo, Maria. 2009 “The Memory Politics of Becoming European: The East European Subalterns and the Collective Memory of Europe.” European Journal of International Relations 15 (4): 653–680.Google Scholar
McSweeney, Bill. 1996. “Identity and Security: Buzan and the Copenhagen School.” Review of International Studies 22 (1): 81–94.Google Scholar
Meinander, Henrik. 2011. “A Separate Story? Interpretations of Finland in the Second World War.” In Nordic Narratives of the Second World War: National Historiographies Revisited, edited by H. Stenius, M. Österberg, and Östling, J., 55–77. Lund: Nordic Academic Press.Google Scholar
Misztal, Barbara A. 2003. Theories of Social Remembering. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Orwell, George. [1945] 1968. “Notes on Nationalism.” In The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell: Volume III, As I Please, 1943–1945, edited by Orwell, Sonia and Angus, Ian, 361–380. London: Secker & Warburg.Google Scholar
Perusuomalaiset. 2011. “Suomalaiselle sopivin: Perussuomalaiset r.p: eduskuntavaaliohjelma 2011.” February 25, 2011. http://www.perussuomalaiset.fi/tietoa-meista/puolueohjelma/.Google Scholar
Popov, Anton, and Kuznetsov, Igor. 2008. “Ethnic Discrimination and the Discourse of ‘Indigenization': The Regional Regime, ‘Indigenous Majority’ and Ethnic Minorities in Krasnodar Krai in Russia.” Nationalities Papers 36 (2): 223–252.Google Scholar
Renan, Ernst. [1882] 1990. “What Is a Nation?” In Nation and Narration, edited by Bhabha, Homi K., 8–22. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sakwa, Richard. 2010. “The Revenge of the Caucasus: Chechenization and the Dual State in Russia.” Nationalities Papers 38 (5): 601–622.Google Scholar
Silvennoinen, Oula. 2009. “Still under Examination: Coming to Terms with Finland's Alliance with Nazi Germany.” Yad Vashem Studies 37 (2): 67–92.Google Scholar
Simhandl, Katrin. 2006. “'Western Gypsies and Travellers’ – ‘Eastern Roma': The Creation of Political Objects by the Institutions of the European Union.” Nations and Nationalism 12 (1): 97–115.Google Scholar
Smith, Anthony D. 1991. National Identity. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Smith, Anthony D. 1999. Myths and Memories of the Nation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Soikkanen, Timo. 2007. “Objekti vai subjekti? Taistelu jatkosodan synnystä.” In Sodan totuudet: Yksi suomalainen vastaa 5.7 ryssää, edited by Jokisipilä, Markku, 101–124. Helsinki: Ajatus kirjat.Google Scholar
Torsti, Pilvi. 2003. Divergent Stories, Convergent Attitudes. Study on the Presence of History, History Textbooks and the Thinking of Youth in Post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. Helsinki: Taifuuni.Google Scholar
Torsti, Pilvi. 2012. Suomalaiset ja Historia. Helsinki: Gaudeamus.Google Scholar
Vuori, Juha. 2008. “Elocutionary Logic and Strands of Securitisation – Applying the Theory of Securitisation to the Study of Non-democratic Political Orders.” European Journal of International Relations 14 (1): 65–99.Google Scholar
Vuori, Juha. 2011. How to Do Security with Words – A Grammar of Securitisation in the People's Republic of China. Annales Universitatis Turkuensis B 336. Turku: University of Turku.Google Scholar
Wæver, Ole. 1993. “Societal Security: The Concept.” In Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda in Europe, edited by Wæver, Ole, Buzan, Barry, Kelstrup, Morten, and Lemaitre, Pierre, 17–40. London: Pinter.Google Scholar
Wæver, Ole. 1995. “Securitization and Desecuritization.” In On Security, edited by Lipschutz, Ronnie D., 46–86. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Wæver, Ole. 2008. “The Changing Agenda of Societal Security.” In Globalization and Environmental Challenges: Reconceptualizing Security in the 21st Century, edited by Brauch, H. G., 581–593. Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Wæver, Ole, Buzan, Barry, Kelstrupd, Morten, and Lemaitre, Pierre. 1993. Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda in Europe. London: Pinter.Google Scholar
Williams, Michael C. 2003. “Words, Images, Enemies: Securitization and International Politics.” International Studies Quarterly 47 (4): 511–531.Google Scholar
Zehfuss, Maja. 2007. Wounds of Memory: The Politics of War in Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar