Non-Traditional Security in Asia: Dilemma of Securitization
Posted by riefqi on August 1, 2006
Riefqi Muna, “Securitizing small arms and drug trafficking in Indonesia”, in Mely Caballero-Anthony, Ralf Emmers and Amitav Acharya (eds), Non-Traditional Security in Asia: Dilemma of Securitization. Ashgate Publishers, 2006. ISBN: 0 7546 4701 3
This book analyse the security issues confronting Asia are both complex and diverse. Given the increasing trend towards an expanding security agenda beyond the military dimension of inter–state relations, this volume provides an extensive study of emerging non-traditional challenges to this region. New realities and new challenges have come to the fore including environmental degradation, illegal immigration, infectious diseases, transnational crime, poverty and underdevelopment.
Drawing upon the concepts of securitization and de-securitization, this book brings together regional perspectives from across Asia to examine how these challenges are perceived and managed. It is a valuable contribution to both security and Asian studies and will be ideally suited to those interested in security studies, international relations and development studies.
In this book I contribute a chapter on Indonesia, especially looking at the aspect of securitization of Small Arms and Drug Trafficking as case study in transnational security threats. In this chapter, I argue that the theory of ’securitization” (Copenhagen School) is lacking its operationalisation. The theory did not pay attention to the political landsacape of securitizing process which is very crucial in determining the behavior of securitizing actor and its outcome. Securitization/ de-securitization as policy framing requires a democratic of political system –otherwise, there is a risks of being ‘abused and misused’ of the concept by the regime on behalf of security for the benefit of the regime and not to protects the people.
©2006/08/01. Riefqi Muna
Nita said
Instead of having the “Copenhagen School” for theorizing “securitization”, I think Asian countries, or broadly speaking the Third World, should develop a different perspective on securitization. As the issues to be securitized are broader than those in the Western hemisphere, there are also a lot of features of the works of Buzan, Waever, and co. which do not perfectly fit the political and security contexts within which Third World countries operate.
Maybe it is time for “Jakarta School” to better theorize the above phenomenon…
Bapak, ditunggu tulisan-tulisan berikutnya….
Best regards from Italy,
Nita
riefqi said
Dear Nita,
Thanks for your comment. I apologise for belated response as in the last month I am concentrating on my thesis.
Well regarding your critics to the conceptual building in IR or security studies, I am in line with you that ideally kind of concept(s) and theory(ies) could emerged from Asia or/and developing world. As I mentioned in the chapter on the concept of ’securitization’ is easily mislead to be applied in some countries in developing world, because ’securitization’ may end-up with politicization and ‘criminalization. To some extent. For country such as Indonesia, there has been a situation where, in the past, similar types of securitization has been applied during the Orde Baru regime, however, the regime used very soft word (euphemism) under the banner of harmony, security and stability. In sum, I also mentioned that dealing with securitization, for some country, there is a need to address ’semantic issues’ as well as the ‘political set-up’. By ‘political set-up here, I mean that ’securitization’ require ‘democratic political system’ so there will be ‘checks and balances’ when such policies (i.e., securitization) went wrong.
Moreover, with regards the needs to develop theory from Asia or developing world, I am totally agree with you, because there are a lot of local wisdom that needs to be addressed locally or regionally. I remember about three years ago I have an email exchange with my Australian colleague who is now reside in the Netherlands, he said to me that there are lots of Asian wisdom that not extracted in theory building in social sciences (in our field is IR & Security). I have bee thinking since I write my thesis that there is serious problem in the lacking of Asia theories in social science, but I tell you, the problem was not in the construction and sophistication of the subject matter, rather, it is because the hegemony of the English language in the discourse on social sciences. Means any Asian if they would like to write an international standard it must be written in English, and this is the problem for Asian, because English is not their language.
While, several studies in politics, IR, International management, may of them have paid attention to cultural issues e.g., Geertz Hofstede and Trompenaars in management science; or Jack Snyder, Colin Gray, Alastair Johnston, Peter Katzeinstein, etc who have paid attention to cultural issues in IR/strategy. But, for this purpose I can borrow the idea from Ken Booth on the aspect of ethnocentrism, I mean from his book Strategy and Ethnocentrism, that in deferent meaning, there is also ethnocentrism issues in development of social sciences (not only is strategic studies). Local perspectives is important so we do not mislead, this is because we can understad better any local landscapes and its complexities if we can borrow they lense(s). Sociologically, because, ’social construction of reality’ as suggested by Peter Berger is matter in undertanding how people think on such thing.
So, such great idea to develop an endogenous concept that born from the developing world to address the issues (politico-security) i.e., in Asian region is badly needed in near future as many problem becoming worst just because of the ‘narrow-minded’ thinking in formulating (security or military) policies such as we seen such as the US military operation Iraq or Afghanistan than created more problem rather than to solve it.
As a final remark, try to see some writings like Mohammad Ayoob on The Third World Predicament, or other book from Chung-I-Moon, or say the Article written by Kishore Mahbubani, few years ago in Foreign Affairs (I forget the exact time of publication), or Muthiah Alagappa or Amitav Acharya they are among great contribution to the conceptual discourse from non-European perspectives.
So, the door is open everybody from developing world and Asia to contribute to the development of concepts or theories in IR from our region, and that should be our immediate future atention.
Salam dari Shrivenham, Oxfordshire
wendy a said
hi!
i know you’re both are indonesian so i’ll use indonesian to talk with both of you.
sangat menarik membaca perdebatan kalian mengenai sebuah “the jakarta school” sebagai jawaban untuk mengisi sejumlah kekosongan yang dimiliki teori-teori barat dalam menganalisa dunia ketiga, seperti yang diutarakan nita. beberapa waktu yang lalu aku juga penah berpikir tentang hal tersebut dan salah satu pertanyaan yang ada di kepalaku saat itu adalah “sumber pengetahuan mana yang dapat kita jadikan rujukan dasar pengembangan pendekatan tersebut?’ tersebut karena seperti kata nita, saat ini, bagaimana pun juga, kita tidak dapat melepaskan diri dari teori-teori barat karena hampir seluruh ilmu pegetahuan bersumber dari sana.
waktu itu yang terlintas di kepalaku adalah mencari rujukan dasar dari naskah-naskah kuno yang pernah ditulis oleh pemikir-pemikir klasik pada abad lampau, seperti Negarakertagama yang ditulis oleh Prapanca pada masa Majapahit atau naskah-naskah kuno lainnya. karena menurutku naskah-naskah kuno tersebut pasti ditulis untuk memotret fenomena-fenomena sosial yang berkembang pada saat itu.
Namun metode inipun menyisakan persoalan sejumlah persoalan seperti, apakah dokumentasi naskah-naskah kuno tersebut cukup lengkap sehingga bisa dieksplorasi secara mendalam atau jikapun ada, naskah-naskah kuno tersebut sebagian besar tersimpan di museum atau perpustakaan di barat sana sehingga cukup sulit bagi para intelektual indonesia untuk mengaksesnya setia saat.