About conferenceWith the end of the Cold War, security institutions and professionals as well as the academic world of security studies lost the political relation that organized much of their work for four decades: the enmity between the Soviet Union and the United States and the bipolar organization of world politics around two competing ideologies and geo-strategic blocs. For those used to looking at the world in these terms, international relations were suddenly in radical flux. The construction of threats seemed to have become a more open field. Defining threats and hierarchies between them – i.e. which threats require most urgently attention – became the object of intensive struggles between various actors. Established categorical distinctions between policing and defence, private and public, threat and risk, national and international, deterrence and pre-emption, market and state, to name a few were being renegotiated and reconstructed in processes constituting new insecurities. These developments took place in a wide variety of policy fields: humanitarian intervention, environmental politics, migration, terrorism, border controls, development aid, weapon proliferation, etc.
The violent destruction of the Twin Towers and a wing of the Pentagon on 11 September 2001 and its subsequent politicization catapulted the question of a changing relation between liberty and security onto the political agenda. In many western countries it became a key issue through which security policies and the construction of insecurities was politicized. Since then the question of the social construction of threat – i.e. what insecurities are constructed by whom – has been intertwined with debates about how securitizing processes redefine freedoms and what effects they have on the institutional mechanisms through which freedoms are constituted and protected.
The event brought together a wide set of speakers which included
COST members, academics, experts, EU officials, as well as civil society actors. The audience - around 110 participants - included among other officials from national, European and international levels, stakeholders, practitioners, NGOs, civil society actors and the general public. This conference brought together work that has been done in both
COST Action A24 ‘The Evolving social construction of threats’ (2004-2007) and
CHALLENGE (The Changing Landscape of European Liberty and Security) and it addressed key developments in the social construction of insecurities and the reconfigurations of the relation between liberty and security as a central stake in security policies.
CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS June 5, 2008
Welcome & opening remarks by Elspeth Guild (Centre for European Policy Studies – CEPS and COST member), Jef Huysmans (Open University) and Didier Bigo (Sciences Po, Paris).
Elspeth Guild, Didier Bigo and Jef Huysmans welcomed the audience as well as all the speakers participating in the event and opened the two days event.
Elspeth Guild and
Didier Bigo presented the
CHALLENGE Project, a five years project, funded by DG Research, which aims at facilitating a more responsive and responsible assessment of rules and practices of security, and it examines the implications of these practices for civil liberties, human rights and social cohesion in an enlarged Europe.
Jef Huysmans introduced the
COST programme, especially the EU action programme
A24, which deals with the ‘construction of threats’ and that comes to its end with the celebration of this event. Huysmans highlighted
the main objectives achieved during the Action and pinpointed the main publications carried out within the Action.
Guild, Bigo and Huysmans thanked the COST programme as well as the CHALLENGE project for co-funding the event and for making it possible. Finally, they opened the conference by expressing their gratitude to both projects for the close collaboration and exchange of views carried out during the last years.
Roundtable One: The Changing Relationship of Liberty and Security in Europe
Chair: Angela Liberatore (European Commission)
Didier Bigo, Philippe Bonditti and
Christian Olsson (Sciences Po),
The mapping of the European internal security agenciesDidier Bigo presented the research carried out on ‘The field of the EU Internal Security Agencies’, which was published in the Collection Cultures & Conflits (2007). The research aimed at exemplifying the general theory of a field of professionals of security and proposed a map showing the relations between the European internal security agencies (such as Europol, Eurojust, Frontex, OLAF, among others). In particular, the research insists on the relations between the agencies in order to give a better idea of the flow of communication and strategic or operational decisions produced at EU level, he explained. During the presentation, Bigo reflected on the relations between the European internal security agencies, explaining the interconnexions between them and the European institutions, and gave to the public a better understanding of what is at stake with liberty, security and justice in Europe.
Vivienne Jabri (King’s College London),
Anti-terror legislation, practices of government, and the politics of security
There are a number of perspectives or theoretical frameworks that have been used to unravel governmental practices that might be encompassed by the term ‘counter-terror’. Critical discourses on the subject have ranged from those primarily informed by Foucault’s writings on governmentality to works that place emphasis on Agamben’s conceptualisation of the ‘exception’. The aim in Jabri’s presentation was move the terms of discourse towards an emphasis on what she referred to as the ‘registers’ of security practices in the context of counter-terrorism.
Conceptualised juridically, these registers range from the inscription of the figure of the terrorist as criminal within the criminal justice system, as enemy other in the so-called ‘war against terrorism’, as the exceptional in the discretionary powers accrued in anti-terror legislation, and as potentially ‘at risk’ of ‘radicalisation’ in governmental edicts relating to social cohesion.
The paper she presented reveals the implications of each of these registers, firstly in relation to human rights discourses, and secondly in relation to a distinctly political reading of the present. Her research argued that while the former sit easily with the ‘government’ of security and might be thought of as complicit in the depoliticisation of the present, it is the latter that forms a critical reading, one that seeks to relocate discourse away from the primacy of ‘security’ as the framing concept and towards ‘conflict’ and what Balibar refers to as the ‘right to politics’.
Peter Burgess (PRIO),
Security as ethics Peter Burgess opened his presentation by explaining that the discourse of ethics is on the rise in both European and international affairs. It can be correlated with a rise widespread inflation in the discourse of security. The evolution in the notion of security can be characterized by (1) an industrialization of security practices, accompanied by (2) the predominance of technological solutions security, (3) security-product differentiation. (4) globalization of security and (5) production of insecurity.
According to Burgess, the analysis begins with a reconstruction of the evolution of the concept of security, from its earliest origins in European history to a focus on the rise of nation-state security in the Cold-War period. Ethics is understood not as a set of rules brought to a given political situation from outside, but rather emerges as a central support for any security practice, explained Burgess. This becomes clear through an examination of the notion of responsibility, he stated. Ethics is the name for the recognition that we have choices, that we have opportunities.
It is the insight that there are different ways of behaving, the acknowledgement that there is not just one path, but many, not one choice, but several, that all actions and decisions are haunted by the recognition that things could have been done differently—with the incredible responsibility this brings—that other consequences are possible, and that this diversity of outcome is a necessity, an unavoidable reality: insecurity. In this respect, he continued, insecurity is more about us than about the uncertain danger out there. It is less about insecurity with the dangerous unknown than with ourselves and our exposure to an unknown dangerous object. Security is, in this sense, reflexive. It is a kind of relationship that one has with oneself, he concluded.
Keynote SpeechMarian-Jean Marinescu (European Parliament)
The European Commission Communication on preparing the next steps in border management in the EU
Chair: Elspeth Guild
Marian-Jean Marinescu started his presentation highlighting that border management, immigration and security are part of the top priority for the enlarged Europe. As a way of introduction, Marinescu pinpointed a few figures reflecting the current situation at the European borders and gave a brief explanation about the current border related tools, such as the Visa Information System (VIS), the Advanced Passenger Information and the Schengen Borders Code, among others. He then moved on analyzing what are the next steps in border management. In particular, one of the communications launched by the European Commission concerns the preparation of the next steps in border management in the EU. Marinescu focused his presentation on three proposals contained in this Commission’s communication: i) the introduction of an entry-exit system; ii) a programme to facilitate border crossing for bon fide travelers; and iii) a European electronic travel authorization initiative.
Marinescu not only described the benefits that these measures would bring – according to him –, but he also analyzed the inconvenients on the application of these new systems. As regards the entry-exit system, Marinescu considered that this system would be beneficial for statistics and for establishing the bona fide travelers. Nevertheless, he stressed that an adaptation, an updating of the VIS software could make possible the implementation of this system, without having to create a new one. In this light, the introduction of an Automated Border Control system, would also create some problems, he underlined, although in this case the problem would be centered on the storage of biometric data and data protection.
Finally, Marinescu described the European electronic travel authorization initiative as an alternative to requiring a visa from the nationals of a third country. However, he considered that the problem with this system would be the access to online registration for some of the citizens from less developed third countries. To conclude, Marinescu made a general overview of the different measures he analyzed and he expressed that the creation of all these proposed systems is welcomed - from his point of view- as long as they can function as a result of an up-dating and adaptation of the systems like the VIS and/or SIS II.
Panel I: Terrorism & Risk
Chair: Peter Burgess (PRIO)
Anastassia Tsoukala (University Paris V – Sorbonne),
Threat assessment processes in criminology and IR Looking at the key theoretical approaches to the social construction of threat in the sociology of deviance and in political science, Tsoukala addressed the way boundaries between groups are created in different contexts. Comparison between UK media coverage of terrorists and football hooligans reveals – on her point of view- that this is a rational process that draws boundaries on the basis of the position of the target group in the political field rather than the objective seriousness of the threat.
Luis Lobo-Guerrero (University of Keele),
Technologies of Risk and Contemporary Security As a way of introduction, Lobo-Guerrero explained how from personalised practices of security such as insurance, to collectivised security apparatuses employing CCTV cameras, these technologies not only shape a liberal way of life, but are also deployed to protect and promote it. However, technologies of risk are not politically neutral, he stated. Every implementation of a rationality of risk involves some form of classification. Individuals are profiled within risk pools, activities are categorised by levels of dangerousness, and goods are classified by their usefulness and potential hazard.
In an effort to securitise good forms of circulation, technologies of risk are deployed, for example, in screening and profiling of air passengers. Profiled passengers are then treated in accordance to their level of risk and allowed or denied flights, arrested, detained for questioning and so on, he said. A liberal security dilemma arises when the mechanisms, algorithms, and procedures through which individuals, practices, and goods are meant to be protected are not constituted as ‘public facts’. People would like to know how and why they are being profiled and treated as populations ‘at risk’. Making risk assessment visible, however, constitutes a challenge for liberal governance. In order to stimulate discussion on the matter, Lobo-Guerrero concluded his presentation by raising the question - Would holding risk practices accountable and politicising technologies of risk contribute towards the securitisation of liberal life?
Mark Lacy (University of Lancaster),
Risk, design, and the politics of security Mark Lacy presented his paper which examines the uncertainties of the ‘imagineering’ of design and security: what dangers can emerge as unintended consequences? How can we even begin to formulate the risks and uncertainties of designing in security?
In October 2006 Prime Minister Tony Blair announced the ‘Building on Progress’ Policy review.
‘Building on Progress’ outlines the next stage of reform in tacking insecurity. One of the key policy recommendations, according to Lacy, was: ‘to ‘design out’ crime in products and places, and to raise potential victims’ awareness.’ The objective was to work in ‘partnership’ with businesses ‘to crime-proof their products, services and processes to the highest standard’, he said.
Therefore, a central recommendation stated in the report was the ‘greater use of technology while ensuring public support’. Along with expanding the DNA database the report recommends the greater use of more sophisticated CCTV (including the use of automated facial recognition), more powerful analysis of key databases, and the provision of fast mobile access to databases for police. This concern with design and security seems to continue with the government of Gordon Brown, he said. The agenda brings together two key areas of life in informational, knowledge economies: the intensification of resilience (or adaptation) in the infrastructure of everyday life, along with the focus on the ‘smart power’ of one of the most important areas of post-industrial economies, the creation of value through innovative and creative design industries, branding cities and products at the same time as enabling the production of desirable products. Lacy concluded by explaining that one of the key concerns by both supporters of designing in protection and the critics is the concern with civil liberties and privacy.
Panel II: Migration, borders and mobility Chair: Sergio Carrera (CEPS)
Judit Tóth (University of Szeged),
Impacts of the extended Schengen zone on mobility and borders Judit Tóth started her presentation by describing what is understood as mobility in the EU. Firstly, Tóth explained what concerns to mobility of borders, persons, products, capitals and (public) services, including the fifth freedom which concerns the free movement of knowledge.
As regards mobility in the EU, Tóth underlined the new developments that have been taking place at the EU borders, following the guidelines of the latter European Commission’s Communications.
Among others, she mentioned the Integrated Border Management model as a rather electronically travel authorization and automated border control system; the European Border Surveillance System; and the creation of an entry-exit system. Looking at the practices taking place in seven states (Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia),
Tóth stressed the fact that beyond security the quality of services and conditions at the border crossing points shall be
improved in some aspects. Particularly, she pinpointed the fact that the infrastructures at the border crossing points are really insufficient. Hence, the travelers have hardly access to information, the waiting times are becoming long, uncomfortable and unsafe and the cooperation between EU officers and non-EU officers is getting problematic, she said.
To conclude, Tóth underlined that border and crossing points play a crucial economical role in the lives of people living in the border zone. International trade is growing, thus the quality and efficiency of the operations at the border crossing has economic and employment impacts, she explained. Therefore, according to Tóth, security shall be balanced with adequate data protection, cross-border developing cooperation, minimal standardized conditions, training and communication requirements.
Anaïs Faure-Atger (CEPS),
An enlarged Schengen area without internal border checks...but with scattered security checks? The purpose of Faure’s presentation was to provide an overview of the situation within the enlarged Schengen area after the last formal abolition of internal border checks. After giving an account of the process which led to this situation, she then took a closer look at the current practices.
In order to have a clearer picture, a small introduction to the Schengen system, its principles and its tools, was given before looking at the application of the Convention within the Member states of the EU. In the context of the 2004 members, she explained how the full application of the Schengen acquis was conditioned by the implementation of a number of security measures such as the effective use of databases, the establishment of bilateral frameworks for police cooperation and proper surveillance of the external borders. On Faure’s views, it should be stressed at this point that police cooperation follows national rules and that although encouraged in EU legislation, it is not governed by it. Proper implementation of the Schengen acquis was then endorsed by the so-called “Schengen evaluations.”
After looking at the current EU framework on border management, the Schengen Borders Code was introduced. This was the starting point to a presentation of the legal possibilities to carry out security checks within the Schengen area. Firstly, the temporary reinstatement of border checks on grounds of public security was presented as it is of particular relevance as Austria is about to have resort to it. Secondly, she looked at the widely used possibility to carry out police checks within the territory and the rules it should follow. The third part of the presentation was dedicated to current security practices within the Schengen area and the shortcomings they picture.
In conclusion, Faure-Atger highlighted that the abolition of internal border checks did not signify a disappearance of security checks but rather a proliferation of security practices which have an impact on the freedom of movement. These practices are widely unaccountable and are likely to become common with the current political insistence in considering the border as a frontier to insecurity coupled with the progressive institutionalization of the security checks performed since the abolition, she stated.
Juliet Lodge (University of Leeds),
Are biometrics the solution?
Juliet Lodge presented her research on biometrics and her recent publication titled ‘Are you who you say you are?’. According to Lodge, the question of proving identity using biometric information, storing, accessing and verifying raises more than technical questions.
The prospect of cross-border automatic information exchange and e-governance beg questions about how an abuse of power can be avoided, democratic accountability sustained, and liberty and security brought into balance. Security can be enhanced by cross-border cooperation and information exchange but the security and e-government technologies that enable them are neither risk nor value-free. Thus, her research focused on the free movement of personal data, data protection, the mandatory taking of biometric identifiers from visa applicants, the cross-border goals of The Hague Programme and the roll-out of e-government and e-transactions in a digi-space where democratic controls and accountability are elusive.
Finally, Lodge concluded her presentation raising the question that gives the title of her presentation, ‘Are biometrics the solution?’. According to Lodge, the use of biometrics has several deficits; there is an evasion of controls through soft bilateral agreements between member states and third states and confusion over accountability and one of the most important elements, the citizens loose the control over their data.
Galina Cornelisse (University of Utrecht),
The Power to Detain Irregular Immigrants and Asylum Seekers: A "Necessary Adjunct" to an "Undeniable Sovereign Right"? Galina Cornlisse started her presentation by explaining that human rights lawyers have predominantly portrayed extra-legal spaces for immigrants such as immigration detention as an anomaly for liberal democracies. However, instead of merely perceiving immigration detention as conflicting with modern constitutional discourse, it should be understood against the very forces that shaped that discourse, she said.
Immigration detention is both a consequence of and the litmus test for the way in which it is conceived of the relationship between rights, territory, the state, and the individual. The traditional legal paradigm in which the national state’s response to unwanted immigration is justified with an appeal to its territorial sovereignty and in which territorial sovereignty is the blindspot of modern (international) constitutionalism, results in a “silence within the law.”
As such, territorial sovereignty is a structural and epistemic limitation that stands in the way of the very communicability of individual interests, she said. This “territorial” silence is integral to the whole structure of international and domestic constitutionalism, and the immunization of the practice of immigration detention against the usual forces of legal correction is its inevitable result.
According to Cornelisse, the solution should be a new approach that does not only challenge the content of sovereignty – understood as jurisdiction over persons within a clearly demarcated territory – but that also subjects to legal scrutiny sovereignty’s territorial form. Only then will the human interests that have thus far remained largely concealed whenever the state justifies the use of force with an appeal to its territorial sovereignty acquire a platform where they can be addressed in substance and thus be eventually transformed into rights, she concluded.
June 6, 2008
Keynote Speech
Jose Luis Gomez Del Prado (UN Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries)
The elusive public-private distinction: A discussion on the activities of the UN Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries
The confusion between private and public security services and activities poses many questions and raises a number of concerns both in developed and developing countries. Domestically, the same patterns and trends can be found everywhere though the situations may vary to a great extent. Gomez Del Prado started his presentation explaining that there exists a total confusion about the type of security private guards are supposed to guarantee as well as an imbroglio regarding what are precisely their functions, their status and the power they exercise. Everywhere this confusion blurs
the concept of what is authorized by the law and what are merely regulations (rules which are established by private institutions), he stated. This elusive distinction also creates a grey area where human rights abuses can be committed with impunity.
At the international level, he continued, the outsourcing of functions which were till not long ago inherently governmental and which are now being carried out by private companies offering military assistance, consultancy and security services have not only effects on the enjoyment of human rights but also blurs the situations where these non State actor operate with regard to such important issues as transparency, monitoring, responsibility and accountability. In this light, Gomez Del Prado concluded his presentation by saying that one can find elements of bygone historical periods, the use of force by non-State actors also in the privatization of warfare and the utilization of private security companies to protect multinational extractive corporations.
Roundtable Two: The Social Construction of Threat since the Cold War
Chair: Jef Huysmans (The Open University)
Claudia Aradau (The Open University) made her presentation together with
Rens van Munster. During the presentation, Aradau argued that the catastrophe does not only offer a different understanding of security practices beyond the figure of the enemy, but draws attention to the role of imagination and temporality for politics. Catastrophes work through the imagination of worst case scenarios that have effects upon us and our societies. Drawing upon a reading of the National Intelligence Council Report, ‘Mapping the Global Future’, Aradau showed that the concerns with averting the future catastrophe and the imagination of worst case scenarios are underpinned by practices that ensure the continuity of the present.
Stefano Guzzini (University of Uppsala and DIIS Copenhagen) presented the collaborative research project on ‘Geopolitics Redux? 1989 and the uneven revival of geopolitical thought in Europe’. According to him, the present collaborative study wanted to contribute to the understanding of the relationship between international events or crises
and foreign policy thought (and strategy), or, more generally, between modes of thought and particular historical contexts in international relations. Guzzini focused his presentation in four central claims.
First, although the report shows a relationship between international events and shifts in foreign policy modes of thought, Guzzini explained that this cannot be adequately understood in terms of a mere outside-in analysis, where the international event would cause shifts in foreign policy ideas. Thus, the study claims that we have to understand the role of international events on foreign policy ideas from the inside-out. This argument led to the second claim, namely that the revival of geopolitical thought is best understood in the context of several identity crises, a kind of ‘ontological insecurity’, which foreign policy elites encountered in Europe after 1989. In this regard, the authors claimed that the effect of the events of 1989 on foreign policy thought have to be understood in the context of an identity-crisis, characterised by difficulties in the continuation of a ‘national interest discourse’.
Thirdly, Guzzini claimed that geopolitical thought is particularly well suited to respond to such an ontological anxiety, since it provides allegedly objective and material criteria for circumscribing the boundaries (and the internal logic) of ‘national interest’ formulations. In this context, he stated, geopolitics in its more determinate version provides ‘coordinates’ for thinking a country’s role in world affairs. Deprived of traditional reference points and with an identity felt to be under-determined, spatial logic can quickly and easily fill this ideational void and fix the place of the national interest within the international system or society.
Finally, the fourth claim was hence, that whether or not geopolitical thought is mobilised to fulfil that function is dependent on a series of process-factors: the ‘common sense’ embedded in the national interest discourse which pre-disposes for it, the institutional structure and political economy in which foreign policy thought is developed, and the possible mobilisation by agents in the national political game.
Anna Leander (Copenhagen Business School) explained the re-emergence of military markets by looking at the discursive context which has made them possible. She started from the observation that international military markets – operating outside state control – had become very limited during the twentieth century re-emerged very rapidly after the end of the cold war.
Contrary to most common explanations of military markets, she argued that this development is not primarily caused by the end of the cold war. Rather, the “normalization” of military markets rests on four interrelated discursive shifts: a historicization of military markets presenting them as historically inevitable and desirable; a shift to
a neo-liberal understanding of government making military markets appear necessary for contemporary governance; a risk discourse that justifies the continued expansion of markets; and finally a discourse about market neutrality that makes its politics invisible.
Finally, Leander explained that her research on the issue traces these overarching discourses highlighting some of the tensions and internal contradictions, contextual variation and some resistance, insisting mainly on the four discursive moves’ role in the emergence of contemporary military markets.
Rens van Munster (University of Southern Denmark): The insight that threat construction, friend/enemy thinking, exceptional measures are no longer sufficient to think through how insecurities are played out in politics has moved us to the category of risk (and particularly catastrophic risks), he started. The concept of risk –according to him- is both an analytical tool and a device for unpacking the political effects of the management of insecurities. Where the effects of security have been explored as exclusionary and ‘othering’, the notion of risk allows us to understand the heterogeneous and sometimes more mundane political effects of the social construction of insecurities.
First, while security studies has been concerned with the mutual constitution of threats and identity, addressing security as risk management moves away from concerns over identity, territory, exclusion, neutralization and elimination of others and places the analysis on a more explicit temporal dimension. Risk management locates security in a direct relation to time. The concept of risk seems better suited to exploring modulations of temporalities by shifting the focus from utterances referring to dangerous futures to the technologies and strategies by means of which the future is produced as computable, calculable and manageable.
This led to the second point. As a technology, risk seeks to make the future predictable, calculable and manageable. For a long time, risk has been seen as being coextensive with insurance. As such, it has been shunned by security studies, he stated. However, as the war on terror shows, risk cannot be reduced to routine practices of proactive risk management by security professionals. An important challenge for security studies, then, seems to be to see how actors working in the shadows of bureaucratic professionals contribute to governing insecurities.
Finally, the question ‘who securitises’ was especially pertinent when confronted with catastrophic risks that – because of their non-predictability and their disastrous consequences – has led to precautionary forms of decision-making, which emphasize prevention over insurantial compensation and reparation, he said. Confronted with catastrophic risks, the question is not one of knowing or calculating risks but of imagining catastrophic futures. We move beyond science and bureaucratic expertise, he said. Van Munster then finalized by saying that one possible answer would be to see the return of exceptionalism in the question of imagination.
Panel I: Critical Approaches to Security in Europe Chair: Stephan Davidshofer (Sciences-Po, Paris & PRIO, Oslo)
Felix Berenskoetter (Darthmouth College),
Critical approaches and policy making: an uneasing relationship Felix Berenskoetter presented the C.A.S.E. Memos and particularly the paper elaborated by him and Holger Stritzel on Organized Crime. According to Berenskoetter, CASE Memos offer academics an opportunity to make their ideas intelligible to those moving in the policy world and invite them to think – again. They aim at bringing new perspectives into the political discourse by tapping into the reservoir of conceptual insights and presenting them in a way that is critical,
creative and concise.
Berenskoetter moved then to present the main points of his paper on organized crime, elaborated under the CASE Memos’s format, together with Holger Stritzel. Firstly, he stressed the fact that organized crime has become a major issue in the security discourse in domestic, regional and international contexts and is of central importance to many of the EU’s ‘internal’ and ‘external’ policies.
The main controversy among experts is about the adequacy of portraying organised crime as a distinct form of crime and about the appropriateness of an ‘enforcement approach’ to address it. This debate tends to neglect deeper and more important questions over conceptions of ‘order’, the ‘victim’ and the treatment of ‘weak’ and/or ‘bad’ states’ as sources for organised crime. Thus, Berenskoetter concluded by saying that it is pertinent for policy- and opinion-makers to more openly discuss the assumptions on which ‘organised crime’ rests and be aware of the institutional and operational consequences.
Julien Jeandesboz (Sciences Po Paris),
Beyond Schengen? Managing insecurities in the European Neighbourhoods. CASE in practice In recent years, the two issues of the management of the EU’s ‘external borders’ and of the relations between the European Union and the countries lying in its general vicinity have become increasingly central in the proceedings of the European governmental arenas. According to Jeandesboz views, the two questions have particularly been connected through the question of the movement of persons to the EU. In this respect, the European neighbourhood policy (ENP), formally initiated in 2003, seemed to constitute a shift in the perspective that had so far dominated discussions in the EU.
This dominant logic, takes for granted the fact that liberalisation of the possibilities for the movement of persons inside the EU should be compensated by a strengthening of controls at the external borders, he stated. In an attempt to provide an alternative to this logic, the ENP was initially given the objective of promoting the sharing of the ‘four freedoms’, including the freedom of movement for individuals, with the people of neighbouring countries, opening the prospect of a move ‘beyond Schengen’. The ENP, however, was reoriented in subsequent developments, which resulted in the disappearance of the ‘four freedoms’ perspective.
Thus, his research sought to assess the current state of relations between the EU and its neighbours with regard these matters of border management and movements of persons. He argued that, despite recent developments such as the foreseen establishment of a European border surveillance system (Eurosur), we are not witnessing the (re)emergence of a ‘fortress Europe’ logic. In parallel, it was also underlined that, despite initiatives such as the conclusion of facilitation agreements with a number of candidate and neighbouring countries, we are not looking at a liberalisation of movements of persons.
He proposed, rather, that the European neighbourhoods are currently the site for a complex reorganisation of the modalities through which mobility is governed, focusing on new spatialities (the EU and its neighbourhoods, rather than the national state and its borders), characterised by an overlapping of modalities and spaces of banishment (how to interdict movements), of surveillance (how to anticipate movements), and of education (how to foster ‘good’ mobility). To conclude, he explained that European practices, while still informed by some components of the Schengen logic (the ‘balance’ between security and freedoms for instance), are indeed moving ‘beyond Schengen’, through an untold conceptual, practical and spatial stretching of what Schengen is assumed to stand for.
Panel II: The EU as a Global Actor: Critical Reflections Chair: Maria Stern (Goteborg University)
Pertti Joenniemi (Danish Institute for International Studies - DIIS),
The European Union is not what it used to be; once a 'Peace Project' and now a 'Force for Good’ In trying to account for the EU’s new policy of neighbourhood, Joenniemi viewed the ENP as the Union’s constitutive outside. His research argued that the emergence of a new proximacy policy is indicative of profound changes in the EU’s very essence. Thus, with time and space narrated in a new manner, an epochal threshold has been crossed. The previous emphasis present in the discourses underpinning the EU on the constant need of breaking away from what has traditionally been viewed as typical to Europe seems recently to have vanished, he said. It appears that the Union
is no more told into being as an entity constantly threatened by the shadows of the past and with integration standing out as a core remedy in the efforts of counteracting fragmentation and a return to traditional power politics.
There is, instead, emphasis on present and future dangers and no more efforts of escaping Europe’s own past, he stated. If viewed against this background, the coining of the category of ‘neighbours’ comes handy in allowing for a re-location of threatening otherness both in temporal (they are not as advanced as the Union, and in being inherently unable to catch up also un-eligible for membership) and spatial (located now outside the EU itself, albeit in its immediate vicinity) terms.
In order to substantiate these claims, his research shows the key narratives recently employed – in particular those related to the ENP – that aim at articulating what and where the EU is and where it is supposedly heading. In addition, it also interrogates some of the key narratives underpinning the EU in order to pass judgment on whether claims pertaining to a moment of fulfillment in terms of the EU having achieved what it initially set out to aspire and a consequent rupture with the need of coining new constitutive argument are credible in the first place, and if they are, in what direction is the EU bound to move after such a formative moment.
Dovile Jakniunaite (Vilnius University),
Shared Neighbourhood Space: Baltic States between the EU and Russia
With its new neighbourhood initiative the EU stepped into the neighbourhood space of another important actor in global politics – Russia. Jakniunaite’s presentation focused on how the three actors – Russia, the EU, and the Baltic states – are interacting in the “other” (foreign) space and discussed the logic of competing ideas and identities in the region through the analysis of neighbourhood conceptualisations.
Jakniunaite stressed that the recently-formulated Eastern dimension of the EU neighbourhood is a “shared,” and thus, a contested neighbourhood. This situation is very interesting in the way it demonstrably and openly creates an arena for the clash of two identity discourses. These two discourses carry different conceptions of the neighbourhood that are formed through the re-drawing of borders, territories and identities, he explained. The Western Newly Independent States and the three states of Southern Caucasus have become a battleground for competing definitions of neighbourhood and consequently, identity.
To conclude, Jakniunaite posted the question – what is the content of these conceptions and how do they compete? According to her, the active participation of three small Baltic States in the identity-building processes in this neighbourhood also requires analysis in order to understand the functioning of neighbourhood as well as the clash
of different foreign policy actions.
Thomas Diez (University of Birmingham),
Normative Power and Conflict Resolution: Unfulfilled Promises
Thomas Diez presented a collective research that explores the degree to which the self-construction of the EU is shared by others in international society, and in particular in conflict areas. On the one hand, he explained to the public that the authors have recently been involved in a study on European integration and border conflict transformation, which established conditions under which integration and association can have a desecuritising effect on border conflicts. One core condition was an image of the EU as a positive force in world politics.
On the other hand, the authors have also been involved in the debate on normative power Europe and have argued that this concept is better seen as a discursive self-construction imbuing the integration project with new force and establishing an EU identity against others, rather than an objective analytical concept.
The basic hypothesis was that the EU's chances to act as a mediator, or to transform conflicts through association agreements and other forms of partnerships, largely depends on this acceptance of the notion of normative power Europe, he stated. The research draws upon the cases of Cyprus and Israel/Palestine as examples. It aimed at developing a theoretical framework with which the basic hypothesis can be studied, to discuss initial examples, and to draw out the political and normative consequences from the relationship between normative power Europe and conflict transformation, especially in light of our earlier criticism of the EU's self-construction.
Panel III: Eclipsing the public-private distinction? Conceptualizing the role of non-state actors in the social construction of threats and trust Chair: Anna Leander (Copenhagen Business School)
Till Förster (University of Basel),
“Maintenant, on sait qui est qui” Till Förster presented a Report of an ongoing research project conducted in different places in Côte d’Ivoire. Förster explained that the main data used in his presentation came from direct observations and statements of the actors. The actors were the authors of social reality. The research was divided in two fieldworks. One was to identify the major issues of social change – in particular with regard to trust - and the second to record how the main types of trust have transformed since the beginning of the crisis.
In some villages of Côte d’Ivoire, as security matters concerns, conseils civils often replaced former administrative bodies. Self defence groups are often absent but considered as desirable and “traditional” hunters’ associations hold the monopoly of power in some villages. According to Förster, the country has faced many changes in different scopes. Concerning employment, the citizens seem to complain about the situation of employment because many companies have left the country, the investments have gone to other markets and the official employment is disappearing. Nevertheless, they believe that there are many new opportunities to improve their situation, he stated.
Förster then moved on explaining to the public that the state has faded, but some expectations remain, such as the expectation of political order and the expectation of governance. Moreover, some public goods are still delivered within certain limits, like security, travel possibilities, water, education and public health.
To conclude, Förster highlighted the fact that since 2002, a new and fairly stable social order emerged in Côte d’Ivoire and the expectations of the actors are oriented towards reliable practices. The new socio-political order contains and incorporates elements of the former state and has lead to a novel practice of statehood in a “stateless” society, remaining most of these elements formal.
Gregor Dobler (University of Basel),
Constructing “crime” as public enemy in Namibia: the interplay between ‘public’ and ‘private’ actors After Namibia’s independence in 1990, “crime” has slowly replaced “imperialism” and “apartheid” as the main explanation for social evils, Dobler explained. According to him, even if real crime rates do not sound alarming, the public perception of crimes has radically changed. High-profile murder cases are widely discussed in the country and these discussions both express and heighten a feeling of insecurity. “The panga murderer” or “the B1 butcher” have become figures of national
importance on which a feeling of social insecurity is concentrated, he stressed.
Dobler’s presentation concentrated on how this threat is constructed by public and private actors, and how in the process, the distinction between both becomes more difficult to uphold. For instance, he used four examples to illustrate how crime is constructed as a social threat and how public social order changes through this construction, creating new dividing lines instead of the old public-private distinction. The examples explored were: 1) policy statements by high-profile politicians; 2) everyday work of private security firms in a Northern Namibian trade boom town; 3) interventions by human rights NGOs; and finally, 4) crime coverage in two national newspapers.
Christian Olsson (Sciences Po, Paris),
Market sovereignty or Privatisation of the State? Private Companies for Counterinsurgency Christian Olsson introduced his presentation by explaining that European history until the end of the 19th
century shows a wide set of configurations in which the public/ private boundaries were blurred as far as the means of military coercion are concerned. This was especially the case in colonial posessions. Today in Afghanistan and Iraq many doctrinal elements from colonial times are being reactualised, he continued. This takes special emphasis as far as counterinsurgency doctrine is concerned, Olsson stressed. It is a direct offspring of what the British called "Imperial Policing". While the focus is generaly put on so-called Private Military Companies (PMCs), the phenomenon is much broader.
For instance, "bottom up" privatisation of military coercion is currently being encouraged by international forces in Iraq throught the resort to so-called Awakening Councils, or "Concerned Local Citizens" (CLC) militias in order to fight the insurgency, he explained. The same can be said in Afghanistan were local "warlords" are being armed by US forces in order to fight against the Taleban. The British military is simultaneously encouraging the creation of Pashtun tribal militias, the so-called Arbakaï.
He then moved on underlining that private references are also integrated into "western" military practice. US Special Forces personnel in Afghanistan increasingly refer to themeselves as "warlords" when managing to place local militias under their control. To conclude, Olsson highlighted the fact that these practices of "bottom up" and "top-down" privatisation hence offer an interesting site from which to reconsider the current blurring of the public/ private distinction in armed conflict.
Luke A. Patey (Copenhagen Business School),
The Limits of Compassion: The United States, China, and the Sudan Divestment Campaign Luke A. Patey started his presentation explaining how the Sudan divestment campaign grew rapidly across the United States from the extraordinary attention drawn to the Darfur conflict over the past five years. On his point of view, under the banner of the Save Darfur activist network, the divestment movement called for international companies to exit Sudan in an effort to apply an economic lever on the political behaviour of the Sudanese government. However, he continued, while the impact of the human-rights motivated divestment campaign in the United States is increasingly evident, its effectiveness in producing actual results in Sudan remains suspect.
A trio of Asian national oil companies from China, India and Malaysia continue to drive oil development in Sudan, producing ample revenues for the Sudanese government in spite of the moral outcries linking them to atrocities in Darfur, he said. According to him, the agendas of advocacy groups have found their way into the debate on security in Africa, but remain unable to overcome the interests of foreign governments on the continent. The allegiance of Beijing and Washington to attaching priority to economic and political interests beyond Darfur stands out in limiting the influence of the divestment campaign. However, these barriers are not necessarily holding back a panacea to the Darfur conflict. The tactics of divestment campaign also remain questionable in failing to prioritize the demands of the Sudanese population, he concluded.
Open discussion on the social construction of threat and the changing relation between liberty and security Led by Didier Bigo and Jef Huysmans
Didier Bigo and
Jef Huysmans closed the conference by giving an overview of the main lines and ideas put forward during the conference. Furthermore, this panel also consisted on an exchange of ideas about how to take the issues raised during the conference beyond the COST Action. Bigo and Huysmans also reflected on the close collaboration carried out between the COST Action A24 and the CHALLENGE project and on the ideas that have been come out from this fruitful cooperation.
Bigo and Huysmans then concluded the conference thanking the COST programme, as well as the CHALLENGE project, all the speakers, local organizers, and the audience for providing high level discussions on the matters at stake, exchange of views and for making this event possible.
Programme of the conference (.pdf file)
Scientific report (.pdf file)
Activities 
