Re-interpreting the Copenhagen School of Security Studies

This recently published article in Security Dialogue seeks to offer a way forward in discussions about the explanatory status of securitization theory. It shows how the speech act of "securitization" can be fruitfully understood as a "causal mechanism" in such an explanation. Such mechanisms are less than general causal regularities, but more than simple descriptive devices, and they can be conceptualized in a non-positivist manner (how-causality). The Copenhagen School so re-interpreted can then claim an explanatory status without contradicting its methodological foundations.

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