Energy Securitisation: Applying the Copenhagen School’s Framework to Energy

Abstract

Drawing on Buzan, Waever and Wilde—central to the so-called Copenhagen School in Security Studies—the chapter proposes a way of applying the classic formulation of the securitisation model to energy security. Signalling some important critique that the Copenhagen School model picked up over the last two decades, we propose some reformulations. This proves necessary, as ‘securitisation theory’ does not provide clear guidance for empirical research. Most importantly, extra-ordinary measures which should result from a securitising move—and so, the changes in political practice going beyond what is usually accepted—are specified in a way which enables empirical research of securitisation in the energy sector. Furthermore, we expand the idea of a security speech act, and shift the focus onto securitised discourses, rather than individual utterances. Finally, we delineate ‘securitisation proper’ from similar notions of riskification, security jargon and draw a (de-)securitisation ‘pendulum’, which can move from de-politicisation, through politicisation to securitisation.