Securitization as a Driving Force for Political Mobilization of National Movements

Abstract

During the “long” 19th century, people were not only becoming more mobile through new means of communication, but they were also becoming more “mobile” in their attitudes and views. “Political mobilization” refers to a process found in (emerging) modern mass societies that considers the population as a resource to support its own goals. Political and social mass mobilization can be understood as a driving force in the processes of social and political modernization within societies: Increasing political mobilization becomes a power-political challenge and a threat to the ruling elites, who in turn try to rouse the population in support of their concerns – hence, mobility could be understood as a motivating power for threat scenarios and perceptions, through which mobility itself becomes an object of security-related politics. Hence, we find securitizing and counter-securitizing practices and discourses: Mobility concerns social/societal security (internal security) as well as – with regard to nationalization processes – the question of ethno-cultural security, too. Within this frame, the chapter examines political mobilization at the local level in multi-ethnic and at the same time imperial contexts against the backdrop of nationalization and socio-political modernization processes: It assumes that mobilization for one’s own nation with the goal of political integration and legitimization of political goals is dependent on processes of security in contrast to other nationalities. The “other nation” is perceived as a threat to the status of one’s own nation, so that corresponding hermeneutics and repertoires of securitizing political mobilization develop out of it. In this chapter, the nexus between (political-national) mobilization and securitization is reconstructed.