White Supremacy as an Existential Threat: A Response to Rita Floyd’s The Morality of Security: A Theory of Just Securitization

Abstract

Rita Floyd’s The Morality of Security: A Theory of Just Securitization is an important and insightful book that delineates a theory of just securitization (modified from the jus ad bellum and jus in bello criteria in just war theory) involving three sets of principles governing the just initiation of securitization, just conduct of securitization, and just desecuritization. This book is a much- needed addition to the security studies and just war literature. Here, I apply Floyd’s just securitization theory (JST) to the threat posed by white supremacy to African Americans. I argue that white supremacy meets Floyd’s definition of an objective existential threat, potentially justifying the resort to securitization by African Americans. In Section 1, I argue that African Americans constitute a non-state group, before demonstrating in Section 2 that white supremacy poses an objective existential threat to this group, meeting the criterion of just cause in Floyd’s JST. In Section 3, I show that, given the failure of legal challenges and democratic processes to mitigate this threat, African Americans may be justified in resorting to extraordinary measures to combat the threat of white supremacy, including “whatever most reasonable persons would agree constitutes exceptional means and actions ... non-state state groups within states. securitization can take the form of secession, civil disobedience, acts of sabotage and resistance”. Applying Floyd’s JST to the threat of white supremacy demonstrates the value of her approach for thinking about securitization outside the traditional foci of security studies but, as I discuss in my conclusion, also reveals limitations in her theory, particularly in relation to the criterion of reasonable chance of success when applied to non-state groups resisting an unjust state.