Ontological (In)Security and the Kurdish Issue in Turkey: The Use of Security Discourse (1925‒1984)

How could one account for the discourse of security used by the Turkish state considering the Kurdish issue before 1984, when the terrorist attacks of the Partiya Karkaren Kurdistani (PKK) had not yet started, and hence there was no physical security threat against the state? This article aims to answer this question from the perspective of ontological (in)security. Based on Critical Discourse Analysis of state discourse, the article argues that the political, social and cultural traits of Kurdish identity created uncertainty in the Turkish self after the Sheikh Said rebellion in 1925. Tribal/religious structures that were influential among Kurds and the expression of Kurdishness as a distinct identity disrupted the autobiographical narratives about Turkishness, hence generating ontological insecurity for the Turkish state. To overcome this problem, the state relied on security discourse and securitized the traits of Kurdish identity, by which it felt threatened. As a result of this securitization, the state was able to legitimize the extraordinary measures taken against Kurds, such as forced resettlements. Securitization, in this sense, regenerated ontological security for the state, because the extraordinary measures served to suppress the Kurdish identity that threatened the certainty and continuity of the Turkish self.

Features of Discursive Structures in Political Communication

This article is devoted to the study of the discursive structures of political texts published on Twitter of the President of the United States. The material of the study was the statements of Donald Trump and Joe Biden during the period from November 1, 2019 to August 31, 2021. Its multimillion audience of subscribers makes Twitter a powerful political tool with the ability to influence public opinion. The purpose of this article is to identify the discursive structures arising in political communication as a result of the actualization of the category of discursive heterogeneity, which includes elements of interdiscursiveness and polydiscursiveness. The authors use various methods: descriptive, contextual analysis, comparative, methods of observation, content analysis and discourse analysis. Using the linguistic concept of the American scientist D. Himes S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G, the analysis of the situation components Setting and scene, Participants, Ends, Act Sequence, Key, Instrumentalities, Norms, Genre is carried out. Being a part of the media discourse and demonstrating the features of the Internet genre, the written messages of politicians are laconic, expressive, and tend to economize on linguistic means. The same communicants, depending on the context of utterances, become participants in different types of discourses. The study analyzes the foreign and domestic political discourses, the security discourse, as well as a number of accompanying special discourses that constitute political communication. The choice of the subject matter of the messages is due to the high degree of importance of issues of foreign and domestic policy, as well as stability and security.

Climate Change and Security: Filling Remaining Gaps

As perception of climate change as a threat to humanity and to ecosystems grows, the rapidly growing literature increasingly refers to the notion of “climate change and security,” for which there is as yet no single agreed definition. Despite the extent of literature already published, there are at least three remaining gaps: (1) Added theoretical value: How does “climate change and security” differ from similar notions such as “climate crisis” and “climate emergency”? What theoretical gains can be made by securing against climate change? (2) Role of non-state actors: The traditional concept of security is tightly bound to the notion of national security, but the climate change and security discourse opens the door to the participation of non-state actors such as the business sector, local government, and citizens. How do they take part in ensuring security? (3) Regional imbalance: Most of the literature on climate change and security published so far comes from Europe and North America. As other regions, such as Asia, are just as affected, more voices should be heard from those regions. This issue aims to address some of these gaps. The nine articles in this issue address the notion of “climate change and security” through empirical work while theoretically contributing to several themes relating to the climate change and security discourse.

The Role of the Courts in Advancing Water Security in South Africa

This article explores the role which courts could play in promoting water security in South Africa. As the country is one of the driest on the continent, its water security issues remain at the forefront of the service delivery conundrum. Therefore, issues of water security often need to be litigated to arrive at a favourable and just outcome. This is where the focus of this article lies. Based on a critical analysis of the legal framework governing water security and relevant case law, the article argues that courts could promote water security by discharging certain duties. Firstly, the courts must uphold the applicable law by weighing the rights and interests that relate to water and must then make reasonable, just and equitable findings. Secondly, the courts must solve water-related disputes between parties by interpreting and applying the applicable laws and policies. It is submitted that by executing these two functions, the courts contribute to a deeper understanding of the water security discourse. Finally, it is argued that through the execution of their traditional judicial functions, courts contribute to the making of law that directly affects water security.

Gender and International Security

Thinking about security as a feminist international lawyer is necessarily complex and invites multiple layers of inquiry. Gender analysis commences with seeing the gendered consequences of security discourse and practice. That is, understanding women’s different experiences of insecurity in conflict, peace, and post-conflict spaces as well as different women’s experiences of those same spaces. Simultaneously, gender analysis questions the prevalence of military masculinities, the dynamics of hegemonic masculinity in the perpetuation of insecurity, and the continuum of gendered insecurity from the local to the international. Gender is thus an important conceptual and analytical tool for understanding traditional (state-centric) forms of international security, including collective security, the law of armed conflict, and post-conflict structures. However, feminist understandings of international security extend beyond traditional approaches to security, engaging everyday insecurity as a means to understand gendered insecurities from the local to the international, while centering the relationship between law and violence, challenging military masculinities, identifying the perpetuation of power and intersection of gender with race and colonialism, and asserting the value of knowledge production from transnational feminist networks. Contemporary feminist approaches have placed significant emphasis on the hypervisibility of conflict-related sexual violence and women’s access to political participation, however contemporary cutting-edge contributions call for deeper engagement with issues, including the recognition of intersectional, critical race, and transnational feminist interventions, the role of technology in international security, the need for a feminist, queer-antiracist politics within international security discourse, and the gendered and embodied reality of disability as a consequence of security threats. Much of the international legal scholarship, and the wider field of international relations where many of the pivotal texts emerge, centers the women, peace, and security agenda developed by the United Nations Security Council that was drafted after the shift toward human security in the 1990s. Yet this ignores the complex theorizations of gender from non-mainstream feminist contexts and risks the reproduction of modes of agents and victims that are aligned with the history of international law’s civilizing mission. International security, when viewed from a gender lens, thus offers the scholar a series of mechanisms for understanding the deep structures of international law while simultaneously challenging the mainstream production of gender as shorthand for women. The article includes a section on health that reflects the fact that it was prepared during the COVID-19 pandemic and the extended attention to the gendered elements of health insecurity that emerged at this time.

Contribution of Conservation Agriculture to Soil Security

Soil securitization is increasingly becoming a quintessential currency for attaining sustainable development given the mounting global concerns of land degradation, loss of biological diversity and associated ecosystem services, climate change, food insecurity, and water stress. A well-functioning soil is a panacea to address these global concerns. This paper describes the contribution of conservation agriculture (CA) to biological diversity protection, climate change adaptation and mitigation, ecosystem service delivery, food security, and water security as a potential entry point for soil securitization. Using a review of literature, we share some insights into the contribution of CA to the soil security discourse. In our review, we also make key recommendations for good practices under each soil security pillar. Thus, we conclude that empirical research is required to deepen our understanding of the benefits of CA in soil security, especially in developing countries.