Conclusion: More Security, More Politics

The conclusion reasserts that professional politicians are more active on security than ever before, and that although parliamentary politics is deeply unfashionable among critical scholars, it is precisely this unfashionableness that makes it so important in this context. If ‘security’ can increasingly be found in this most ‘normal’ of political arenas, then we cannot seriously maintain that security is inherently exceptional and anti-political. The chapter revisits the debate on security as a state of exception, arguing that if security is increasingly part of normal politics, and not a damaging exception to it, then we need to rethink our very understanding of security. The exclusions, prerogatives, taboos, boundaries, hierarchies and symbolic inequalities that elevated security above normal politics have been diluted by new security practices and problematisations. As these have proliferated, they have spilled into the normal political arena and the activities of politicians. The chapter demonstrates this argument by summarising the book’s story of UK security politics over four decades from the 1980s onwards, discussing issues of parliamentary marginalisation, influence, voice, and oversight. Finally, the chapter concludes that more security does not mean less politics, it means more.

Security as a Whole-of-Government Project: Risk, Economy, Politics

This chapter departs from others by focusing on government as a site of politics. It finds the same trend at work: ‘security’ has been migrating out from a ‘black box’ at the dark heart of the state and into the wider reaches of government, encroaching on all policy areas and all government departments. Building on current literatures on risk, the chapter argues that central to this trend is the rise of a risk-based based rationality in government, which supplants the traditional threat-based security logic with one based on possibilities. The chapter argues that this allows ‘security’ to become subordinate to other political goals such as economic growth, relativising its traditional existential claim on political rationality.

Security as Normal Politics: The Rise of Security in Parliamentary Committees

This chapter uses the rise in parliamentary committee engagement with ‘security’ to examine the migration of ‘security’ into ‘normal politics’. At the same time, it examines changing problematisations of security in committee activity. The chapter presents committee politics as a different kind of ‘political game’ in security. Although partisanship does play a role, at stake is not so much victory over the other side, but rather legitimacy and effectiveness in holding the government to account. The chapter discusses a number of explanations for the rise in activity on security, such as general increases in parliamentary activism over the same period, and a mirroring of security topics that appear in government activity and wider political debate. The chapter gives evidence to the book’s central claim that ‘security’ has been migrating into the ‘arena’ of ‘normal politics’.

Politicians, Security Politics and the Political Game

Drawing on research interviews with politicians, including three former cabinet ministers and a former member of the UK Intelligence and Security Committee, this chapter describes the historical ‘rules of the game’ of security politics and how they are being challenged. It explores two angles: the problematisations expressed by politicians themselves, and a broader analysis of the structured power relationships in which they are enmeshed. It examines what happens within the ‘arena’ of ‘normal politics’ as it relates to security and why: certain formal and informal ‘rules’, conventions, norms, and power structures have worked to reproduce the institutional and symbolic dominance of the state and marginalised most actors in the political arena. Using concepts from Pierre Bourdieu, it analyses how non-government politicians have helped to reproduce their own marginalisation through practices of deference and self-exclusion. The final part argues that the old ‘rules’ and conventions of security politics have not entirely disappeared but are changing. It discusses how parliamentary debates on Iraqi WMD in 2003 and military intervention in Syria in 2013 show that non-government politicians are increasingly questioning, resisting, and rejecting the old conventions of security, such as deference to the executive on intelligence assessments.

How Do We Know Security When We See It? Problematisation as Method

This chapter tackles a methodological problem posed by the premise of the book: if ‘security’ cannot be recognised by its ‘anti-political’ logic, then how can we know ‘security’ when we see it? The chapter sets out a methodology for identifying and analysing ‘security’ as a historical and contextual moving target, based on Michel Foucault’s notion of problematisation. This methodology is four things: first, empiricist - it analyses what people said and did when they articulated (security-related) problems and responded to them. Second, historical - it assumes that problematisations are specific to certain times and places and change over time. This negates any core logic or objective definition of ‘security’, leaving only historically specific problematisations of security. Third, reflexive - it reflects on the role of the critical analyst, who does not have an objective God’s eye view, but holds a particular position within history and a critical intent to challenge prevailing theoretical and political assumptions in the present. Fourth, the method of problematisation is a double move: it identifies and describes problematisations in context, and then amplifies and problematises them further for critical purposes. This makes the analyst an active player in the problematisation, not a disinterested observer.

Securitisation and Politicisation

This chapter sets out an original conceptual framework for analysing the shift of ‘security’ from discursive and institutional arenas of ‘exceptional politics’ to ‘normal politics’. It argues that this shift is a conceptual impossibility in securitisation theory, in which by definition an issue cannot be ‘security’ and part of ‘normal politics’ simultaneously. Introducing an alternative approach, the chapter engages the recent debate on politicisation and depoliticisation to unpick contradictions in security theory and develop a conceptual framework to distinguish forms of politicisation from securitisation. The argument is that these literatures conflate the political quality of issues with their institutional location, and that these should be disaggregated analytically. The chapter thus proposes a framework that reserves the terms securitisation, politicisation, and depoliticisation for qualitative changes in the intensity or salience of issues, and adopts the term ‘arena migration’ (rather than deliberate ‘arena shifting’) for the movement of issues, policies, or activities between different institutional locations. Migrations between arenas such as central government and legislatures matter politically because of the historical exclusions of security politics: it matters if ‘security’ is no longer confined to the ‘black box’ of sovereign decision and is increasingly present in the activities of ‘normal politics’.

In Defence of Politics against Security?

This chapter begins with the history of security as a form of ‘anti-politics’, from Hobbes to 20th century struggles to tame the ‘rogue elephant’ of the US intelligence services. It discusses the growth of security practices since 9/11 and reviews a range of key literature in security studies that perpetuates the ‘anti-politics’ idea. The chapter then explores the key concepts of the book including the meaning of ‘politics’, the stakes involved in defining what is and is not ‘political’, and the normative and analytical significance of the concept of ‘normal politics’ in relation to the ‘exceptional politics’ of security. It also discusses the ‘political game’ and ‘professional politics’ as the empirical focus of the book, framing this through works of Machiavelli, Weber, Foucault, and Bourdieu. The chapter closes by describing the overarching historical narrative and extended UK case study of the book: a four-decade shift from institutionalised forms of ‘exceptional’ security politics in 1980s to the current situation in which security is a ‘whole of government’ project that increasingly occupies the ‘normal’ activities of politics.

Can One Person Make a Difference? Fearless Speech vs. Security Politics

This chapter examines the status of ‘truth’ and ‘speech’ in security politics. It explores the dilemmas and limitations of different political mechanisms for speaking out on security in the social context of the traditional silencing and marginalising effects of security politics. Specifically, it does this though Michel Foucault’s work on ‘parresia’, the ancient Greek practice of ‘truth-telling’ or ‘free-spokenness’. For Foucault, parresia is an act of freely speaking out, when a speaker steps out of the regular political game and puts themselves at risk to speak a truth. The chapter argues that this offers a different perspective to other approaches to security such as the Copenhagen and Paris Schools, defying their pathways of expected behaviour in the political field. It explores ‘parresia’ though the example of British Conservative MP David Davis, who resigned his parliamentary seat in protest at the Labour government’s security policies in June 2008.