The Copenhagen School (CS), which emerged in the 1990s, has been and is being used to refer to the works of Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver, Jaap de Wilde and others studying international security. The CS has contributed to security studies by developing “a substantial body of concepts to rethink security, most notably through its notions of securitization and desecuritization.

At its base, the term ‘security’ involves the “alleviation of threats to cherished values” (Williams, 2008: 1). Both Realist and Liberal theories generally “explain security by identifying an objective situation as threatening to an objective entity” (Balzacq, 2011a: xiii). In other words, according to traditionalists, security means a freedom from any objective military threat to the state survival in an anarchic international system.

The traditional definition of security, however, is most commonly associated with political Realism that defines security as national security. In both classical and structural variants, Realism defines security in terms of national security in which the survival of the state is the main objective. Thus, “Realism is usually seen to emphasize the state as the main object of security, and war as the main threat to it”.

States pursue various strategies to guarantee their survival and fulfill their security needs. The most effective strategy that states employ to survive in the system, according to Realists, isbalance of power not bandwagon.

States can pursue a policy of balance of power in two ways: by increasing their own power, as when engaging in an armaments race or in the competitive acquisition of territory; or by adding to their own power that of other states, as when embarking upon a policy of alliances.

Bandwagon is the opposite of balance of power strategy. States following the strategy of bandwagon prefer to join the powerful state instead of balancing its power.

Realism and the CS. Whereas Realism argues that threats are objective; the CS argues that they are intersubjective. According to the CS “no issue is essentially a menace. Something becomes a security problem through discursive practices” (Balzacq, 2011b: 1).

The CS contributed to security studies in three major theoretical and conceptual ways: the theory of securitization, the notion of different sectors of security and regional security complex theory.

Regional security complexes was first developed by Buzan and fully analyzed by Buzan and Waever’s book Regions and Powers in 2003. They defined regional security complexes “as sets of units whose security processes and dynamics are so interlinked that security problems cannot reasonably be analyzed and resolved apart from one another” (Buzan and Wæver, 2003: 44). These security complexes are defined in terms of mutually exclusive geographic regions (McDonald, 2008: 68).

Referent objects: things that are seen to be existentially threatened and that have a legitimate claim to survival (Buzan et. al., 1998: 36)

Speech act: A speech act in linguistics and the philosophy of language is an utterance that has performative function in language and communication.

According to Austin, each sentence can convey three types of acts, the combination of which constitutes the total speech act situation:

1. locutionary-the utterance of an expression that contains a given sense and reference;

2. illocutionary-the act performed in articulating a locution.

3. perlocutionary, which is the “consequential effects” or “sequels” that are aimed to evoke the feelings, beliefs, thoughts or actions of the target audience (Balzacq, 2011b: 4-5).

Asecurity: A condition in which issues tend to remain un-securitized, and are dealt with primarily as political issues or considered as non-political.

Securitizing Move: An attempt to securitize an issue by labeling it as a security issue. Desecuritization:Shifting an issue out of the realm of securitization and emergency politics back into the realm of ‘normal’ political or technical debate.

Regional security complex theory (RSCT) was first developed by Barry Buzan in the 1980s. RSCT, like Neorealism, focuses on security. However, the difference between them lies in the levels of analysis they adapted in studying security. While Neorealism argues that the system level analysis best capture security relations in today’s world, RSCT argues that “the most relevant scale for conceptualizing military and political security functioned at the regional rather than the system level” (Kahrs, 2004: 64)

Acharya states that there are eleven RSCs in the world with three main categories. The main criterion in establishing those categories is the number of great powers located in each RSC (Acharya, 2007: 631). Three of those categories are called centered (North America, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and the EU-Europe), one is a great power complex(East Asia), and the remaining seven are standard(South America, South Asia, the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa).

While Neorealism argues that the system level analysis best capture security relations in today’s world, RSCT argues that “the most relevant scale for conceptualizing military and political security functioned at the regional rather than the system level” (Kahrs, 2004: 64). For RSCT, regional level is the best starting point in studying security and only after that should analysts proceed to interregional or global levels. Therefore, the CS argues, without looking at regional security dynamics first, it is harder to capture the basic logic of international security relations.

The Military Sector

Epistemic Communities: An epistemic community is a transnational network of knowledge-based experts who help decision- makers to define the problems they face, identify various policy solutions and assess the policy outcomes.

The first of the facilitating conditions is an ‘existential threat’ that legitimizes the use of extraordinary measures to deal with that threat.

The second condition for successful securitization entails a ‘securitizing actor’ who is in a position of authority and has enough social and political capital to convince an audience of the existence of an existential threat.

Third, an issue can be presented easily as an existential threat if objects associated with the issue carry historical connotations of threat, danger, and harm, or where a history of hostile sentiments exists.