Insecurity as Imagination: Securitization and Reproduction of Knowledge about Insecurity, The United States and Iraq (January 2002 – March 2003)

Abstract

This dissertation is a political sociology of production of knowledge about insecurity that focuses on the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003 as its empirical study. Inspired by Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology and the insights of Critical Discourse Analysis, it analyzes the media coverage of Iraq in order to identify ‘actors with the capacity to make statements’ and their contributions to the process of securitization. In addition to its analysis of agency, it offers a theorization of time in security and securitization. By analyzing evidence (intelligence), it explores the question of ‘acceptance of audience’ in Securitization Theory. Contextualizing securitization in a broader social space, this project argues that securitization can be understood as the double movement of soft and hard securitizations that respectively refer to reproduction of language and construction of existential threat.