Haacke & Williams (2008)

This article was downloaded by: [University of Indonesia]
On: 21 September 2011, At: 21:05

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Security Studies
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fsst20
Regional Arrangements, Securitization,

and Transnational Security Challenges:
The African Union and the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations Compared
a b
Jüürgen Haacke & Paul D. Williams
a
Department of International Relations, London School of Economics
and Political Science,
b
Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington
University,
Available online: 03 Dec 2008
To cite this article: Jüürgen Haacke & Paul D. Williams (2008): Regional Arrangements, Securitization,
and Transnational Security Challenges: The African Union and the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations Compared, Security Studies, 17:4, 775-809
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09636410802508014
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation
that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any
instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary
sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings,
demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly
in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Security Studies, 17: 775–809, 2008
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0963-6412 print / 1556-1852 online
DOI: 10.1080/09636410802508014
Regional Arrangements, Securitization, and

Transnational Security Challenges:
The African Union and the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations Compared
JÜRGEN HAACKE and PAUL D. WILLIAMS

Downloaded by [University of Indonesia] at 21:05 21 September 2011
This article seeks to contribute to debates about how regional ar-

rangements construct and respond to threat agendas. It does so
by using the literature on the concept of securitization to explore
the processes through which the African Union (AU) and the As-
sociation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have dealt with con-
temporary transnational challenges. After providing an overview of
the Copenhagen School’s (CS) understanding of securitization, we
examine the main problems and limitations that emerge when at-
tempting to apply the concept of securitization to regional arrange-
ments in the developing world. The article explores in particular
the extent to which the AU and ASEAN have securitized the transna-
tional challenges on their agendas. We conclude that in both cases
the impact of security culture as well as unresolved conceptual and
methodological issues raise significant questions when seeking to
apply securitization theory outside of Europe.
INTRODUCTION
The question of how states respond to threats has long been debated within
security studies. Arguably, Stephen Walt’s “balance-of-threat” theory has been
Jürgen Haacke is senior lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the Lon-
don School of Economics and Political Science.
Paul D. Williams is associate professor in the Elliott School of International Affairs, George
Washington University.
We would like to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers from Security Studies
for their constructive criticisms. We also acknowledge research support provided by the UK
Economic and Social Research Council’s New Security Challenges Programme (Project Grant
RES 223-25-0072)
775
776 J. Haacke and P. D. Williams
the main point of departure for how contemporary realists think about these
issues, especially within the context of alliance formation and development.1
Walt’s approach focused on the importance of four factors affecting the level
of perceived threat (aggregate power, perceptions of intent, the offense-
defense balance, and geographic proximity) in order to assess when states
balance or bandwagon and why they do so. His insights have triggered both
critical discussions and theoretical refinements of balance-of-power theory,2
as well as applications of balance-of-power and balance-of-threat theory to
different regions.3
In Europe, meanwhile, a strand of constructivism commonly identified
as the Copenhagen School has developed a framework for thinking about
responses to threat agendas based on the concept of “securitization.”4 Its
authors see it as complementary to theories about structural determinants

of security behavior.5 Unlike balance-of-threat theory, however, the Copen-
hagen School focuses on how particular developments or issues are discur-
sively constructed as security threats that are to be met with countermeasures.
The Copenhagen School’s framework offers a less state-centric approach to
thinking about responses to threats than Walt’s balance-of-threat theory, and
it also operates with a broader concept of security. This makes it particu-
larly amenable to analyzing state responses to transnational or nontraditional
threats. Significantly, however, the Copenhagen School has not adequately
addressed how its concept of securitization might be applied to the level of
regional arrangements and the processes involved in the collective construc-
tion of, and responses to, threat agendas.
This article addresses this gap by exploring the extent to which the
Copenhagen School’s concept of securitization can help us understand how
regional arrangements construct and respond to threat agendas. Specifically,
it applies the securitization idea to assess and compare the significance which
1 Stephen M. Walt, “Alliance Formation and the Balance of World Power” International Security 9,
no. 4 (1985): 3–43; Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987),
21–26; Stephen M. Walt, “Alliances, Threats and US Grand Strategy,” Security Studies 1, no. 3 (1992):
448–82; and Stephen M. Walt, Revolution and War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), 19.
2 See, for example, the series of articles on “Balancing Acts” in International Security 30, no. 1 (2005):
7–139.
3 For example, Stephen M. Walt, “Testing Theories of Alliance Formation: The Case of Southwest
Asia,” International Organization 42, no. 2 (1988): 275–316; Steve Yetiv, “The Travails of Balance of
Power Theory: The United States in the Middle East,” Security Studies 15, no. 1 (2006): 70–105; and
Robert S. Ross, “Balance of Power Politics and the Rise of China: Accommodation and Balancing in East
Asia,” Security Studies 15, no. 3 (2006): 355–95.
4 See Ole Wæver, Barry Buzan, Morten Kelstrup, and Pierre Lemaitre, Identity, Migration and the New
Security Agenda in Europe (London: Routledge, 1993); Ole Wæver, “Securitization and Desecuritization,”
in Ronnie D. Lipschutz, ed. On Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 46–86; Barry
Buzan, Ole Wæver, and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner, 1998); Bill McSweeney, “Identity and Security: Buzan and the Copenhagen School,” Review of
International Studies 22, no. 1 (1996): 81–94.
5 For example, Barry Buzan and Ole Waever, Regions and Powers: The Structure of International
Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

Regional Arrangements, Securitization, and Transnational Security Challenges 777
the African Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have at-
tached to contemporary transnational challenges, which in many ways are
more concerning to decision makers in these regions than state-based threats.
The AU and ASEAN also represent the primary multilateral arrangements in
their respective region and, as such, possess particular significance for cur-
rent debates about international peace and security. We are not aware of any
previous attempt to analyze the process of securitization within the AU, and
while some analysts have started to address this issue in relation to ASEAN,
we remain unconvinced by some of their conclusions. In this sense, the ar-
ticle constitutes an early exploration into an area worthy of more detailed
research.
The contributions of the Copenhagen School are the original starting
point to understand what securitization is and how it works. However, se-

curitization theory has been criticized on several fronts, raising questions
whether its original formulation is adequate to ascertain and discuss securiti-
zation by regional arrangements. While this article reinforces some of these
criticisms, it nevertheless reaffirms securitization as a useful theoretical tool
to cast light on the ways in which regional arrangements have prioritized
among transnational challenges and the extent to which they are regarded
as existential threats to regional referents of security. Both Africa and South-
east Asia have in recent years faced a plethora of nontraditional challenges
including the trafficking of humans, drugs, and small arms and light weapons
(not least in support of insurgencies), transnational terrorism, illegal migra-
tion, piracy and other maritime challenges, environmental degradation, and
deadly diseases.6 Analyzing which of these transnational challenges, if any,
the AU and ASEAN have not only politicized but also securitized, and how their
responses have differed, will thus shed some light on how the two regional
arrangements compare.
At the same time, the article also highlights further questions not yet ex-
plicitly dealt with by securitization theory, namely, what securitization by re-
gional arrangements would involve and, in the context of multilateral political
and security cooperation, whether securitization requires the endorsement or
the implementation of “emergency” or special measures. Recent attempts to
improve on the original account of securitization either do not address these
issues or do not do so persuasively. In addition, there remain important
methodological questions about how to study securitization in the context of
multilateral cooperation. There also remain important questions about why
particular actors, issues, or developments may become securitized.
To explore these issues, the article is divided into six parts. It begins
with a review of the Copenhagen School’s securitization theory and some
6 For example, see Kwesi Aning, Africa: Confronting Complex Threats (Coping with Crisis Working
Paper Series, International Peace Academy, New York, February 2007); and Andrew T. H. Tan and J. D.
Kenneth Boutin, ed., Non-Traditional Security Issues in Southeast Asia (Singapore: Select Books, 2001).
of the key criticisms made by its detractors. Drawing on both, the second
section clarifies our understanding of securitization. The third section then
provides a brief definition of transnational challenges, while the fourth and
fifth sections analyze the extent to which the AU and ASEAN have successfully
securitized those transnational challenges that have been on their agendas.
The final section compares and contrasts the findings of the two cases and
assesses the implications, with regard to both securitization theory and the
collective security policies of the two regional arrangements.
The article offers a number of conclusions: (1) the question of whether
collective securitization has occurred is at the heart of assessments of how
regional arrangements construct threat agendas; (2) collective securitization
by regional arrangements can be ascertained on the basis of shared un-
derstandings about threats and the endorsement of special measures to ad-

dress these; it does not depend on the implementation of “emergency mea-
sures”; (3) both case studies demonstrate that securitization theory fails to
adequately make allowance for the continuum along which decision makers
would seem to categorize challenges: a continuum regarding their manage-
ment that would stretch from everyday political problems, to concerns, risks,
threats, and sometimes even existential threats; (4) contrary to other works,
we find that ASEAN has not unambiguously securitized transnational crime,
but its declarations, agreements, and practical responses suggest it has secu-
ritized terrorism and also identified transnational disease as at least a potential
existential threat to the region; in comparison, the AU has regularly invoked
the language of threats vis-à-vis a wide range of issues, but has arguably se-
curitized an equally limited number of transnational challenges, particularly
infectious diseases and terrorism; (5) collective securitization of transnational
challenges has in significant measure been the AU’s and ASEAN’s response to
the potential security and political implications of not supporting U.S. policy
and perceived requirements stemming from state and regime interests; and
(6) the collective securitization of specific transnational challenges reflects
the broader security discourses of regional or continental arrangements; our
analysis of the AU and ASEAN shows that members of such arrangements buy
into a shared security discourse that de-emphasizes or silences particular
security issues, including some of those with a transnational dimension.
Securitization and Its Critics

Constructivist approaches to the study of security have been much debated
and are now widely regarded as making a considerable contribution to the
field.7 Since its development in the mid-1990s, the concept of securitization
employed by the Copenhagen School of security studies has had a significant
7 For overviews see Michael Desch, “Culture Clash: Assessing the Importance of Ideas in Security
Studies,” International Security 23, no. 1 (1998): 141–70; Ted Hopf, “The Promise of Constructivism
impact on the way analysts think about the construction of security agendas.
It thus serves as a useful starting point for exploring the extent to which the AU
and ASEAN have securitized transnational challenges. The idea of securitization
derives from Ole Wæver’s argument that a security issue does not normally
just exist objectively out there but is constructed discursively. Drawing on
John L. Austin, he maintains that to make something a security issue requires
a speech act, an initial validity claim. In Wæver’s words,
What . . . is security? With the help of language theory, we can regard

“security” as a speech act. In this usage, security is not of interest as a
sign that refers to something more real; the utterance itself is the act. By
saying it, something is done (as in betting, giving a promise, naming a
ship).8
Notably, the invocation of the term “security” as a speech act is not syn-
onymous with a successful instance of securitization. Rather, its utterance
represents merely the starting point of a two-stage process of securitization.
As the CS state, the essence of the first stage is “to present an issue as urgent
and existential, as so important that it should not be exposed to the normal
haggling of politics but should be dealt with decisively by top leaders prior
to other issues.”9 The second stage involves a subsequent assenting move
by a relevant audience to the countermeasures proposed to meet the threat
at hand. If the securitizing move is rejected, no securitization occurs. For the
CS, therefore, securitization requires an audience to accept that the breaking
of existing rules or the adoption of some kind of emergency remedial action
is legitimate in the face of an existential threat. Securitization is thus not only
intersubjective but also distinct from the mere politicization of an issue.
Securitization theory emerged in the context of almost universal accep-
tance that the concept of security should be broadened beyond the military
sector to include a focus on political, economic, societal, and environmental
security.10 Securitization theory thus builds on thinking about security that
has identified a set of referent objects beyond the physical integrity of the
state. These include sovereignty or a legitimizing ideology, a shared identity,
and the economy. The pioneering work of Barry Buzan in this regard has
been paralleled by efforts to shift the level of analysis from the state to the
individual and the international.11 Just as the question “whose security?” is
in International Relations Theory,” International Security 23, no. 1 (1998): 171–200; and Theo Farrell,
“Constructivist Security Studies: Portrait of a Research Paradigm,” International Studies Review 4, no. 1
(2002): 71–92.
8 Wæver, “Securitization and Desecuritization,” 55.
9 Buzan et al., Security, 29.
10 As set out by Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies
in the Post-Cold War Era (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 2nd ed., 1991).
11 For example, see Ken Booth, “Security and Emancipation,” Review of International Studies 17,
no. 4 (1991): 313–27; Caroline Thomas, Global Governance, Development and Human Security (London:
important, so is the question of “who securitizes?” Buzan and Wæver have

an open mind in this regard, and while they initially focused on state ac-
tors, their theory allows nonstate actors to assume this role.12 Though the CS
now claims that “no one conclusively ‘holds’ the power of securitization,” its
adherents suggest that in practice “the field is structured or biased” in favor
of states.13 This article is mainly concerned with security challenges as per-
ceived by incumbent governments and their senior officials, while acceding
to an understanding of comprehensive security, even in the context of the
search for regime security.
For the CS, security is about survival.14 Consequently, potential threats
“have to be staged as existential threats to a referent object by a securitizing
actor.”15 Despite this emphasis, the CS has been somewhat reluctant to define
what precisely it means by an “existential threat”; arguing that the “essen-

tial quality of existence will vary greatly across different sectors and levels
of analysis; therefore, so will the nature of existential threats.”16 Within the
political sector, existential threats target the sovereignty and ideology of the
state, and as the CS argues, these “can be existentially threatened by anything
that questions recognition, legitimacy, or governing authority.”17 In the soci-
etal sector, however, they maintain that, “it is extremely difficult to establish
hard boundaries that differentiate existential from lesser threats.”18 Never-
theless, when collective identities are the referent object, migrants or rival
identities may be seen as posing possible existential threats.19 Difficulties in
pinpointing threats also pertain to the economic sector because the economy
doing better or worse is not in itself an existential threat.
MAIN CRITICISMS OF THE COPENHAGEN SCHOOL
Analysts have advanced numerous criticisms of securitization theory. These

can be broadly divided into two categories: first, wholesale or partial critiques
developed from external perspectives; and, second, points developed more
along the lines of an immanent critique, focusing in particular on the lack
of conceptual clarity within the CS framework. Wholesale critiques include
the charge of Eurocentric ethnocentrism, not least because of the focus on
Pluto Press, 2000); and Astri Suhrke, “Human Security and the Interest of States,” Security Dialogue 30,
no. 3 (1999): 265–76.
12 Buzan and Waever, Regions and Powers, 44–45.
14 For the early CS argument that security is about survival, see Wæver, “Securitization and Desecu-
ritization,” 53.
16 Ibid., 21–22.
17 Ibid., 22.
18 Ibid., 23.
19 Wæver et al., Identity, Migration, and the New Security Agenda in Europe.
societal rather than state security.20 However, as is clear from CS writings, the
focus on societal security is not exclusive. Also, the CS concern with identity
as a security referent speaks to the reality confronted by many countries in
the developing world that are facing severe challenges and threats in rela-
tion to state- and nation-building as well as difficulties in maintaining social
harmony in multiethnic societies. Meanwhile, Critical Security Studies has
challenged the CS on several fronts, not least its understanding of security.21
Feminists add that the CS has ignored the important gendered dimensions of
security politics.22 There has also been criticism of the Copenhagen School’s
understanding of identity as “sociologically untenable” on the grounds that
it is so static and monolithic that it fails to appreciate the extent to which
all social identities are multiple, often competing, and in a constant state of
flux.23 While these points demonstrate the limitations of securitization the-

ory, they do not in our view completely undermine the utility of applying
securitization theory per se.
The question is whether internal inconsistency or conceptual weak-
nesses jeopardize this objective, and here at least four issues are apparent.
The first is about what counts as successful securitization. While maintaining
that securitization depends on a securitizing and an assenting move, the CS
has not been sufficiently clear about whether successful securitization re-
quires merely agreement on “emergency” counter-measures or whether it
also requires their actual implementation. On this the CS seems contradic-
tory. In one place, securitization is said to entail three core components:
existential threats, emergency procedures, and “effects on interunit relations
by breaking free of the rules.”24 Elsewhere, however, the CS states “we do
not push the demand so high as to say that an emergency measure has to
be adopted.”25 Accordingly, putting forward validity claims that a particu-
lar issue constitutes an existential threat to a particular referent and gaining
20 Mely Callabero-Anthony and Ralf Emmers, “Understanding the Dynamics of Securitizing Non-
Traditional Security” in Mely Caballero-Anthony, Ralf Emmers, and Amitav Acharya, eds., Non-Traditional
Security in Asia: Dilemmas in Securitization (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 5–6; and Claire Wilkinson, “The
Copenhagen School on Tour in Kyrgyzstan: Is Securitization Theory Useable Outside Europe?” Security
Dialogue 38, no. 1 (2007): 5–25.
21 See Pinar Bilgin, Ken Booth, and Richard Wyn Jones, “Security Studies: The Next Stage?” Nacão e
Defesa 84, no. 2 (1998): 131–57. Also see the contributions in Keith Krause and Michael C. Williams, ed.,
Critical Security Studies: Concepts and Cases (London: UCL Press, 1997); and Ken Booth, Theory of World
Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), chap 3.
22 Lene Hansen, “The Little Mermaid’s Silent Security Dilemma and the Absence of Gender in the
Copenhagen School” Millennium 29, no. 2 (2000): 285–306.

23 See Bill McSweeney, Security, Identity, and Interests: A Sociology of International Relations (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) as well as his earlier exchange with the CS: McSweeney, “Iden-
tity and Security”; Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver, “Slippery? Contradictory? Sociologically Untenable? The
Copenhagen School Replies” Review of International Studies 23, no. 2 (1997): 241–50; and Bill McSweeney,
“A Response to Buzan and Wæver” Review of International Studies 24, no. 1 (1998): 137–40.
25 Ibid., 25.
acceptance of the need for special action to counter it would constitute suc-
cessful securitization.
The argument that securitization should involve more than an exchange
of speech acts has attracted several adherents. Ralf Emmers, for instance, has
questioned “the significance of a securitisation process when it does not go
hand in hand with actions and policies to address the ostensible threat”26 and
asserted “that a full security act demands both a discourse of securitisation
and the implementation of extraordinary measures.”27 Others have similarly
emphasized an understanding of securitization as consisting of discursive
and nondiscursive elements.28 What stance one takes is important because
depending on what view is taken, very different conclusions about what
issues have been successfully securitized are inevitable.
The CS has also been criticized for the way in which it conceptualizes
the relationship between politics and security. Though its exponents argue
that securitization is about generating endorsement of special or emergency
measures beyond rules that would otherwise bind,29 it has been suggested
that such measures “may continue to be located within the political domain
and addressed through standard political procedures.”30 In other words, the
question is whether securitization necessarily always involves so-called emer-
gency measures that would be inconsistent with existing legal, political, or
ethical frameworks and constraints.
Related to this is a third criticism of securitization theory, which is fun-
damentally about the strength of the CS argument whereby the progression
from politicization to securitization of an issue or development rests on a sin-
gle speech act. The criticism is that only rarely, if ever, does an issue move
directly from being addressed within the realm of “normal” politics to action
suddenly requiring “emergency measures.” As Rita Abrahamsen has put it,
Rather than emergency action, most security politics is concerned with

the much more mundane management of risk, and security issues can be
seen to move on a continuum from normalcy to worrisome/troublesome
to risk and to existential threat—and conversely, from threat to risk and
back to normalcy. The process of securitization is thus better understood
26Ralf Emmers, Non-Traditional Security in the Asia-Pacific: The Dynamics of Securitisation (Singa-
pore: Eastern Universities Press, 2004), 15.
27 Ibid., 15.
28 Neal Imperial, “Securitisation and the Challenge of ASEAN Counter-terrorism Cooperation,” ed.
Melissa G. Curley and Nick Thomas (working paper, Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong, 2005). Also
see Alan Collins, “Securitization, Frankenstein’s Monster and Malaysian Education,” Pacific Review 18, no. 4
(2005): 565–86; and Nicole Jackson, “International Organizations, Security Dichotomies and the Trafficking
of Persons and Narcotics in Post-Soviet Central Asia: A Critique of the Securitization Framework,” Security
Dialogue 37, no. 3 (2006): 299–317.
30 Ralf Emmers, “Securitization” in Contemporary Security Studies, ed. Alan Collins (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007), 117.

as gradual and incremental, and importantly an issue can be placed on

the security continuum without necessarily ever reaching the category of
existential threat.31
A fourth criticism of securitization theory concerns its application in

empirical research. The CS has argued that the “way to study securitization is
to study discourse and political constellations.”32 Others have suggested that
evidence of successful securitization depends on particular indicators being
met. In this context Emmers and Caballero-Anthony, for instance, have put
forward a revised model for studying securitization involving seven steps:
identifying the existential threat and examining the process of securitization,
identifying the securitizing actors and their motivations, ascertaining whose
security is existentially threatened (national or human security), examining
the politics of threat identification, ascertaining the extent of securitization

on the basis of indicators (resource allocation trends, military involvement,
legislation, institutionalization),33 measuring the impact of securitization on
the level of the existential threat, and elucidating a range of variables possibly
affecting these aspects of securitization.34 Those arguing that securitization
theory has failed to engage sufficiently with the problem of how to analyze
insecurity that cannot be voiced, or that might aggravate the threat if it is
voiced, have accentuated the criticism of the Copenhagen School’s reliance
on discourse.35 Having spelled out the main premises of securitization theory
as well as what we take to be the main criticisms, the next section sets out
our position on securitization and the question of how to apply securitization
theory to regional arrangements.
From Securitization to Collective Securitization

The value of securitization theory is primarily as a framework that allows
for an understanding of the discursive construction of threat agendas and
responses. However, we submit that to operationalize this framework, not
least with reference to regional arrangements, it needs significant revision.
Retaining the core of securitization theory as put forward by the CS, we
submit that a successful act of securitization occurs when a securitizing move
is made and the audience considered relevant (which depending on the
31 Rita Abrahamsen, “Blair’s Africa: The Politics of Securitization and Fear” Alternatives 30, no. 1
(2005): 59.
33 The CS had argued that securitization “can be studied directly; it does not need indicators.” See
ibid., 25.
34 Mely-Caballero-Anthony and Ralf Emmers, “The Dynamics of Securitization in Asia” in Studying
Non-Traditional Security in Asia: Trends and Issues, comp. Ralf Emmers, Mely Caballero-Anthony, and
Amitav Acharya (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2006).
35 Hansen, “The Little Mermaid’s Silent Security Dilemma.”
state and case concerned could be the wider general public, elite opinion,
political party leaderships, government officials, or even be limited to only
the intelligence and security services, etc.) accepts both the claim that there
is an existential threat to a particular shared value and measures to address
the threat would be necessary and legitimate.36 This follows the Copenhagen
School’s position that an issue is securitized “only if and when the audience
accepts it as such.”37 It also follows from the basic understanding of what
acts of securitization involve, namely an exchange of validity claims.
Second, because securitization at heart involves an exchange of validity
claims only, we do not subscribe to the view offered by some critics of the
CS that successful securitization depends on the implementation of agreed
emergency measures. We do, however, concur with their point that securi-
tization may not necessarily always involve agreement on counter-measures

that break the normal bounds of political procedure or would under nor-
mal circumstances have been regarded as illegitimate. The reason is that the
actual experience, in many instances, remains that perceived security chal-
lenges are met in conformity with existing constitutional arrangements and
practices. At the same time, we also note there may be states where there
is no obvious separation between normal politics and security, particularly
when regime or even personal survival considerations trump the protection
of other referent objects or values. As the CS acknowledges, in some states
“normal politics is pushed into the security realm.”38
Third, we agree with Abrahamsen’s view that we should be thinking
of securitization in terms of a spectrum of how seriously issues are treated.
Instead of the Copenhagen School’s dichotomy between “politicization” and
“securitization,” issues can be treated with varying degrees of seriousness
and urgency. This continuum might stretch from issues failing to appear on
the official agenda at all, to being treated as political problems, concerns,
risks, threats, and sometimes even existential threats. In other words, most
issues shift position gradually rather than in one sudden defining moment.
In addition, we take issue with the CS penchant for concentrating attention
on the securitization of discrete existential threats. The idea that existential
threats can be dealt with in isolation from other threats and issues is rarely
borne out in practice.39 Real security agendas are usually messy, contested,
and have to cope with a variety of potentially less or more serious, and
perhaps even existential, threats simultaneously. This is particularly the case
36 The securitizing move need not always be made by state or government representatives. The
framework also allows for instance nonstate groups or organizations to securitize developments and
issues.
38 Ibid., 28.
39 To be fair, the Copenhagen School does acknowledge that in certain sectors, especially the societal
sector, it is hard to draw rigid boundaries between existential and lesser threats. See ibid., 23.
when dealing with such nebulous referents as sovereignty and collective

identities.40
Fourth, since securitization theory emphasizes the discursive construc-
tion of both threat agendas and the responses to them, a focus on what
claims relevant actors are making would seem broadly appropriate in the
first instance. As relevant, this analysis may be supplemented by an account
of the practical measures initiated as a consequence of the agreement to
define particular challenges as security threats.
SECURITIZATION BY REGIONAL ARRANGEMENTS
There is little doubt that securitization theory lends itself to being applied
at the level of regional arrangements. Although most of the Copenhagen

School’s early analysis focused on national or societal elites, in a recent coau-
thored book conceived as part of the securitization project, Buzan and Wæver
affirmed that securitization theory could be applied at the regional as well
as the societal or state level.41 What we call “collective securitization” is for
Buzan and Wæver a matter of the “scale” of securitization. By scale they
mean to what extent the securitization is shared by different actors within or
across regions.
Extrapolating the logic of securitization discussed above, it is possible
to conceive of securitization within a regional arrangement as involving one
or more securitizing actors within that arrangement identifying a particular
development or issue as an existential threat to a security referent, making
relevant validity claims, and finding a receptive audience among other re-
gional actors. Securitizing moves within a regional arrangement could thus be
expected to entail one or more governments claiming a particular develop-
ment both constituted a threat either to regional security or to the respective
national security of participants, and required a collective response. The no-
tion of collective securitization raises some important questions, however.
First, what is the relevant audience for collective securitization by a regional
arrangement? Second, does collective securitization involve decision making
other than through the normal procedures? Also, does collective securitiza-
tion involve agreement on the adoption of new security practices at odds with
the principles and norms of the regional arrangement in question? Finally,
how is collective securitization ascertained?
The relevant audience for collective securitization to occur within a re-
gional arrangement arguably tends to be limited to the state representatives
40 Jeff Huysmans, “Revisiting Copenhagen: Or, On the Creative Development of a Security Studies
Agenda in Europe,” European Journal of International Relations 4, no. 4 (1998): 501.

41 For instance, see the attempt to link securitization with classical security complex theory to achieve
an understanding of regional security in Buzan et al., Security, 42–45; and Buzan and Wæver, Regions
and Powers.
of participating countries, that is, leaders, ministers, and especially their se-
nior officials. The reason for this is the widespread absence of public spheres
across many regions and, more pertinently, the habitus of intergovernmental
decision making in matters of foreign policy and security.
As we see it, collective securitization by a regional arrangement demands
that the accepted decision-making procedures are duly observed. After all,
according to the CS a successful act of securitization depends on an audience
accepting a securitizing move. Cases where individual participants in a re-
gional arrangement have sought to hijack the latter to pursue their particular
security objectives cannot be considered to amount to collective securitiza-
tion of the arrangement as a whole if other participants have more or less
vehemently protested the legitimacy of such action. Examples include South
Africa’s attempt to invoke the backing of the Southern African Development

Community in support of its military operation in Lesotho (1998) and, sim-
ilarly, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Namibia’s claim to regional legitimacy when
dispatching forces to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1998). In other
words, for us, the failure by participants to agree on the legitimacy of a par-
ticular measure in response to a perceived shared sense of threat represents
a failure by the regional arrangement to securitize that threat.
Collective securitization by a regional arrangement may involve agree-
ment to institute new security practices that were hitherto regarded as il-
legitimate, but will not necessarily entail such a step. It is just as likely (if
not more) that the regional arrangement will seek to respond to a perceived
threat by way of tried and proven approaches. The nature of these will re-
flect the group’s shared understandings, that is, the security culture of the
participants of the regional arrangement, particularly as regards the latter’s
basic purpose and what is legitimate, and what is not. While members of
some regional arrangements might opt for joint implementation of agreed
measures, participants of other regional arrangements might favor national
implementation.
This leaves the question of how we study collective securitization. As
mentioned, the Copenhagen School suggests securitization is ascertained
through the study of discourse. Since it views securitization as an exchange
of validity claims, the focus on language to ascertain securitization is appro-
priate. However, rather than focusing on a comparative study of the national
discourse of individual participant states, we analyze the collective declara-
tory output of the regional arrangement on the grounds the initial securitizing
move is likely to be advanced among participants, rather than through pub-
lic diplomacy, and joint declarations and statements reflect the views of all
participants.
Yet focusing solely on the rhetorical output of regional arrangements
is not without its problems. For instance, the mention of an issue does not
necessarily equate to a consensus on its significance or how to deal with it.
Also, given the necessary give and take of diplomacy, it is useful to remember
members generally allow other participants to include issues and positions

in a joint communiqué even in the absence of full agreement, if the former
will have no relevant and significant impact. It is also common for chairs or
hosts of multilateral meetings to influence agendas and occasionally exert
disproportionate influence on collectively agreed texts.
Nevertheless, a careful examination of formal declarations and agree-
ments should go some way toward ascertaining whether securitization has
occurred, at least in the case of the AU and ASEAN. Neither regional arrange-
ment is dominated by a regional hegemon. Even bearing in mind that some
members are more powerful than others, we would assume that differences
about whether particular issues were considered to be a threat or whether
these required a collective response would find their way into text, primarily
in terms of ambiguous language and restrained tone. Indeed, we contend

that absence of statements or shared assessments in relation to what in some
quarters are regarded as potential or actual security issues signifies a lack
of agreement that the regional arrangement in question enjoys legitimacy to
deal with the perceived security threat in a particular manner. Also, close
attention to the language used could help in differentiating a number of in-
termediate steps between politicization and securitization, as identified by
Abrahamsen. There is of course the possibility that while some regional ar-
rangements would securitize in rhetorical terms they might not follow this up
with practical cooperation. Nevertheless, we offer brief illustrations, where
appropriate, to show how securitization has played out in practical terms
as well as additional insights about how regional arrangements differ when
securitizing.
Transnational Challenges
As this article is concerned with analyzing how the AU and ASEAN have re-
sponded to transnational challenges it is important to clarify what the transna-
tional entails. According to Thomas Risse-Kappen, transnational relations are
defined as “regular interactions across national boundaries when at least one
actor is a non-state agent or does not operate on behalf of a national gov-
ernment or an intergovernmental organization.”42 On the more specific issue
of transnational threats, the Princeton Project on National Security suggested
that these are “characterized by an event or phenomenon of cross-border
scope, the dynamics of which are significantly (but not necessarily exclu-
sively) driven by non-state actors (e.g. terrorists), activities (e.g. global eco-
nomic behaviour), or forces (e.g. microbial mutations, earthquakes).”43 In
42 Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Introduction” in Bringing Transnational Relations Back In, ed. Thomas
Risse-Kappen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 3.

43 Report of the Working Group on State Security and Transnational Threats, The Princeton Project
on National Security (2005), http://www.princeton.edu/∼ppns/conferences/reports/fall/SSTT.pdf, 3.

sum, the transnational appears to require the presence of nonstate actors,

activities, or forces that cross national borders.
It is important to note that transnational challenges do not necessarily
constitute security threats. Successful securitization is essential to a transna-
tional challenge becoming conceived as a security threat. Buzan and Wæver
label the securitization of environmental threats, epidemic diseases, orga-
nized crime, or drugs as niche securitization, whereby they subsume transna-
tional challenges that are securitized but do not make it to the very top of the
security agenda. In contrast, they claim terrorism and WMD proliferation are to
be understood as “top priority threats.”44 This is an interesting point but one
strongly informed by a Western or U.S. perspective. This article maintains that
real security agendas tend to be crowded and that it is an empirical question
as to which challenges and issues amount to priority or niche security threats.

Importantly, since the core security concerns of industrialized states may not
(fully) overlap with those of developing or weak states, the latter may also
attach different importance to specific transnational challenges.45 For us, the
question is which transnational challenges, if any, the AU or ASEAN have col-
lectively defined as threats to the region or the security of their members.
Securitizing Transnational Challenges in Africa

In what is the most comprehensive official document on what security threats
the AU faces in the contemporary period, the Solemn Declaration on a Com-
mon African Defence and Security Policy (CADSP) lists approximately thirty
common security threats apparently faced by all or some African countries.
The basic distinction is between those that are internal to Africa and those that
are external to Africa.46 The former are clustered under four headings: inter-
state conflicts/tensions, intrastate conflicts/tensions, unstable post-conflict sit-
uations, and other factors that engender insecurity. Transnational challenges,
although not explicitly identified as such, are largely subsumed under the
category of “other factors engendering insecurity” and include the insecu-
rity caused by the presence of refugees, the illicit proliferation, circulation
and trafficking of small arms and light weapons (SALW), infectious diseases
(such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis), human trafficking, drug trafficking, and
money laundering. The common external threats also include transnational
challenges, such as the adverse effect of globalization, WMD-related issues,
44 Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver, “Macrosecuritisation and Security Constellations: Reconsidering Scale
in Securitisation Theory” (paper presented at LSE Staff Research Seminar, 8 November 2006), 5.
45 See Muthiah Alagappa, ed. Asian Security Practice: Material and Ideational Influences (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1998); and Brian Job, “The Insecurity Dilemma: National, Regime, and State
Securities in the Third World,” in The Insecurity Dilemma: National Security of Third World States, ed.
Brian Job (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1992).
46 “Solemn Declaration on a Common African Defence and Security Policy,” agreed at the AU’s second
extraordinary summit, Sirte, Libya, 28 February 2004.

and cross-border crimes. While again not explicitly resorting to the terminol-
ogy of a transnational threat, African states have also identified what they
have referred to as “aggression” by nonstate actors, which is understood as
involving the use, intentionally and knowingly, of armed force or any hostile
act against the sovereignty, political independence, territorial integrity, and
human security of the population of a signatory state.47
In terms of their potential negative effects and references to them in AU
documents, it is appropriate to focus on how the AU has responded to four
transnational issues in particular: the trafficking of SALW, terrorism, infectious
diseases, and aggression by nonstate actors. To assess whether the AU has se-
curitized any of these challenges, this section provides a brief overview of rel-
evant declarations, decisions, and communiqués, adopted by the OAU/AU, the
Union’s Assembly, or its Peace and Security Council (PSC, the organ to which
the Assembly has delegated powers relating to peace and security issues),48
before establishing whether collective securitization has indeed occurred.
TRAFFICKING OF SMALL ARMS AND LIGHT WEAPONS
The AU’s key instrument on the issue of illicit arms trafficking remains the
Bamako Declaration on an African Common position on the Illicit Prolifera-
tion, Circulation, and Trafficking of Small Arms and Light Weapons, adopted
by the OAU in December 2000. This was agreed to in preparation for the
UN’s Program of Action (2001) and built upon a variety of earlier instruments
developed at the subregional level, particularly within West Africa. It was
not until 2004, however, that the issue resurfaced in the Union’s security dis-
course, specifically through the references in the PSC Protocol and the Solemn
Declaration on the CADSP to the scourge of SALW and landmines, and how they
posed a “serious impediment to Africa’s social and economic development”
and represented one of the threats that engender conflict on the continent.49
In addition, a Common African Position on Anti-Personnel Landmines was
adopted in September 2004. Amongst other things, this recommended that
the PSC “must remain seized with the issue of anti-personnel landmines” and
requested the AU Commission to develop a plan of action to facilitate the
implementation of the Common Position.
47 A list of such acts of aggression is given in Article 1 of the “African Union Non-Aggression and
Common Defence Pact,” Abuja, 31 January 2005.

48 “Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union” (9
July 2002), article 6(a) (hereafter “PSC Protocol”). The protocol came into force on 26 December 2003, and
the PSC was officially launched on 25 May 2004. Although the assembly constitutes the Union’s supreme
body, it has delegated its powers to the PSC to act as the primary forum through which the AU is supposed
to “promote peace, security and stability in Africa,” “PSC Protocol,” article 6(a). The current (2007–08)
members are Algeria, Angola, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo (Brazzaville), Egypt, Ethiopia,
Gabon, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, and Uganda.
49 “PSC Protocol,” 3; and “Solemn Declaration,” 5–6.
Yet in spite of these instruments, neither the AU Assembly nor the PSC has
given the issue of SALW trafficking or landmines serious prominence within
its public documents. As far as the Assembly is concerned, its decisions and
declarations have only once made reference to these issues, and then only
indirectly to say that the Union’s members needed to become parties to
more such instruments in order to help meet the Millennium Development
Goals for the continent.50 As far as the PSC is concerned, it has not issued
a single communiqué devoted to issues of SALW trafficking or antipersonnel
landmines. This does not mean the PSC has ignored the issue of SALW entirely.
In practice, the Council has received irregular briefings on the issue but has
not engaged in sustained substantive debates about it. According to one AU
official, issues concerning SALW simply fell by the wayside because there was
no practical follow-up on the issue between 2000 and 2004. This was because
the relevant personnel were preoccupied with the transition from the OAU to
the AU—in particular they were engaged in drafting the rules for the PSC—and
there was simply no capacity to address the issue.51
More recently, landmines and SALW have reemerged as a source of con-
cern within the AU. This is evidenced in the updating of the Union’s Common
Position on the UN Review Process on SALW and through the AU Executive
Council’s adoption, in 2006, of a policy framework on post-conflict recon-
struction and development in Africa, which identifies SALW and landmines as
important challenges to consolidating peace on the continent.52 From this
brief overview, it is clear the AU has not securitized the issue of SALW traf-
ficking. This is in spite of the fact that disarmament issues clearly remain a
necessary component of the Union’s developing vision to build a stable and
peaceful continent.
TERRORISM
Africa’s collective stance against terrorism can be traced back to 1992 when
the OAU issued a resolution banning movements that might engage in terror-
ism against its member states.53 This was followed by the Declaration on a
Code of Conduct for Inter-African Relations (June 1994), which denounced
various forms of extremism, including terrorism. The declaration was non-
binding and offered neither a definition of terrorism nor any mechanisms
to monitor the behavior of OAU member states. A more unambiguous set of
statements followed the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar
es Salaam on 7 August 1998, which killed over 260 people and injured more
50See AU doc. Assembly/AU/Decl. 1 (V), 2.

51Author’s interview, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 16 May 2007.
52 See AU doc. EX.CL/Decl.255 (VIII), Khartoum, Sudan, 16–21 January 2006.
53 “Resolution on the Strengthening of Cooperation and Coordination Among African States,” OAU
doc. AHG/Res. 213, XXVIII, 1992.
than five thousand others.54 Al Qaeda’s hand in the attacks demonstrated that
terrorism in Africa was not solely a domestic or continental affair. The sub-
sequent debates within the OAU produced the Convention on the Prevention
and Combating of Terrorism (the Algiers Convention, 14 July 1999).55 In the
preamble, members expressed concern “over the scope and seriousness of
the phenomenon of terrorism and the dangers it poses to the stability and se-
curity of States” and designated terrorism a “serious violation of human rights
and, in particular, the right to physical integrity, life, freedom and security”
which also “impedes socio-economic development through destabilization of
States.” In addition, Article 2 demanded that member states accede to twelve
(now thirteen) relevant international instruments as well as enact national
legislation that punished terrorist acts, while Articles 4 and 5 in particular
set out numerous forms and areas of political and security cooperation that
member states should urgently undertake in conformity with national legis-
lation and procedures.
A third wave of securitizing moves followed the 9/11 attacks on the
United States, the adoption of Security Council resolution 1373 on 28 Septem-
ber 2001, and the establishment of a UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism
Committee. In response to these developments, African states adopted a
Declaration Against Terrorism (17 October 2001) and organized a series of
high-level meetings to coordinate their approach. These meetings produced
the Plan of Action, which, amongst other things, called for “joint action . . . at
the inter-governmental level,” including “coordinating border surveillance
to stem illegal cross-border movement of goods and persons; developing
and strengthening border control-points; and combating the illicit import,
export and stockpiling of arms, ammunition and explosives.” 56 The post-
9/11 environment also saw the AU reflect upon the limitations of the Algiers
Convention, particularly its lack of an implementation mechanism and ad-
equate measures for suppressing terrorist financing.57 In conceptual terms,
this can be understood as an attempt to refine the Union’s counterterrorism
instruments in light of changed circumstances. Once again, this indicates the
importance of viewing securitization as a process.
Several developments flowed from this renewed concern with terror-
ism. For instance, at the Union’s second summit the Assembly reiterated its
“concern over the increasing threat posed by international terrorism” and
54 It is worth noting that in April 1998 six African members of the League of Arab States—Algeria,
Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia—endorsed the Arab Convention for the Suppression of
Terrorism in Cairo, Egypt.
55 The convention entered into force in December 2002.
56 “Plan of Action of the African Union High-Level Inter-Governmental Meeting on the Prevention
and Combating of Terrorism in Africa,” AU doc. Mtg./HLIG/Conv. Terror/Plan (I), Algiers, Algeria, 11–14
September 2002.
57 Martin Ewi and Kwesi Aning, “Assessing the Role of the African Union in Preventing and Combating
Terrorism in Africa,” African Security Review 15, no. 3 (2006): 38.

endorsed both an African Plan of Action and an international Code of Con-

duct on Counter Terrorism.58 Then, in July 2004, the AU adopted a new proto-
col to supplement the Algiers Convention.59 This expressed “grave concern”
at the risk of linkages between terrorism and mercenarism and various forms
of transnational crime. It also repeated that “terrorism constitutes a serious
violation of human rights and a threat to peace, security, development and
democracy.” Two months earlier, the AU had launched its Peace and Security
Council, which acts as the supreme organ of the AU on issues of preventing
and combating terrorism. Also in 2004, the AU’s Solemn Declaration listed
terrorism as both an internal and external threat to the continent and named
counterterrorism as one of the underlying values of the CADSP. This was fol-
lowed in January 2005 by the AU’s Non-Aggression and Common Defence
Pact, which outlawed acts of terrorism and called for intensified collabora-
tion between the AU’s members to eradicate terrorism from the continent.
In spite of these documents, relatively little concrete action was under-
taken by the AU itself. Indeed, to date only about half the necessary fifteen
states have ratified the Protocol to the OAU Convention on the Prevention
and Combating of Terrorism, although twenty-seven have signed. Similarly,
although the PSC has held briefings and some open sessions on terrorism it has
not released communiqués outlining its position on specific acts or actors. As
set out in the Plan of Action (2002), the most concrete practical development
was the establishment of the African Centre for the Study and Research on
Terrorism (ACSRT) headquartered in Algiers in October 2004. This had been
called for in the 2002 Plan of Action. The ACSRT was designed to develop and
maintain a database on issues relating to the prevention and combating of
terrorism, as well as disseminate information and analysis about these issues
to help implement the AU’s counterterrorism activities.60
In sum, the AU can be said to have securitized terrorism. However, al-
though the AU has consistently used the language of threat to discuss transna-
tional terrorism and produced a series of conventions in response, its practical
role has primarily been one of information exchange and norm-setting and to
a lesser extent acting as an intermediary between the UN and other external
actors on the continent.61 With the exception of establishing the ACSTR, most
practical counterterrorism measures undertaken on the continent have been
58 See AU documents Assembly/AU/Decl.14 (II) and 15 (II), Maputo, Mozambique, 10–12 July 2003.
59 “Protocol to the OAU Convention on Preventing and Combating Terrorism,” adopted by the Third
Ordinary Session of the AU Assembly, Addis Ababa, 8 July 2004.
60 To date, the ACSRT operates with approximately 25 professional and 25 local staff. It did so for its
first two years on a budget of $2 million donated by the Algerian government. By mid-2006, however,
only one person at the AU’s headquarters in Addis Ababa dealt with terrorism matters. Ewi and Aning,
“Assessing the Role of the African Union,” 46.
61 See ibid.
conducted individually by African states, often in collaboration with external

powers, primarily the United States.62
INFECTIOUS DISEASES
Infectious diseases have also featured regularly in the AU’s security discourse.
To date, most consistent prominence and attention has been devoted to
HIV/AIDS, but malaria, TB, and other diseases have, at times, also been desig-
nated as threats to the continent’s people and, in some cases, its states.
Once again, the Union’s response to HIV/AIDS is indicative of an incre-
mental process of securitization wherein the disease initially appeared on
the agenda as a development and health challenge, but was eventually con-
sidered to be a devastating continental emergency.63 In recognition of the

growing severity of the pandemic, the OAU initiated its campaign against the
disease with the Declaration on the AIDS Epidemic in Africa at its summit in
Dakar in 1992. This was followed by the Cairo guidelines on HIV/AIDS (1993)
and the Tunis Declaration on AIDS and the Child in Africa (1994). At the OAU
summits in Ouagadougou (1998) and Algiers (1999, which adopted the In-
ternational Partnership against AIDS in Africa), African heads of state called
for international assistance and action from governments, civic associations,
and development partners.
At this stage, HIV/AIDS was viewed primarily as a health and develop-
ment challenge rather than as a security threat. The international debate was
also fueled by a series of high-profile interventions made by South African
President Thabo Mbeki who contested orthodox explanations of the causal
relationship between HIV and AIDS and called for greater attention to be given
to how socioeconomic factors affected the dimensions of the pandemic.64
By 2001, however, the OAU adopted the Abuja Declaration and the Abuja
Framework for Action for the Fight Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Other
Related Infectious Diseases in Africa.65 The latter two documents raised the
urgency of the threat to new levels. The declaration, for instance, suggested
that AIDS had caused “millions of deaths,” “decimat[ed] [Africa’s] adult pop-
ulation” to the extent that a “State of Emergency” existed in the continent,
and represented “the greatest global threat to the survival and life expectancy
of African peoples.” It went on to suggest that containing and reversing the
HIV/AIDS epidemic . . . should constitute our top priority for the first quarter of
62 See Jessica R. Piombo, “Terrorism and U.S. Counter-Terrorism Programs in Africa: An Overview,”
Strategic Insights 6, no. 1 (2007), http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2007/Jan/piomboJan07.asp.
63 Alex de Waal, AIDS and Power (London: Zed, 2006); and Nana Poku, AIDS in Africa (Cambridge:
Polity, 2006).
64 See Anthony Butler, “South Africa’s HIV/AIDS Policy, 1994–2004,” African Affairs 104, no. 417 (2005):
591–614.
65 OAU doc. OAU/SPS/ABUJA/4.
the 21st Century.” The plan of action established the AU’s “primary goal” as
“revers[ing] the accelerating rate of HIV infection” by addressing twelve pri-
ority areas. It also called upon the Union’s members to implement the plan
“immediately.”
By the time of the Assembly’s second summit in 2003 its members
had broadened their concern beyond just HIV/AIDS. Here they declared they
were “deeply concerned” about the “threats” posed to Africa’s people by
the “scourge” of HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria, and Other Related Infectious Diseases
(ORID) stating: “We believe that Malaria, HIV/AIDS, TB and ORID can, must and
will be defeated!”66 In 2004, the AU’s Solemn Declaration on the CADSP reiter-
ated that HIV/AIDS constituted a security threat to the continent’s peoples and
regional order and stability. To date, however, this has not translated into
collective action through the developing instruments of the CADSP. Similar

concerns about infectious diseases were reiterated again during the fourth
summit where the Assembly referred to the situation in Africa as constituting a
“health emergency.”67 The situation was redeclared “as a State of Emergency
in Africa” at the seventh summit in Banjul in July 2006.68 During the most re-
cent summit that has addressed these issues (in January 2007), the Assembly
singled out the need for its members to take action to stem the effects of the
Avian Influenza Virus (H5N1). However, it is notable that compared to the
language adopted to discuss the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the virus was seen pri-
marily as a health and development problem and did not generate similarly
grave language of existential threat and urgency.
As this brief summary suggests, although the Union and its predecessor
(the OAU) took some time to wake up to the full horrors of the HIV/AIDS
pandemic, over time, it began to identify the disease as a security (not just a
health and development) issue. Since 2003, the Union has repeatedly referred
to the challenges posed by the disease in the language of existential threat,
going as far as declaring the continent to be facing a State of Emergency
and making the fight against HIV/AIDS and ORID its number one priority. Once
again, however, the AU’s collective role has been one of standard- and norm-
setting rather than taking concrete corporate action.
ACTS OF AGGRESSION
The AU considers any aggression or threat of aggression against any mem-
ber state to constitute a threat or aggression against all member states of
the Union. In Article 4 of the Non-Aggression and Common Defence Pact
AU states undertake to “provide mutual assistance,” “respond by all available
66 AU doc. Assembly/AU/Decl. 6 (II), Maputo, Mozambique, 10–12 July 2003.

67 AU doc. Assembly/AU/Decl. 55 (IV), Abuja, Nigeria, 30–31 January 2005.
68 AU doc. Assembly/AU/Decl.115 (VII), Banjul, the Gambia, 1–2 July 2006.
means to aggression or threats of aggression,” and “not to recognize any ter-

ritorial acquisition or special advantage resulting from the use of aggression.”
Member states also agreed to prevent their territory and people “from being
used for encouraging or committing acts of subversion, hostility, aggression
and other harmful practices that might threaten the territorial integrity and
sovereignty of a Member State or regional peace and security” as well as to
prohibit the use of their territory “for the stationing, transit, withdrawal or
incursions of irregular armed groups, mercenaries and terrorist organizations
operating in the territory of another Member State” (Article 5). While such
activities are also prohibited in the Solemn Declaration on the CADSP, it is
notable that the AU’s Non-Aggression and Common Defence Pact has not yet
entered into force—so far, it has been ratified only by Congo, Gabon, Ghana,
Libya, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. The lack of ratifications is probably
due to the reluctance of many states to be held to account and respond in all
cases rather than an indication that acts of aggression by nonstate actors are
not viewed as security threats by the AU’s members. The question remains,
however, whether collective securitization of particular armed groups has oc-
curred. Here, the picture is different inasmuch as the PSC has indeed issued a
variety of communiqués, which call for measures in response to armed con-
flicts involving nonstate actors, most notably in the wars that have recently
occurred in Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, the DRC, Somalia, and Sudan. In three of
these cases, the AU has authorized the deployment of a peace operation in
response to armed conflicts involving nonstate actors: in Burundi (2003–04),
Sudan (2004-present), and Somalia (2006-present).
Securitizing Transnational Challenges in Southeast Asia

Transnational challenges have increasingly come to preoccupy the ASEAN
states.69 Starting in the 1970s, apart from the issue of Indochinese refugees,
the illicit trafficking of drugs featured for over a decade as the only transna-
tional issue on the agenda of the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting of foreign min-
isters. ASEAN then broadened its transnational agenda by also focusing on
HIV/AIDS. Since the 1990s, ASEAN has distinguished between transnational and
so-called transboundary challenges. Whereas the former include transna-
tional crime, terrorism, and communicable diseases, the latter are linked to
policies and practices within the borders of a member state that have cross-
border effects. The main transboundary issue addressed by ASEAN since 1995
is the haze.
In 1996 ASEAN foreign ministers for the first time decided to focus at-
tention on a wider set of transnational criminal offenses including narcotics
trafficking, economic crimes, including money laundering, illegal migration,
69 ASEAN includes Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand as well as Brunei, Viet-
nam, Burma/Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia.

and offenses affecting the environment. In the wake of 9/11 and the U.S.-
led war on terror, and especially again after the Bali bombings of October
2002, terrorism received much greater attention; indeed, ASEAN has made co-
operation on counterterrorism an important platform in relations with its
dialogue partners. During the first half of 2003, ASEAN was moreover preoc-
cupied with SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which originated in
China’s Guangdong Province in late 2002 and then spread to Southeast Asia
via Hong Kong. Singapore was particularly affected. Though SARS was con-
tained, the region remains exposed to communicable diseases. Since 2004
cases of avian influenza have been registered above all in Indonesia and
Vietnam, but also in Cambodia and Thailand. The 2004 Boxing Day Indian
Ocean tsunami also shifted ASEAN’s focus on the need to respond to transna-
tional disasters. Given the rise in oil prices in the last few years, ASEAN has
also begun to explore ideas on how to alleviate any dependency on market
supplies of oil and gas.
Although transnational challenges have increasingly preoccupied the
Southeast Asian region, three transnational challenges in particular have re-
ceived attention in ASEAN’s communiqués and statements: transnational crime
(particularly drugs), terrorism, and communicable diseases. The question is,
therefore, which, if any, of these three transnational challenges has been
collectively securitized.
TRANSNATIONAL CRIME
In December 1997, interior/home ministers issued the ASEAN Declaration

on Transnational Crime and established the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on
Transnational Crime (AMMTC) to cooperate on terrorism, illicit drug traffick-
ing, arms smuggling, money laundering, traffic in persons, and piracy.70 The
second AMMTC in June 1999 saw members adopt the ASEAN Plan of Action to
Combat Transnational Crime, which encouraged member countries to expand
their efforts in combating transnational crime at the national and bilateral
levels to the regional level.71 More specifically, it aimed to “develop a more
cohesive, regional strategy aimed at preventing, controlling and neutralizing
transnational crime.”72 In May 2002, at the Special ASEAN Ministerial Meet-
ing on Transnational Crime substance was given to this endeavor through
the adoption of a work program to implement the 1999 plan of action. This
document provided specific action lines in relation to eight transnational
crimes: illicit drug trafficking, trafficking in persons, sea-piracy, arms smug-
gling, money laundering, terrorism, international economic crime, and cyber
70 The ministerial meeting builds on the discussions of the Senior Officials Meeting on Transnational
Crime.
71 ASEAN Plan of Action to Combat Transnational Crime, http://www.aseansec.org/16133.htm.
72 Ibid.
crime.73 It had six major thrusts: information exchange, cooperation in le-

gal matters, cooperation in law enforcement matters, institutional capacity
building, training, and extraregional cooperation. Most notably, in October
2003, with the signing of the Bali Concord II, ASEAN subsumed transnational
crime and terrorism (as well as ASEAN maritime cooperation and the promo-
tion of human rights) under the ASEAN Security Community.74 More recently,
member countries signed the ASEAN Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance on
Criminal Matters. While attesting to its political importance, these develop-
ments do not per se amount to evidence of the collective securitization of
transnational crime in general terms.
As noted above, collective securitization by participants of a regional
arrangement depends on shared threat assessments that should be unam-
biguously articulated. In ascertaining whether ASEAN has regarded transna-

tional crime as an existential threat, it is important to note that transnational
crime has been on the agenda of ASEAN leaders, foreign ministers, and home
ministers.75 All have offered different assessments of the dangers associated
with transnational crime. For instance, offering no concrete assessment of
its significance as a security issue, at the Second Informal ASEAN Summit
in December 1997 ASEAN leaders merely “resolved to take firm and stern
measures to combat transnational crime.”76 In 1999 they acknowledged the
“serious impact” of transnational crime on peace, prosperity, the well be-
ing of the people, and progress of ASEAN.77 Singapore, as host of the Fourth
Informal Summit meeting in 2000, made no reference to discussions about
transnational crime.78 Moreover, summit statements released between 2001
and 2005 lacked explicit and precise evaluation of the dangers of transna-
tional crime. Only at the subsequent summit in January 2007 did the ASEAN
Summit host—the Philippines—include a reference to transnational crime
as a “serious threat” next to terrorism, avian influenza and other major in-
fectious diseases, environmental degradation, natural disasters, destabilizing
increases in oil prices, and the negative impact of rapid globalization and
growth.79
By comparison, in the wake of the Asian financial and economic cri-
sis of 1997/98, ASEAN foreign ministers spoke only of the “growing menace”
of crimes such as illicit drug trafficking, terrorism, arms smuggling, money
73 “Work Programme to Implement the ASEAN Plan of Action to Combat Transnational Crime,” Kuala
Lumpur, 17 May 2002.

74 “Press Chairperson of the Ninth ASEAN Summit and the Seventh ASEAN+3,” Summit, Bali, 7 October
2003, http://www.aseansec.org/15259.htm.
75 It has for instance also been on the agenda of the ASEAN Chiefs of Police and ASEAN Army Chiefs.
76 Second Informal Summit, Kuala Lumpur, 14–16 December 1997.
77 “Chairman’s Press Statement on ASEAN Third Informal Summit,” Manila, 28 November 1999,
http://www.aseansec.org/5300.htm.
78 4th Informal ASEAN Summit, Singapore, 22–25 November, http://www.aseansec.org/5310.htm.
79 “Chairperson’s Statement of the 12th ASEAN Summit,” Cebu, 13 January 2007.
laundering, trafficking in persons, and piracy.80 Their 1999 ministerial com-

muniqué referred to transnational crime as a “problem,” while emphasizing
the urgent need to strengthen the regional capacity to combat it.81 In 2000,
however, foreign ministers identified a “rise of transnational crime, which
threatens the economic prosperity and stability of the region.”82 The refer-
ence to the word threat was dropped again the following year though when
the AMM was hosted by Vietnam, raising questions about whether the lan-
guage of the 2000 statement in the first instance reflected the view of the
host, Thailand, which at the time faced significant problems of illegal migra-
tion and drug trafficking. In 2002, not transnational crime alone but terrorism
and transnational crime together were identified as threatening “world peace
and stability.”83 Though transnational crime was subsequently subsumed un-
der the ASEAN Security Community, foreign ministers have since not clearly
identified all transnational crime as an unambiguous threat to the survival of
a regional security referent. In contrast to the aforementioned Summit State-
ment of 2007, the ministerial communiqué issued by ASEAN foreign ministers
in July that year certainly does not.84
In contrast, home ministers have perhaps more clearly progressively se-
curitized transnational crime as a package. The ASEAN Declaration on Transna-
tional Crime laid out specific security referents as it expressed concern about
the “pernicious effects of transnational crime . . . on regional stability and
development, the maintenance of the rule of law and the welfare of the re-
gion’s peoples.”85 This was, however, not an unequivocal assessment that
transnational crime clearly and consistently threatened the survival of par-
ticular shared values. Even in 1999 home ministers still pointed only to the
“potentially serious impact of transnational crime on the peace, prosperity
and progress of ASEAN and on its social and moral fabric.”86 Transnational
crime might also be said to have apparently lacked urgency for home minis-
ters, expressed in part in their agreement to convene a ministerial meeting to
coordinate ASEAN activities only once every two years. This was underlined
by the decision not to support the establishment of a Philippines-proposed
ASEAN Centre on Combating Transnational Crime (ACTC), which was supposed
to propel “regional efforts against transnational crime through intelligence
sharing, harmonization of policies and coordination of operations.”87
80
“Joint Communique,” 31st ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, Manila, 24–25 July 1998.
81
“Joint Communique,” 32nd ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, Singapore, 23–24 July 1999.
82 “Joint Communique,” 33rd ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, Bangkok, 24–25 July 2000.
83 “Joint Communique,” 35th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, Bandar Seri Begawan, 29–30 July 2002.
84 “Joint Communique,” 40th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, Manila, 29–30 July 2007.
85 “ASEAN Declaration on Transnational Crime,” Manila, 20 December 1997.
86 “Joint Communique,” 2nd ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime, Yangon, 23 June 1999,
emphasis added.
87 “ASEAN Plan of Action to Combat Transnational Crime,” 2.
However, by late 2001, as a consequence of 9/11, the language of home

ministers had changed, illustrated by their point that “transnational crime
continues to seriously threaten the socioeconomic and moral fabric of all
countries,” and their concern that “transnational crime is becoming more or-
ganised, diversified and pervasive, thus posing a serious threat to the peace,
security and progress of ASEAN.”88 Notably, the word “serious” was dropped in
the subsequent ministerial meeting in early 2004, though home ministers reaf-
firmed the threat to the region.89 Since then, the language has changed again.
Expressing concern about the “growing linkages of transnational crime, the
increasing sophistication of their modus operandi and their destructive ca-
pability,” the Fifth AMMTC described transnational crime as posing a “direct
challenge to the attainment of peace, progress and prosperity of ASEAN.”90
The absence of a coherent ASEAN discourse on transnational crime suggests

that transnational crime in general has not been uniformly regarded as an
existential threat by ASEAN states. Indeed, with the exception of terrorism (see
below) there is no clear evidence that particular forms of transnational crime
have been collectively securitized by ASEAN, although individual members
may have, and a widespread appreciation of the need to address transna-
tional crime has clearly evolved over time.91 This is underlined in part by
the agreements on how to respond to transnational crime and the time it has
taken to arrive at these. The 2004 Vientiane Action Plan subsumed transna-
tional crime under conflict prevention;92 and its annex identified as “prepara-
tory steps” the conclusion of an ASEAN Mutual Legal Assistance Agreement and
an ASEAN Convention on Counter Terrorism. As noted, a treaty on mutual le-
gal assistance in criminal matters (MLAT) was signed (November 2004), but
ratification has been slow.93 In short, ASEAN’s collective response to dealing
with transnational crime has focused on norm and capacity building and the
search for improvements in legal cooperation.
88 “Joint Communique,” 3rd ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime, Singapore, 11 October
2001.
89 “Joint Communique,” 4th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime, Bangkok, 8 January
2004.
90 “Joint Communique,” 5th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime, Hanoi, 29 November
2005, emphasis added.

91 This assessment can also be reached when examining transnational crimes individually. See the
contributions in Philips Jusario Vermonte, ed. Small Is (Not) Beautiful: The Problem of Small Arms in
Southeast Asia (Jakarta: Centre for Strategic and International Studies, 2004); Tamara Renee Shie, “Maritime
Piracy in Southeast Asia: Evolution and Progress of Intra-ASEAN Cooperation” in Piracy, Maritime Terrorism
and Securing the Malacca Straits, ed. Graham Gerard Ong-Webb (Singapore: ISEAS, 2006), 163–89. For
other assessments see Ralf Emmers, “ASEAN and the Securitization of Transnational Crime,” The Pacific
Review 16, no. 3 (2003): 419–38; and Un Sovannasam, The Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN)
Efforts in Dealing with Transnational Crime (working paper, Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong
Kong, 2005).
92 Vientiane Action Programme, 7.
93 “Joint Communique,” 39th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, Kuala Lumpur, 25 July 2006.
TERRORISM
Against the backdrop of 9/11 and the U.S.-led war on terror, ASEAN leaders
adopted the Declaration on Joint Action to Counter Terrorism at the Seventh
ASEAN Summit in Brunei Darussalam in November 2001 and tasked their min-
isters to consider specific measures that would enable ASEAN to contribute to
the war on terror. Thereafter ASEAN made cooperation on counterterrorism in
particular an important platform in relations with its dialogue partners. The
association signed its first joint counter-terrorism declaration with the United
States in August 2002. This sought to establish a framework for cooperation
to prevent, disrupt, and combat international terrorism through the exchange
and flow of information, intelligence, and capacity building.94 In November,
ASEAN and China issued a joint declaration on cooperation in the field of non-
traditional security issues, and many similar declarations have been signed
since then.95
Examining ASEAN’s position on terrorism, there is considerable evidence
of the latter’s securitization in the wake of 9/11, even though terrorism ini-
tially remained subsumed under transnational crime, in part because this con-
ceptualization had emerged in previous years. The 2001 ASEAN Declaration
on Joint Action to Counter Terrorism expressed a commitment to counter,
prevent, and suppress all acts of terrorism. It stated moreover that ASEAN
countries viewed “acts of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, com-
mitted wherever, whenever and by whomsoever, as a profound threat to
international peace and security which require concerted action to protect
and defend all peoples and the peace and security of the world.”96 The dec-
laration also called terrorism “a direct challenge to the attainment of peace,
progress and prosperity of ASEAN and the realisation of ASEAN Vision 2020.”97
Although the 2001 declaration still masked considerable differences in per-
spective and rhetoric about how significant terrorism was as a threat to the
region as well as the legitimacy of the U.S. response to 9/11, ASEAN soon there-
after more explicitly focused on terrorism as a regional security threat rather
than merely as a “challenge.” In a special meeting on terrorism in May 2002
ministers unequivocally condemned acts of terrorism, and foreign ministers
94 “ASEAN-United States of America Joint Declaration for Cooperation to Combat International Terror-
ism,” Bandar Seri Beget, 1 August 2002, http://www.aseansec.org/10574.htm.

95 The ASEAN-China joint declaration provides a nonexhaustive overview of nontraditional security
challenges that matches ASEAN’s almost completely except for the wording, even designating all eight as
“priorities.” These two declarations proved the forerunners of a series of several joint declarations to
combat international terrorism, signed with the European Union (January 2003), India (October 2003),
Russia (June 2004), Australia (June 2004), Japan (November 2004), Pakistan (July 2005), Korea (July 2005),
New Zealand (July 2005), and Canada (July 2006). Some joint declarations have led to work plans on
counterterrorism. ASEAN has also been working with China, Japan, and South Korea under the ASEAN Plus
Three process to address terrorism and transnational crime.
96 “2001 ASEAN Declaration on Joint Action to Counter Terrorism,” Bandar Seri Begawan, 5 November
97 Ibid.
at the Thirty-fifth AMM, in July 2002, described terrorism as a “global threat.”

On the occasion of the Eighth ASEAN Summit in November 2002, organized
in the wake of bombings on Bali and in the Philippine cities of Zamboanga
and Quezon, ASEAN released a Declaration on Terrorism in which members
expressed “resolve to ensure the security and harmony” of their societies and
the safety of their peoples, indicating a perceived sense of threat to political
stability and social harmony.98 Notably, from the Thirty-sixth until the Thirty-
eighth AMM in 2005 terrorism was represented as a transnational threat in a
category distinct from other forms of transnational crime.
As in the case of transnational crime more generally, ASEAN’s regional re-
sponse to transnational terrorism has not involved agreement on the adoption
of collective emergency measures or the endorsement of specific emergency
measures as understood by the CS at the national level. In 2001, ASEAN stressed

that “all cooperative efforts to combat terrorism at the regional level shall con-
sider joint practical counter-terrorism measures in line with specific circum-
stances in the region and in each member country.”99 In the event, ASEAN’s
practical approach to counterterrorism has concentrated above all on bilat-
eral cooperation and limited forms of cooperation, primarily the exchange
of intelligence.100 According to Sheldon Simon, the most effective countert-
errorism has occurred among the five founding members.101 ASEAN foreign
ministers repeatedly stated their full commitment to enhancing their cooper-
ative efforts to combat international terrorism at national, regional, and inter-
national levels.102 These efforts have led to the signing, in early 2007, of the
ASEAN Convention on Counter Terrorism. While viewing terrorism as a shared
threat faced by most incumbent regimes, ASEAN members have largely dealt
with it in their own individual ways. Several have been able to benefit from
improved operational effectiveness as a consequence of bilateral countert-
errorism cooperation pursued with Australia or the United States. Domestic
counterterrorism practices by ASEAN states have differed widely though, as il-
lustrated by the cases of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
Notably, the widespread success achieved in counterterrorist operations is
now also reflected in renewed changes in ASEAN’s rhetoric, which no longer
identifies terrorism as a threat.103
98 Neal Imperial, “Securitisation and the Challenge of ASEAN Counter-terrorism Cooperation.”

99 2001 ASEAN Declaration on Joint Action to Counter Terrorism, Bandar Seri Begawan, 5 November
100 ASEAN Efforts to Counter Terrorism, http://www.aseansec.org/14396.htm.
101 Sheldon W. Simon, “Southeast Asia’s Defense Needs: Change or Continuity?” in Strategic Asia
2005–06: Military Modernization in an Era of Uncertainty, eds., Ashely J. Tellis and Michael Wills (Wash-
ington, D.C.: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2005), 292. See also Jonathan T. Chow, “ASEAN Countert-
errorism Cooperation Since 9/11,” Asian Survey 45, no. 2 (2005): 302–21; and Ralf Emmers and Leonard C.
Sebastian, “Terrorism and Transnational Crime in Southeast Asian International Relations” in International
Relations in Southeast Asia, ed. Donald E. Weatherbee (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), 156–86.
102 See for instance “Joint Communique,” 38th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, Vientiane, 26 July 2005.
103 “Joint Communique,” 40th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, Manila, 29–30 July 2007.
TRANSNATIONAL DISEASES
Communicable diseases have increasingly been viewed within ASEAN as pos-

ing a major security risk that could easily turn into existential threats, even
though they tend still to be discussed under the heading of the ASEAN Social-
Cultural rather than Security Community. That said, ASEAN has clearly empha-
sized the security challenge posed by SARS and avian flu diseases over those
of the “big three diseases”: HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, although the
latter have claimed far more lives in Southeast Asia.104
When China admitted in Spring 2003 to a spread of SARS from Guangdong
Province to Beijing and hundreds of unreported cases, the ASEAN countries not
only organized a special ministerial meeting of Health Ministers in the context
of the ASEAN+3 process, but at the behest of Singapore also met for their
first ever Special ASEAN-China Leaders’ Meeting in late April 2003. Ministers
of Health noted that “SARS . . . threatened the well-being and livelihood of
the people and the economic development” of East Asia and agreed on
a range of practical steps to counter the epidemic.105 ASEAN leaders equally
registered a concern about the consequences of SARS for the well-being of the
people and economic development, albeit in terms of a “serious challenge,”
and similarly endorsed a set of measures to counter the virus, including
an ASEAN SARS Containment Information Network.106 Its establishment was
achieved at a speed “unprecedented in the history of ASEAN.”107 In their joint
statement with Chinese President Hu Jintao, ASEAN leaders referred to SARS
as a “mounting threat to life and health of the people of Asia” and noted
the “serious adverse impact on the economy and society of countries in
the region.”108 Leaders also agreed to link their respective SARS information-
sharing networks. Attaining SARS-free status by the summer of 2003, ASEAN
foreign ministers reiterated their leaders’ earlier call for other countries to
take measures to combat SARS similar to those being taken by ASEAN and to
refrain from issuing indiscriminate travel advisories on account of SARS.109
In 2004, foreign ministers agreed to maintain close coordination and fur-
ther strengthen cooperation to prevent the spread of communicable diseases
as ASEAN leaders explicitly identified bird flu as one of the “key challenges”
facing the region.110 ASEAN has been enhancing regional coordination mech-
anisms for early warning and surveillance capacity building and promoted
104 See UNAIDS/WHO AIDS Epidemic Update, December 2006, http://www.unaids.org/en/HIV data
/epi2006/default.asp; World Health Organization (WHO), Malaria Disease Burden in SEA Region,
http://www.searo.who.int/EN/Section10/Section21/Section340 4018.htm.
105 “Joint Statement of the ASEAN+3 Ministers of Health Special Meeting on SARS,” Kuala Lumpur, 26
April 2003.
106 “Joint Declaration of the Special ASEAN Leaders Meeting on SARS,” Bangkok, 29 April 2003.
107 Curley and Thomas, “Human Security and Public Health in Southeast Asia,” 28.
108 “Joint Statement of the Special ASEAN-China Leaders Meeting on SARS,” Bangkok, 29 April 2003.
109 “Joint Communique, 36th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting,” Phnom Penh, 16–17 June, 2003.
110 “Chairman’s Statement of the 10th ASEAN Summit,” Vientiane, 29 November 2004.
the establishment of an ASEAN Task Force on Highly Pathogenic Influenza

(HPIA) in December 2004.111 To prevent the spread of avian flu, the five
original members of ASEAN assumed specific roles involving the drafting of
action plans to: contain the disease, boost emergency preparedness, and es-
tablish disease-free zones within the region; improve public awareness; and
establish information-sharing system and surveillance systems. The measure
was reinforced in October 2005 with the establishment of a regional fund
for avian flu and a three-year action plan. Nevertheless, ASEAN has appre-
ciated that a strong sense of vulnerability remains, particularly in terms of
the direct negative impact of an outbreak on regional public health and the
regional economy.112 ASEAN has begun to set up a regional network of an-
tiviral drugs stockpile.113 In other words, both formal statements and the
practical steps initiated suggest that communicable diseases are no longer

just viewed as concerns but significant risks, not just in Southeast Asia but
the wider region. Notably, the only declaration issued by the inaugural East
Asia Summit (EAS), apart from the Kuala Lumpur Declaration on the EAS, was
the Declaration on Avian Influenza Prevention, Control, and Response. In
January 2007, the Twelfth ASEAN Summit reemphasized—under the heading
of regional and international issues—that members would continue their co-
operation to maintain security, stability, and peace in their region. Among
transnational challenges, avian influenza featured among the three most im-
portant.114 In March 2007, ASEAN undertook the exercise “PanStop 2007” with
WHO and Japanese assistance to train the containment of an influenza virus.115
The measures agreed among the ASEAN countries in relation to avian flu are
designed to ensure adequate regional capacity and training in preparation for
a possible pandemic outbreak. The priority given to SARS and avian influenza
over the big three communicable diseases is clearly linked to assessment re-
garding the possible costs and implications of these airborne diseases. ASEAN
countries were keen to contain SARS because it threatened to dent economic
gains derived from tourism and to undermine the general business and in-
vestment climate.116 The same logic applies to a possible avian influenza
111 Up to early 2007, Vietnam had the highest number of cases (93) reported to the WHO, but In-
donesia the world’s greatest number of fatalities (63). See “Cumulative Number of Confirmed Human
Cases of Avian Influenza A/(H5N1)” Reported to WHO, http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian influenza
/country/cases table 2007 02 16/en/index.html.
112 “Chairman’s Statement of the 11th ASEAN Summit,” Kuala Lumpur, 12 December 2005.
113 Ibid.
114 “Chairperson’s Statement of the 12th ASEAN Summit,” Cebu, 13 January 2007.
115 PanStop2007, http://www.wpro.who.int/sites/csr/PANSTOP2007.htm.
116 Such fears proved unfounded, however, as FDI figures for 2004 reached US$25.1 billion, a 22 per-
cent year-on-year increase. “Chairman’s Statement of the 11th ASEAN Summit,” Kuala Lumpur, 12 December
2005.
pandemic, which by some estimates would lead to very serious economic

contraction.117
Comparing Securitization in Africa and Southeast Asia

In comparing the responses of the AU and ASEAN to transnational challenges
we focus on three questions. First, to what extent have the members of
these two regional arrangements collectively securitized the same or similar
transnational challenges? Second, what might explain parallels and variation
in their respective responses? And third, how different are the practical re-
sponses adopted by the regional arrangements if securitization has occurred?
COMPARING THE SECURITIZATION OF TRANSNATIONAL CHALLENGES

Both the AU and ASEAN have several transnational challenges on their agenda.
Similarly, their participants have produced for the most part a coherent lan-
guage of risk as well as potential or actual threat in relation to these chal-
lenges. In the AU case, securitization has occurred most fully in relation to
terrorism and HIV/AIDS; while in ASEAN, securitization is apparent with regard
to terrorism, as well as SARS and avian flu. Nevertheless, some variation is
also evident in AU and ASEAN pronouncements. For instance, the AU has fo-
cused on terrorism primarily as a global threat, while ASEAN’s discourse after
2002 identified more clearly relevant regional security referents. In the case
of Africa, the security referent of transnational health threats has been the
continent’s citizens with an attendant focus on the impact that their suffering
will have on the region’s states. In Southeast Asia, however, the references
to transnational health issues are more clearly linked to the security referent
of the regional economy of participant states.
Significantly, this finding builds on our understanding of collective se-
curitization. It would not follow from a strict application of the Copenhagen
School’s work, which sees securitization as linked to agreement on emer-
gency measures located outside the normal bounds of politics. As this article
showed, however, the AU and ASEAN have not agreed on such measures. In
both cases, the securitization of transnational challenges has only involved
agreement on cooperation deemed legitimate by their members. Both the
African and Southeast Asian cases also clarify that it is useful to move be-
yond the strict politicization versus securitization of an issue toward a more
nuanced and graduated understanding of securitization as a process whereby
some risks may gradually assume the status of threats that require urgent re-
sponses. For instance, transnational crime was for the most part considered
117 Erik Bloom, Vincent de Wit, and Mary Jane Carangal-San Jose, Potential Economic Impact of
an Avian Flu Pandemic on Asia (Asian Development Bank: ERD Policy Brief no. 42, November 2005),
http://www.adb.org/Documents/EDRC/Policy Briefs/PB042.pdf.
by ASEAN a concern but not an existential threat to the region, while avian flu
has been seen as a potential existential threat. In the AU’s case, the different
language used in relation to various challenges would appear to indicate
a hierarchy of seriousness and urgency: while both terrorism and HIV/AIDS
were clearly seen as threats, droughts and swarms of locusts were serious
concerns that had the potential to intensify if left unchecked, while climate
change has recently been designated a concern and a potential existential
threat to the continent’s environment.118
While neither the AU nor ASEAN have unambiguously securitized transna-
tional crime, there is an interesting dissimilarity between the two regional
arrangements as regards the securitization of cross-border insurgency activ-
ities. Indeed, in certain concrete cases, the AU has discussed and securitized
the actions of nonstate actors, notwithstanding the fact that some AU deci-
sions concerning transnational challenges—primarily to do with cross-border
insurgencies—have met resistance from members, as happened in the case of
the peace operation in Darfur, Sudan. By comparison, ASEAN does not really
deal with intrastate conflict (notwithstanding the recent diplomatic interven-
tion vis-à-vis Myanmar) and has no record of formally addressing intrastate
ethnic conflict feeding in part on transnational linkages. Such transnational
networks are said to complicate the situation in southern Thailand and may
also continue along the Thai-Myanmar border. Though the governments fac-
ing ethnic or separatist conflict may themselves regard nonstate actors as a
serious threat to the state, the absence of ASEAN statements on these issues
demonstrates that no collective securitization has occurred. This is consis-
tent with the premise that collective securitization normally requires a clear
regional referent or depends on a shared assessment of threat.
EXPLAINING SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES IN SECURITIZATION
As this article relied on an analysis of formal statements made by the AU

and ASEAN, it seems appropriate to explain the similarities and differences
regarding their respective securitization or nonsecuritization with respect to
the broader security discourses of these two regional arrangements. In both
cases, these collective discourses betray a continuing shared concern with
state security and the survival of incumbent regimes. For instance, since 1964,
Africa’s regional organization has emphasized the principle of accepting exist-
ing borders, while ASEAN countries have similarly emphasized the importance
of maintaining territorial integrity. Both organizations have also consistently
proclaimed a shared belief in the significance of basic norms of international
118 See AU docs Assembly/AU/Dec.134–164 (VIII) and Assembly/AU/Decl.1–6 (VIII), Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, 29–30 January 2007.

society, in particular sovereignty and noninterference.119 However, ASEAN still

embraces its discourse on noninterference more resolutely and in a more sus-
tained manner than the AU. In part, this reveals continuing mutual suspicions
and sensitivities between Southeast Asian states.120 A further similarity is that
both the AU and ASEAN have articulated the position that their members are
primarily responsible for the maintenance of regional security and stability.
In other words, both collective discourses expose a majoritarian consensus
about what are the respective core security preferences.
Against this background discourse, it is not surprising that the AU has
been concerned about but did not unequivocally securitize trafficking in SALW,
as their use does not per se pose a strategic threat to either states or regimes
for the wider membership. Similarly, the importance of particular forms of
transnational crime varies from the perspective of Southeast Asian countries,

leading to ASEAN’s ambiguity about the threat posed by transnational crime
more generally. Terrorism has been viewed differently from transnational
crime, both by the AU and ASEAN, not least because of Washington’s global
war on terror. Above all, the realization has been that Washington could pose
political-security challenges in the context of the prosecution of that strug-
gle. Most Southeast Asian governments regarded as illegitimate and doubted
the effectiveness of a conspicuous, let alone unfettered, U.S. military role in
suppressing regional terrorist operatives, and while being happy to accept
American assistance in building capacity they preferred to address terrorism
in their own ways. In Africa, Washington’s war on terror has been enthusias-
tically embraced by some states, especially those wishing to label domestic
opponents as terrorists. Yet as the recent debates over the new U.S. Africa
Command demonstrate, many African governments also view a large and
unilateral U.S. role as problematic. Members of both regional arrangements
have thus felt it necessary to support Washington in its war against terrorism,
while insisting that the principles they collectively espouse, such as nonin-
terference and sovereignty, be observed.
In ASEAN’s case, the shared perception of the importance of state
security—despite real concern for individuals—ultimately also accounts for
the association’s strong focus on SARS and avian influenza although many
more of its citizens die daily from other communicable diseases. But it is the
former that are perceived to have more significant ramifications for socioeco-
nomic stability and regime legitimacy and, perhaps, even regional interstate
119 On ASEAN see Amitav Acharya, Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia: ASEAN and
the Problem of Regional Order (London: Routledge, 2001); and Jürgen Haacke, ASEAN’s Diplomatic and
Security Culture: Origins, Development and Prospects (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003). On the AU see
Paul D. Williams, “From Non-Intervention to Non-Indifference: The Origins and Development of the
African Union’s Security Culture,” African Affairs 106, no. 423 (2007): 253–79.
120 On intra-ASEAN relations, see for instance Andrew T.H. Tan, Southeast Asia: Threats in the Security
Environment (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2006).

relations.121 A similar situation exists in the African context where although

malaria kills more individuals than HIV/AIDS, it is the latter that has been most
clearly securitized, probably because of its potential to undermine regional
stability. Such infectious diseases have gradually moved from being seen as
health and development challenges to urgent and deadly threats to the secu-
rity of Africa, its states, and its people. In the African case more attention has
focused on the human casualties of the disease, probably in part because of
the level of fatalities on the continent.
The differences in dealing with transnational challenges also arise be-
cause the collective security discourses in Africa and Southeast Asia are
evolving at a different pace. In recent years, the AU has for instance insti-
tutionalized the shared beliefs that unconstitutional changes of governments
are illegitimate and the Union has the right to intervene in member states
in what it refers to as “grave circumstances,” namely, war crimes, genocide,
and crimes against humanity.122 This built upon the precedents set during the
1990s through the Economic Community of West African States’ Monitoring
Group’s (ECOMOG) efforts to deal with a variety of transnational insurgency
movements in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea-Bissau.123 Today, the Union
routinely recognizes the transnational dimensions of serious internal conflicts
pose threats (or potential threats) to regional security and stability, and rep-
resent a legitimate topic for engagement. It is on the basis of these norms that
the AU has played a far more significant role than ASEAN in resolving armed
conflicts. Nevertheless, it is clear that not every transnational insurgency in
Africa is discussed in the AU Assembly and/or PSC. For example, the Front for
the Liberation of the Cabinda Enclave has regularly operated out of the DRC
and Congo-Brazzaville to launch attacks into Cabinda, but it has not been
the subject of an Assembly declaration or a PSC communiqué. Nor has the
Movement of the Democratic Forces of Casamance, which has regularly op-
erated out of Senegal’s neighbor Guinea-Bissau. One plausible explanation
for the selectivity apparent in the Union’s official discourse would relate to
the perceived scale and intensity of the insurgency in question.
THE PRACTICAL RESPONSES TO TRANSNATIONAL CHALLENGES
Although this article argued that collective securitization does not depend
on the implementation of “emergency measures” as conceived by the
Copenhagen School, it has highlighted the measures agreed to in response
to the transnational challenges in question. Here the records of the two
121 Our analysis thus differs from that of Peter Chalk, “Disease and the Complex Processes of Secu-
ritization in the Asia-Pacific,” in Caballero-Anthony et al (eds.), Non-Traditional Security in Asia, 124–30.

122 See Ben Kioko, “The Right of Intervention Under the African Union’s Constitutive Act,” Interna-
tional Review of the Red Cross 85, no. 852 (2003): 807–25.
123 See Adekeye Adebajo, Building Peace in West Africa (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2002).
arrangements differ markedly. ASEAN has produced increasingly comprehen-

sive responses, some purely reactive, some preventative, to the transnational
challenges of international terrorism as well as SARS and avian flu. By com-
parison, the AU’s collective response has for the most part been rather weak,
although it has responded more strongly to some internal armed conflicts
with transnational dimensions. Collective securitization by ASEAN has usually
entailed agreement on a combination of regional measures in response to the
threat at hand that are primarily implemented at the national level. The AU’s
responses to transnational challenges have also tended to consist of guide-
lines calling for national implementation. Its practical collective measures, in
contrast, have tended to focus on stemming particular armed conflicts.
MOVING BEYOND SECURITIZATION THEORY
Based on our review of securitization theory and its application to how the
AU and ASEAN approach transnational challenges, this article offers several
conclusions. First, securitization theory can usefully be applied to different
regional arrangements but there are serious issues that must be confronted.
For one thing, it is best not to base conclusions about whether collective
securitization has occurred on the same basis as when securitization is being
studied in a purely domestic context. We defined successful acts of collective
securitization as occurring when regional arrangements framed issues using
unambiguous language of existential threat and agreed upon countervailing
practical measures. Unlike some analysts, we did not consider it necessary
for the regional arrangements to enact emergency measures in order for
securitization to take place.
Our analysis of the AU and ASEAN has shown that even when these ar-
rangements seemed to identify certain transnational challenges not only as
risks but potential or actual threats, they refrained from agreeing on mea-
sures that—although perhaps innovative—would be considered out of the
ordinary given the existing forms of cooperation and their normative parame-
ters. Strictly speaking, when judged against the Copenhagen School’s criteria,
this should lead to the conclusion that there has been no securitization of
transnational challenges such as terrorism and communicable diseases. We
felt it sensible to relax the requirement of agreement on “extraordinary mea-
sures” and emphasize instead the importance of shared threat assessments, as
well as agreement on some form of practical response. Having already argued
that the actual implementation of extraordinary measures is not required for
securitization to occur, the decision to reduce further the requirement for
successful securitization might be understood as a major limitation of se-
curitization theory in its practical application. However, we feel that this is
necessary and warranted, as the key audience for multilateral arrangements
is normally formed not by converging national public opinion but simply the
representatives of other members, that is, their governments.
The empirical sections of this article have demonstrated moreover that
the Copenhagen School’s dichotomy between politicization and securitiza-
tion should be rejected in favor of seeing securitization as a more incremental
and graduated process. To date, securitization theory fails to make sufficient
allowance for the continuum along which decision makers would seem to
categorize challenges: a continuum that would stretch from apolitical prob-
lems, their politicization, and then their treatment as concerns, risks, threats,
and potentially even existential threats. Disregarding different stages toward
full securitization leads analysts to gloss over significant distinctions between
what is considered an existential threat and what is not.
In empirical terms, we conclude that ASEAN and the AU are engaged with
transnational threats to individuals as well as state and regime security. How-
ever, the Southeast Asian case demonstrates that those transnational chal-
lenges posing a potential or actual serious threat to the state enjoy priority.
In the AU’s case, the official rhetoric is more ambiguous as it is often more
vague. Clearly, transnational health threats are set to remain at or near the
top of the security agenda of both arrangements.
It is paradoxical that the AU, which does not use the label “transnational”
in its official security discourse, nevertheless responds to transnational issues
such as health and terrorism, and in certain circumstances even to intrastate
disputes with transnational dimensions, usually in the form of cross-border
insurgency activity. In contrast, we found that ASEAN carefully distinguishes
between different transnational challenges, although it operates with signifi-
cant silences on insurgents or domestic competitors operating transnationally.
This leads us to make our final theoretical point regarding the possibil-
ity and/or usefulness of relying on securitization theory in order to explore
how regional arrangements construct threats: the importance of analyzing
collective securitization against the backdrop of prevailing regional security
discourses. These discourses implicitly or explicitly reflect core security con-
cerns that shape the official output of a regional arrangement in important
ways. Such discourses may not only reduce the collective latitude to address
effectively novel challenges; sometimes they may encourage a collective si-
lence on security issues that are too important to be ignored.

Haacke &amp; Williams (2008)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Haacke &amp; Williams (2008)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

This article was downloaded by: [University of Indonesia]

On: 21 September 2011, At: 21:05

Regional Arrangements, Securitization,

Available online: 03 Dec 2008

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09636410802508014

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Regional Arrangements, Securitization, and

JÜRGEN HAACKE and PAUL D. WILLIAMS

This article seeks to contribute to debates about how regional ar-

authors see it as complementary to theories about structural determinants

Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

point to understand what securitization is and how it works. However, se-

derstandings about threats and the endorsement of special measures to ad-

Securitization and Its Critics

What . . . is security? With the help of language theory, we can regard

important, so is the question of “who securitizes?” Buzan and Wæver have

what precisely it means by an “existential threat”; arguing that the “essen-

MAIN CRITICISMS OF THE COPENHAGEN SCHOOL

Analysts have advanced numerous criticisms of securitization theory. These

flux.23 While these points demonstrate the limitations of securitization the-

Copenhagen School” Millennium 29, no. 2 (2000): 285–306.

Rather than emergency action, most security politics is concerned with

University Press, 2007), 117.

as gradual and incremental, and importantly an issue can be placed on

A fourth criticism of securitization theory concerns its application in

the politics of threat identification, ascertaining the extent of securitization

From Securitization to Collective Securitization

tization may not necessarily always involve agreement on counter-measures

when dealing with such nebulous referents as sovereignty and collective

SECURITIZATION BY REGIONAL ARRANGEMENTS

at the level of regional arrangements. Although most of the Copenhagen

Agenda in Europe,” European Journal of International Relations 4, no. 4 (1998): 501.

Africa’s attempt to invoke the backing of the Southern African Development

members generally allow other participants to include issues and positions

in terms of ambiguous language and restrained tone. Indeed, we contend

Risse-Kappen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 3.

on National Security (2005), http://www.princeton.edu/∼ppns/conferences/reports/fall/SSTT.pdf, 3.

sum, the transnational appears to require the presence of nonstate actors,

as to which challenges and issues amount to priority or niche security threats.

Securitizing Transnational Challenges in Africa

extraordinary summit, Sirte, Libya, 28 February 2004.

TRAFFICKING OF SMALL ARMS AND LIGHT WEAPONS

Common Defence Pact,” Abuja, 31 January 2005.

50See AU doc. Assembly/AU/Decl. 1 (V), 2.

Terrorism in Africa,” African Security Review 15, no. 3 (2006): 38.

endorsed both an African Plan of Action and an international Code of Con-

conducted individually by African states, often in collaboration with external

sidered to be a devastating continental emergency.63 In recognition of the

collective action through the developing instruments of the CADSP. Similar

66 AU doc. Assembly/AU/Decl. 6 (II), Maputo, Mozambique, 10–12 July 2003.

means to aggression or threats of aggression,” and “not to recognize any ter-

Securitizing Transnational Challenges in Southeast Asia

nam, Burma/Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia.

In December 1997, interior/home ministers issued the ASEAN Declaration

crime.73 It had six major thrusts: information exchange, cooperation in le-

biguously articulated. In ascertaining whether ASEAN has regarded transna-

Lumpur, 17 May 2002.

laundering, trafficking in persons, and piracy.80 Their 1999 ministerial com-

However, by late 2001, as a consequence of 9/11, the language of home

The absence of a coherent ASEAN discourse on transnational crime suggests

2005, emphasis added.

ism,” Bandar Seri Beget, 1 August 2002, http://www.aseansec.org/10574.htm.

at the Thirty-fifth AMM, in July 2002, described terrorism as a “global threat.”

Haacke & Williams (2008)

Haacke & Williams (2008)