Non-Traditional Security in Asia: Dilemmas in

Securitisation
Mely Caballero-Anthony, Ralf Emmers and Amitav Acharya (eds) (2006), Aldershot:
Ashgate Publishing Limited, 257 pp., ISBN 0754647013, hardback

Mely Caballero-Anthony, Ralf Emmers and Amitav Acharya are the editors of a volume that
provides an extensive study of emerging non-traditional security (NTS) challenges in Asia.
The book is based on a collection of selected papers that examine how NTS issues have been
securitised and/or desecuritised in Asia and goes beyond simply identifying and describing
individual NTS issues through establishing their salience, to developing a conceptual
framework for investigating how and why they have been securitised or desecuritised.

To understand the dynamics of securitising non-traditional issues, the edited volume extends
and modifies the theory of securitisation and desecuritisation originally outlined by the
Copenhagen School. The theory of securitisation/desecuritisation emerged at the School
through the work of Barry Buzan, Ole Waever and Japp de Wilde.1

These researchers played an important role in broadening the concept of security, not only in
including new referent objects of security, other than the state, but also in providing a
framework to define security and determine how and when a specific matter becomes
securitised or desecuritised. This framework identifies five general categories of security;
militaryeconomic, societal and political.

The dynamics of each of these categories are determined by securitising actors and referent
objects. The theory is that an actor securitises issues by declaring something, a referent object
that is existentially threatened. The second part of the theory hinges on the importance of the
‘speech act’ in the process of securitisation. The speech act refers to the representation of a
certain issue as an existential threat to security and conditions public opinion, which
subsequently provides securitising actors with the right to mobilise state power to move
beyond traditional rules.

Non-Traditional Security in Asia is structured around a number of themes and case studies
concerning undocumented migration, health and infectious diseases, transnational crime,
poverty and the environment. The chapters cover acts of securitisation and desecuritisation
that have taken or are taking place in the three sub-regions of Asia; Southeast Asia, Northeast
Asia and South Asia. The authors of the individual case studies address the areas and
concerns covered in the Copenhagen School conceptual framework through the identification
and motivation of the securitising or desecuritising actors, the referent objects and the
relevant audiences. This is achieved through the examination of the applied security concept,
the process of securitisation and the comprehensive examination of its outcomes/results on
the existential threat. Each case study concludes with offering an assessment of the
effectiveness of the implemented policies of securitisation or desecuritisation in handling the
particular challenge.

According to Caballero-Anthony and Emmers in the first chapter ‘[b]y providing a more
systematic approach to examine how NTS challenges have been securitised and/or
desecuritised, it is hoped that this collection contributes to a much broader and deeper
understanding of the nature of security as defined by different states and societies across the
globe. And by focusing on Asia and allowing for extensive analyses of major security
challenges facing many states in the region, the contributors present an ambitious agenda of
future research, policy and action’.

Each individual case study is written in an easy to read style and describes in detail a specific
topical Asian security issue. However, though the studies are extremely diverse, they
complement each other though the use of the common investigative Copenhagen School
framework. The book makes a number of contributions to the emerging NTS field and is
highly recommended to those interested in Asian NTS issues or looking to explore and seek
an understanding of how NTS is an emerging area of study.

Garth den Heyer, PhD

New Zealand Police

Notes
See Buzan, B., Waever, O. & de Wilde, J. (1998), Security: A New Framework for
1.

Analysis, Lynne Rienner, Boulder, CO; and Waever, O. (1995), ‘Securitisation and
Desecuritisation’, in R. D. Lipschutz (ed.), On Security, Columbia University Press, New
York.