Nationalities Papers

The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity

ISSN: 0090-5992 (Print) 1465-3923 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cnap20

Securitization, history, and identity: some

conceptual clarifications and examples from
politics of Finnish war history

Matti Jutila

To cite this article: Matti Jutila (2015) Securitization, history, and identity: some conceptual
clarifications and examples from politics of Finnish war history, Nationalities Papers, 43:6,
927-943, DOI: 10.1080/00905992.2015.1065402

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2015.1065402

Published online: 29 Jul 2015.

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 Nationalities Papers, 2015
Vol. 43, No. 6, 927–943, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2015.1065402

Securitization, history, and identity: some conceptual clarifications and

examples from politics of Finnish war history
Matti Jutila*

Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

(Received 2 June 2014; accepted 15 December 2014)

This article shows how we can use the securitization framework to study extreme history
politics. Securitization refers to a speech act or discursive process in which an actor
makes a claim that some referent object, deemed worthy of survival, is existentially
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threatened. If successful, securitization justifies the use of extraordinary measures to

counter the threat. After introducing the concept of securitization in detail, the article
presents three ways in which history and securitization can be connected: history can
serve as a facilitating condition of securitization; history can be explicitly used to
strengthen a securitizing move; or history, or a particular interpretation of it, can be
the referent object of securitization. The second half of the article is devoted to a
discussion on the role of history in the securitization of national identities. Historical
myths are the standard building blocks of national identities; challenging these myths
can be presented as threats to the survival of the nation. The article also discusses
potential forms of resistance against securitization of history/national identities.
Illustrative examples from the political use of WWII history in Finland will be used
to show the practical consequences of various conceptual choices.

Keywords: securitization; national identity; history politics; Finland; WWII

The past will not pass away. It survives as a tradition that weighs like a nightmare on the
brains of the living, making it impossible for women and men to make their own history as
they please. The past is preserved, not only in people’s minds, but it is also actively repro-
duced. Books are written, monuments erected, museums established, movies made, and so
on. Through these artifacts we narrate our identities – how we became who we are. Various
narratives do not always coexist peacefully. Different understandings of “our” past might be
incompatible, or the story of “us” can contradict the “other’s” self-understanding. Past wars
continue today as identity conflicts. At times challenges to particular historical narratives
can be presented as existential threats to a society. Countering existential threats justifies
the use of any means available to deal with the threat; sometimes these measures include
the use of violence.
This article offers a framework by which to analyze extreme history politics. The
so-called Copenhagen School’s concept of securitization has been extensively used in
the study of international relations; it has also been used to study the politics of national
identities, but has remained less familiar in the study of nationalism.1 Securitization is an

*Email: matti.a.jutila@gmail.com

© 2015 Association for the Study of Nationalities

 928 M. Jutila

extreme version of politicization. Securitization refers to a speech act or discursive process

in which an actor makes a claim that some referent object, deemed worthy of survival, is
existentially threatened. If successful, securitization justifies the use of extraordinary
measures to counter the threat. Those measures may break the rules of normal politics,
and occasionally involve the use of violence. History is often considered as an existential
foundation for society. Winston Churchill reportedly stated, “A nation that forgets its past
has no future.” Political actors use various historical narratives to justify their present pos-
itions and to build their desired futures. Challenges to historical narratives are often pre-
sented as challenges to the existence of a common (“our”) society. The securitization
framework offers a conceptual tool to analyze extreme versions of history politics. What
is the role of history in securitization processes? Can history be securitized to the extent
that it would justify breaking the rules of normal politics? This article approaches these
questions conceptually, investigating the relationship between history, securitization, and
identity. Illustrative examples from the political use of WWII history in Finland will be
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used to show the practical consequences of various conceptual choices.2

This article is divided into five sections. In the first section, I will introduce the concept
of securitization in detail. The second section briefly introduces three ways in which history
and securitization can be connected: history as a facilitating condition of securitization;
history explicitly used to strengthen a securitizing move; and history, or a particular
interpretation of it, as the referent object of securitization. The third section investigates
the securitization of national identities in more detail and discusses the role of history in
this process. Traditional approaches to nationalism and societal security, and their short-
comings are discussed at length. The fourth section shows how we can study the use of his-
torical myths in securitizing moves without reproducing reified national identities. The final
section of the paper discusses how the memories of individuals and the writing of academic
history can serve as tools for desecuritizing national identities.

Securitization
The concept of securitization was developed by the Copenhagen School of Security Studies
(CS). Ole Wæver first introduced the term in a working paper in 1989 and further developed
the concept in an article (1995) and later in the book Security: A New Framework for Analy-
sis (1998) by Barry Buzan, Jaap de Wilde, and Wæver. Since then, securitization has been a
widely used concept in security studies. According to Buzan and Wæver, who have pro-
vided the standard definition, securitization is a speech act or a discursive process
“through which an intersubjective understanding is constructed within a political commu-
nity to treat something as a threat to a valued referent object, and to enable a call for urgent
and exceptional measures to deal with the threat” (Buzan and Wæver 2003, 491). This defi-
nition is rather rudimentary, but, even so, has led to conflicting interpretations on the precise
definition for some of the key terms, and also on some of their analytical and political impli-
cations.3 In order to develop a more systematic framework for the study of the use of history
in securitization, I will first clarify some of the key terms of the CS’s approach.
Securitization is a political activity. Any issue can be located on a spectrum ranging
from non-politicized, through various levels of politicization, all the way to securitized.
Even though anything might be political, something becomes politicized when it has
become a matter of public debate and dispute and enters the realms of public funding or
civic governance. Securitization is an extreme version of politicization. When securitized,
an issue rises to the top of the political agenda, requiring emergency measures to counter
existential threats, even justifying an override of normal political procedures. As in
 Nationalities Papers 929

politicization, in principle, anyone can securitize. Who is the securitizing actor, the one who
declares that some valued referent object has been existentially threatened, is an empirical
question. Regarding the use of history, the range of potential securitizing actors is wide.
Professional historians, politicians, public intellectuals, or ethno-nationalist entrepreneurs,
for example, can securitize historical myths or use history to support their securitizing
moves. In addition to the multiplicity of potential securitizing actors, there is also a wide
range of relevant audiences. Relevance depends on context. Questions might be asked
such as “Who has the power to authorize the emergency measures requested by the secur-
itizing actor?” or “Is the securitizing actor trying to convince the general population or some
particular constituency, elite, expert, or some other audience?” A securitizing move would
turn into a successful securitization only if the securitizing actor is able to convince an audi-
ence (see Buzan, Wæver, and de Wilde 1998, 23–26).
What differentiates securitization from politicization is that, when successful, the coun-
tering of existential threats could justify political or legal measures that would not be nor-
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mally acceptable. These can include limitations on fundamental freedoms and violations of
human rights. In this regard, securitization can also have de-politicizing consequences. It
can lead to an increase in secrecy, the suppression of public debate, and the use of violence.
Because of these possible problematic consequences, the CS argues that in most cases,
securitization is not desirable, and desecuritization is often the preferred option:
Our belief, therefore, is not “the more security the better.” Basically, security should be seen as
negative, as a failure to deal with issues as normal politics. … desecuritization is the optimal
long-range option, since it means not to have issues phrased as “threats against which we
have countermeasures” but to move them out of this threat-defence sequence and into the
ordinary public sphere. (Buzan, Wæver, and de Wilde 1998, 29)
There are, naturally, exceptions to this general stance. We cannot state in advance what
the extraordinary measures might be, and therefore cannot estimate whether they are accep-
table according to some criteria.
If securitization is an activity, what kind of activity is it? The main idea of securitization
is that an intersubjective understanding has been created about an existential threat to a
valued referent object. We can distinguish two strands in the study of securitization. The
first strand builds its approach on theories of speech acts. This is how Wæver himself
started developing the idea:
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). By uttering
“security,” a state-representative moves a particular development into a specific area, and
thereby claims a special right to use whatever means are necessary to block it. (Wæver
1995, 55)
Wæver used speech acts only as a general idea about how things are done with words.
Juha Vuori has developed a more systematic approach to securitization relying on theoriz-
ing about speech acts (Vuori 2008, 2011). He has articulated the illocutionary logics of
security speech acts, which has enabled a detailed study of securitizing moves. The
second strand of securitization studies focuses more on the contextual factors that are
crucial in determining whether a securitizing move is successful or not. Successful secur-
itization requires more than just a linguistically felicitous performance of the speech act.
In particular, Thierry Balzacq (2005) has directed our attention to the importance of contex-
tual factors for securitization. He has argued that the study of securitization in real situations
should be audience-centered and should focus more on the power-positioning of the secur-
itizing actor. According to Balzacq, instead of paying so much attention to the act, we
should focus attention on the facilitating conditions that, to a large extent, determine
 930 M. Jutila

when securitizing moves are successful. I will return to the position of history as a contex-
tual factor in the next section. These two strands or approaches use contrasting methods in
their studies. The first approach uses tools developed in linguistics; the second borrows
from sociology. The variation between the two approaches stems partly from the distinctly
different questions involved. The first studies the grammar of security, in order to under-
stand the functions of security in various societies. The second investigates why some
securitizing moves are successful while others fail, and what are the political consequences
of successful securitization. This paper is closer to the approach of the latter strand, but uses
insights from the first to show ways that history can be used in single securitizing moves.
Regardless of whether we focus on single speech acts or longer discursive processes,
securitization includes a claim that some valued referent object is existentially threatened.
Since we can, in principle, securitize anything, the referent object cannot be determined by
theory. Traditional security studies considered that states were the only relevant referent
objects, and that the use of military force by other states was the only relevant threat.
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The broadening and deepening of security studies led to the introduction of a huge
variety of new referent objects (such as individuals in human security) and possible
threats (such as environmental threats), significantly opening the field. The CS contributed
to this process by elaborating on the concept of societal security in the early 1990s.
However, just as in traditional security studies, these new openings had a fixed logic of
security that included determined referent objects and the dynamics of threats and counter-
measures. The securitization framework departed from this logic of analysis, in that, instead
of studying how the logic of security operates in a new area, the CS investigated how this
logic is introduced in a particular context. Referent objects were not given, but instead one
significant aspect of analysis is how the securitizing actor defines the referent object. At
times, these definitions might refer to concrete entities such as individuals or ecosystems.
But in most cases, referent objects are abstract categories, like states or nations. Especially
in the latter case, a detailed analysis of the definition of “referent object” is a necessary early
step in the research process. The way that the securitizing actor defines the referent object
has a huge impact on what can be argued to threaten it. Investigation of the presented refer-
ent object also opens avenues for critical research. After articulating the securitizing actor’s
understanding of the referent object, a challenge can be made with alternative conceptual-
izations. In this paper, I will offer such a challenge with regard to our understandings of
national identities.
Securitization is thus an open political process, in which the framework does not
possess a fixed set of securitizing actors, referent objects, audiences, and normal and extra-
ordinary political procedures. The framework of securitization gives the researcher an
understanding of the functioning of the logics of security that can be applied to a variety
of empirical cases to analyze politics of security in a particular context. The illustrative
examples offered in this article only highlight the conceptual issue discussed in the
section. They are not detailed studies of securitization processes, with extensive discussions
on actors, referent objects, contexts, audiences, resistance, and normal or emergency poli-
tics. The examples are securitizing moves that are not necessarily successful securitization.
They are used to illustrate the consequences of particular conceptual choices and to show
the diversity of securitization processes in practice.

History and securitization

Securitization is a political activity, and as readers of this journal know from numerous
articles on the topic, history can be used in various ways in contemporary politics.
 Nationalities Papers 931

Jaakko Kalela has argued that there are two ways in which history can be politicized. The
first, what Kalela (2004, 16) calls the politics of history, involves the contest between differ-
ent representations of history. “Demonstrating that something is ‘contrary to what is
claimed or believed,’ the historian contests the conventional truths about history and
their significance for the current situation” (Kalela 2004, 16). The second kind, called
history politics, refers to the active and intentional use of history in contemporary politics
(Kalela 2004, 9). Of these two kinds of activities, the latter involves the deliberate use of
history for specific purposes, while the first involves the deliberate challenge of other rep-
resentations of history and could influence contemporary politics more indirectly, that is, by
changing the historical consciousness on which the history-political activity in the latter
sense relies. Before discussing the extreme versions of these two politicizations, I will
first show how history can serve as a facilitating condition for securitizing moves in all
sectors of security.
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History as a facilitating condition

History operates as a facilitating condition if the securitizing actor can connect his or her
securitizing move to the historical consciousness of the audience. Historical consciousness
refers to “the way people and communities deal with the past in order to understand the
present and future” (Torsti 2003, 50). History is transformed into a meaningful entity
through which we understand how the world works and what our role in it is. To be suc-
cessful, a securitizing move must connect with the historical consciousness of the audience.
This applies, in principle, to securitizations in all sectors. The CS writes that “it is more
likely that one can conjure a security threat if certain objects can be referred to that generally
are held to be threatening” (Buzan, Wæver, and de Wilde 1998, 33). Things that are gen-
erally held to be threatening can also be part of our daily experiences, like ice falling from
rooftops. But when referent objects refer to abstract categories such as states or nations,
connections to historical consciousness are significant.
One area in which history functions as a facilitating condition for securitization is inter-
national security. Past violent conflicts facilitate current securitizing moves. Finland offers
an example of this. In Finland, WWII is divided into three conflicts: the Winter War (1939–
1940), in which the Soviet Union attacked Finland (though Finland remained independent,
it lost significant parts of its territory); the Continuation War (1941–1944), in which Finland
was de facto allied with Germany and fought against the Soviet Union until signing a sep-
arate peace in September 1944; and after that, the War of Lapland (1944–1945), in which
the Finnish Army forced German troops out of the country. In Finnish memory culture, the
War of Lapland has only a marginal role; the “real war for survival” was fought against the
Soviet Union 1939–1944. Contemporary neo-patriotic war narratives combine the Soviet
attack in 1939 with the “defense victory” of 1944, making Finland simultaneously into
both an innocent victim and a victorious survivor (Kivimäki 2012, 494), and leaving out
1941, when Finland joined the German operation, “Barbarossa.”
Still, seven decades afterwards, WWII heavily influences public discussions on
defense politics. Finland is one of the few European countries that conscripts its army
and prepares for a WWII-like, large-scale territorial assault from the east. Until the
early 2000s, conscription had been considered the only way to organize Finnish national
defense, but for the past decade, public discussion on the tasks and organization of the
Finnish army has been intensifying. In 2011, the National Defense University published
a research report by three retired high-ranking army officers and one adjunct professor
on the implications of Russian military reform for Finland (Forss et al. 2013).4 The
 932 M. Jutila

report claimed that combining the former Leningrad and Moscow military districts
shifted the focus of the Russian army to the northwest, in other words, to the Finnish
border. The Finnish army should, therefore, maintain a credible conventional deterrent
in the form of a mass-army. The report itself uses only very cautious language, but
Finnish media soon picked up the report and created an image of Finland being existen-
tially threatened by a Russian surprise attack (Haukkala 2012). As a securitizing move,
the report and following media coverage warns that, as in 1939, Finland could again be
an innocent victim of an attack from the East and in order to achieve another defense
victory, Finland must maintain a mass-army. The report can be seen as a securitizing
move that relies on violent history between Finland and Russia – even though this
history is not explicitly used in the securitizing move – to defend a conscription army
against ongoing foundational reforms that would change the military’s focus from terri-
torial defense to international crisis management. The report tries to defend an extraordi-
nary way of military organization against pressures to “normalize” (i.e. Europeanize) the
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army, by moving toward a more selective conscription or a more professional army.

Extreme history politics

When history is a facilitating condition of securitization, securitizing actors do not need to
explicitly refer to history. They trust that their securitizing move connects with the audi-
ence’s historical consciousness. However, history can also be explicitly used in securitiz-
ing moves. In history politics “results of historical work, commonly held ideas and
conceptions of history or products of history culture can be used to support and legitimize
certain arguments and aims in the current situation” (Torsti 2003, 52). History can be used
to support arguments about security. History can be used to remind the audience that
something or someone has been dangerous in the past and therefore any means necessary
to deal with this issue should still be used. Securitizing actors can also use historical ana-
logies to convince their audience that current problems are as threatening as some
momentous past events. Using this analogy expands the usability of, for example, war
history, because analogies can be utilized in policy areas that have very little to do
with actual historical events.
Jyrki Katainen’s use of the winter war analogy during an economic crisis serves as a
good example of using history for extreme politicization. In December 2008, Katainen,
then the Minister of Finance, published a blog post titled: “Winter War of Economy.”5
This text was also widely discussed in traditional media. In his securitizing move, economi-
cally prosperous Finland is the referent object. He claimed that, as in 1939, a huge external
threat is now putting Finland’s existence at risk and “we have to fight it in a unified front, by
all available means.” In this winter war of economy, Finland cannot hope for a real victory,
but instead should aim at a “defense victory” minimizing damage and enabling a swift
return to growth. He wrote that this is not the time for “gimmicky opposition politics” or
“rocking the boat;” Finland must fight this economic war as a unified nation. In this
speech act, Katainen tried to convince Finns that the current crisis was an existential
struggle, similar to the Winter War. He tried to convince the audience that in the economic
sector we can face existential threats that also require swift, resolute, and uniform counter-
measures. As in real war, in this “Winter War of Economy” there is no room for normal
democratic debate on the issue, but everyone must follow the commander in chief uncon-
ditionally. Winter War is “usable past,” not only in defense policy, but also as a historical
analogy in securitizing moves for any area of politics.
 Nationalities Papers 933

Securitization of history
Jorma Kalela has written extensively about the politics of history as a condition of possi-
bility for academic history writing. He has claimed that historical research is meaningful
only if there is a desire to show that something is contrary to widely claimed beliefs
(Kalela 2012, 39–42). Contestation in which previous interpretations of history are existen-
tially threatened is the normal condition in the field of history. Is it possible that a particular
interpretation of history could be the referent object in securitization? Even though con-
testation is normal or even desirable, the field of history might occasionally witness secur-
itization of history. Sometimes particular interpretations of history are so deeply embedded
in politics that an interpretation becomes a referent object in its own right; defending it
might seem to justify measures that are extraordinary in the academic field or popular
history. However, since historical interpretations need to be existentially challenged all
the time, the threshold for genuine securitization of history should be high.
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The closest Finnish politics of history comes to an actual securitization of history is the
contest over the Finnish decision to join Operation Barbarossa in the summer of 1941. After
Germany lost the war and Finland ended up on the wrong side of history, distancing Finland
from Nazi Germany became an important political project for both politicians and histor-
ians. Leading Finnish historians started to advocate the “driftwood theory” of Finnish
war history. According to this view, Finland was merely driftwood caught in the turbulence
of global politics, without independent agency. According to this idea, Finns ended up
fighting the same enemy as Nazi Germany without any real alliance or shared war aims.
In the decades following the war, Finnish historians did not begin critical historical enqui-
ries about wartime decision-making – which would have been normal in the politics of
history. When the foreign scholars C. L. Lundin, Anthony Upton, and Hans Peter
Krosby challenged the driftwood theory, leading Finnish historians such as Arvi Korhonen
and Ohto Manninen publicly asked whether Finnish history needed foreign “judges.” These
defensive reactions by Korhonen and Manninen came closest to becoming the securitizing
moves in which the driftwood theory is the referent object. Korhonen and Manninen did not
pledge to defend to the death their own interpretation, nor did they explicitly forbid research
on the topic. However, the effect of these particular moves and other politics of history prac-
tices of the time was that critical domestic research on Finnish–German wartime relations
was not published before the 1970s (see Soikkanen 2007, 112–114; Meinander 2011). His-
torical interpretations are troublesome referent objects in their own right, but when con-
nected to national identities, their securitization is much easier.

History in the securitization of national identities – critical remarks

Even though the CS is now associated mostly with the concept of securitization, its first
conceptual innovation was societal security. They introduced the duality of state and
societal security in the 1993 book, Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda in
Europe. Other scholars who had been searching for alternatives for studying state security
had settled with either an atomist concept of “societal security, composed of aggregated
individual securities” or a universalistic view of “a global society of humankind.” The
CS tried to avoid both these paths. For them, security was about a “specific type of interplay
among human collectives, which follows the logic of security” (Wæver 1993, 24). In state
security, the collective is the state, concerned with its sovereignty; in societal security it is
society, concerned with its identity.
From early on, the CS’s understanding of societal security has been called too essenti-
alist to capture the dynamics of the security of identities (McSweeney 1996). These
 934 M. Jutila

accusations are not without foundation. The CS often writes in an essentialist style, for
example, arguing that societal security “concerns the ability of a society to persist in its
essential character under changing conditions and possible or actual threats. … Societal
security is about situations when societies perceive a threat in identity terms” (Wæver
1993, 23, emphasis added). Also, their definition of “nation,” which has been the most
important “society” in the study of societal security, is rather essentialist. They adopt
Anthony D. Smith’s definition of nation as “a named human population sharing an historic
territory, common myths and historical memories, a mass, public culture, a common
economy, and common legal rights and duties for all members” (Smith 1991, 14; Wæver
1993, 38). Smith’s definition lists the essential characters of nations and they can be threa-
tened by, for example, “forbidding the use of language, names, and dress” and the “closure
of places of education or worship” (Buzan 1993, 43). Common myths and historical mem-
ories are also essential characteristics of a nation; when these qualities are threatened, a
society may perceive a threat in identity terms.
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The CS has noticed the problems of reifying identities many times (Buzan, Wæver, and
de Wilde 1998, 206), but argues that their conceptions of societies and nations make it
easier to manage relations among units. The reified and essentialist conceptions of
society became more problematic when the CS moved into a more constructivist direction
regarding security. The discursive approach to security highlights its political nature. Secur-
ity is not defined primarily by some objective conditions, but by the intense relationship that
actors feel toward certain issues. The CS is thus much more constructivist with regard to
security than they are regarding other social relations. They recognize that the way
people define their own identity can determine whether the identity can be securitized in
a particular context, and that securitizing moves, which use identity as the referent, also
define that identity (Buzan, Wæver, and de Wilde 1998, 120). Nevertheless, the CS still
defines society in terms of the “self-conception of communities and of individuals identify-
ing themselves as members of a collective” (Buzan, Wæver, and de Wilde 1998, 119) and
claim that “identities as other social constructions can petrify and become relatively con-
stant elements to be reckoned with” (Buzan, Wæver, and de Wilde 1998, 205).
Even though I agree that identities can petrify, I disagree with the CS on how to deal
with this phenomenon. In this regard, I have found Rogers Brubaker’s views about reifica-
tion stimulating. They are worth citing at length here:
Reification is a social process, not simply an intellectual bad habit. As a social process, it is
central to the practice of politicized ethnicity. And appropriately so. To criticize ethnopolitical
entrepreneurs for reifying groups would be a kind of category mistake. Reifying groups is pre-
cisely what ethnopolitical entrepreneurs are in the business of doing. When they are successful,
the political fiction of the unified group can be momentarily yet powerfully realized in practice.
As analysts we should certainly account for the ways in which – and conditions under which –
this practice of reification, this powerful crystallization of group feeling, can work. This may be
one of the most important tasks of the theory of ethnic conflict. But we should avoid uninten-
tionally doubling or reinforcing the reification of ethnic groups in ethnopolitical practice with a
reification of such groups in social analysis. (Brubaker 2002, 166–167)
Securitization is also a practice of reifying ethnic groups. “It is when identities are secur-
itized that their negotiability and flexibility are challenged, denied, or suppressed”
(Williams 2003, 520). However, even though securitizing actors adhere to essentialist con-
ceptions of national identities, we do not have to use a similar conception. “As ‘analysts of
naturalizers,’ we need not be ‘analytic naturalizers’” (Brubaker 2002, 166). These reifying
practices can be accounted for with more sophisticated understandings of nations and iden-
tities (cf. Hansen 2006).
 Nationalities Papers 935

Many critics have only focused on the essentialist aspects of the CS’s writings, but the
CS also wrote about the pluralism of societal security concerns in all societies: “We cannot
predict who will voice the ‘societal security’ concerns, we can only see afterwards how
much legitimacy an actor does have when trying to speak on behalf of society” (Wæver
et al. 1993, 188). Unfortunately, the implications of this view have not been fully developed
in the studies of societal security. If, in principle, anyone can voice societal security con-
cerns, would this mean that more than one story will always exist about the society? The
narratives of society tell us who we are, how we have become us, what makes us similar
to each other, who we are not, and what can be threatening to us? In studies of societal
security, we should not only focus on how our national identity has evolved over time,
but also on how different actors identifying with the same national identity label might
narrate the content of that identity in different ways within contemporary politics.
Focusing on the plurality of identity narratives introduces a new issue to the societal
security agenda. In his most recent presentation of that agenda, Ole Wæver identified the
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four issues most commonly presented as threats to societal security: migration, horizontal
competition (influences from neighboring cultures), vertical competition (integration and
fragmentation), and depopulation (Wæver 2008, 584). Of these, only depopulation and
one form of vertical competition (fragmentation) refer to dynamics that are internal to
the society. Recognizing the competing identity narratives introduces a fifth issue to the
agenda: internal competition. Actors within a society might claim that other actors identify-
ing with the same society have “misunderstood” the essential characteristics of the society,
in other words, telling “wrong” stories about the society’s identity and its threats. Whereas
vertical competition refers to a redrawing of the circles of identification – secessionist
movements claiming that they should be smaller, integration projects that they should be
larger – internal competition does not redraw those circles, but redefines the essential
characteristics of what it means to be “our” society. This dynamic of societal securitization
can be seen operating in Anders Behring Breivik’s mass murder spree. Breivik did not
target immigrants, but rather, targeted Norwegian youth whose views about the essential
characteristics of Norwegian society differed from his own.
These dynamics can also be found in the securitization of historical myths. Horizontal
competition occurs when the historical narratives of two neighboring countries are incom-
patible, as was the case with Russian and Estonian war narratives in the Bronze Soldier inci-
dent (see Lehti, Jutila, and Jokisipilä 2008). Vertical competition is seen when national war
narratives co-exist uneasily with wider European historical myths, something which has
been the case with new EU member states (see Mälksoo 2009). In the remainder of this
article, I will focus on internal competition. Various narratives within a society have com-
peting views about its common myths and historical memories. Next, I will show how eth-
nonational entrepreneurs try to reify identities using historical narratives and then offer
some insight into how history can also be used in resisting reified identities.

National collective memories and myths in societal securitizations

By “Nationalism” I mean, first of all, a habit of assuming that human beings can be classified
like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently
labelled “good” or “bad.” But secondly – and this is much more important – I mean the habit of
identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recog-
nizing no other duty than that of advancing its interest. (Orwell [1945] 1968, 362)
George Orwell’s statement, written more than six decades ago, captures many aspects of
contemporary theorizing on nationalism. First, it highlights the constructivist view of
 936 M. Jutila

nations. “Nation” is a category of vision and division, which can be used to divide the
world into collectives, rather than a natural group. It presents a world of nations, in
which everyone should belong to one, and only one, nation. Second, it presents national-
ism as a normative principle, not only a category for describing how the world is, but also,
how it should be. This idea of “nation” is normative also in the sense that it commands
people to work with all means possible for the well-being and survival of this assumed
unit. “There is almost no outrage … which does not change its moral colour when it is
committed by ‘our’ side” (Orwell 1968, 369). These normative evaluations are made
not only in relation to contemporary events and actions, but also, and maybe even predo-
minantly, in relation to historical events. Stories about who we are contain historical
dimensions that explain how we have come to be who we are at the moment. Challenging
those historical narratives might be perceived and posited as a present threat to the “essen-
tial character” of the nation.
How should we account for this temporal dimension of nationalism? For ethnonational
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entrepreneurs, the question is rather simple. The world is divided into nations that have
existed, if not from time immemorial, then at least for the past two centuries, and the
story of the nation can be told in a manner similar to the stories of individuals. The main
difference is that nations have temporal depth that transcends an individual life. Even
though the individuals forming the nation change, the nation, as such, does not, but
rather is considered to exist through time, transmitted from one generation to the next. Aca-
demic history writing and education have been key mediums of this transmission. Histor-
ians were often involved in various “national awakenings,” writing Whig histories of how
we came to be who we are. When nations were imagined, history had to be imagined anew.
“National memory” is preserved through history writing and other presentations of history
(see Calhoun 1997, 51–65).
The importance of the temporal dimension for the practice of nationalism is evident, but
how should we study it? Here we again face the problem of taking the nationalists’ cat-
egories of practice as analytical categories. National or collective memory is a category
often used by ethnonational entrepreneurs; it is also used by scholars of nationalism,
often without proper reflection on the meaning of the term. For example, Anthony
D. Smith’s definition of nation includes “common myths and historical memories.”
Smith does not clarify how he understands the difference between myths and memories.
At times, he seems to be using the terms as if they were synonymous (see Bell 2003,
70). This confusion is also evident in his notion of memory. He writes that memory is
an active principle of recall of earlier states of activity and experience of a person. … By
analogy, collective cultural identities are based on the shared memories of experiences and
activities of successive generations of a group distinguished by one or more shared cultural
elements. (Smith 1999, 262)
But how can someone or a group recall something they have not experienced themselves?6
National memory as a concept, if taken literally, is based on two false assumptions. First, it
assumes that the nation in history is a unified entity that can experience major historical
events and processes in singular form. Second, it assumes that today the nation can actively
recall those experiences, even though people belonging to the nation now were not necess-
arily even born at the time of the experience. Nations simply do not have collective con-
sciousness that would make this kind of experiencing and recalling possible. This does
not mean that history is unimportant in the construction, reproduction, and transformation
of national identities. It only means that national history cannot be recalled, but is narrated
again and again by people who have no experience of the events discussed, but who often
 Nationalities Papers 937

tell the story as if it was their own past. People identifying with a nation do not share mem-
ories; they share myths (see Bell 2003).
Scholars who investigate collective memories often have more sophisticated con-
ceptions of memory (see Misztal 2003). They treat national memories as myths, but still
use the concept of memory. Therefore, one could argue that the difference is only a seman-
tic issue, whether one chooses to call the phenomena studied, “memories” or “myths.”
However, Brubaker’s warning that taking categories of practice as our analytical categories
shows that our ability to analyze critically problematic practices might become impeded.
National memory is a category of practice that has problematic connotations. In everyday
language, memory is an individual, human capacity. If we use the term for nations also, we
imply by analogy that nations are like people. This kind of reified understanding of nations,
which ascribes anthropomorphic and agential characteristics to nations, is the main source
of criticism for CS’s understanding of societal security.
Historical myths, described as national collective memories, are often the source of
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internal competition. Various actors identifying with the same national label tell different
stories about the nation’s past. Even though actors from all across the Finnish political spec-
trum have used WWII history, it is the conservative right that has mostly used the nation-
alist narrative of Finland as an innocent victim of an unprovoked attack in 1939 that
achieved a defense victory in 1944. With the advance of the True Finns7 party, that political
corner grew in significance in Finnish politics after the 2011 parliamentary elections. In
those elections, the True Finns party increased its support from 4% in 2007 to 19%.
Since then, the party has been an active player in Finnish history politics regarding WWII.
The True Finns party highlights the importance of war history for the Finnish national
identity in its normal history politics. In the party’s 2011 parliamentary election program,
the party demanded that history education must emphasize the “Finnish miracle,” in other
words, showing how a poor land gave birth to a prosperous nation and how survival in the
wars was a precondition for this miracle, and a miracle in its own right (Perusuomalaiset
2011, 9). In the social policy section of the program, the True Finns party states that war
veterans are “our honorary citizens” and that it is the current generation’s “debt of
honor” to guarantee humane living conditions to the veterans and women who served in
the home front, because such veterans saved the independence of the fatherland and built
Finnish prosperity (Perusuomalaiset 2011, 38). The True Finns present the war as part of
the shared history of the nation, which defines “who we are.” According to a recent
study on the historical consciousness in Finland, the voters of True Finns have the most
romanticized view of the war, in the sense that they believe that Finns treated their prisoners
of war humanely and that Finland has nothing to apologize for in regard to the war (Torsti
2012, 141–143). War is used to construct an image of a heroic and pure nation.
This historical consciousness serves as a precondition for securitizing moves. One of
the most prominent moves of history politics from the True Finns has been the proposal
to annul the sentences of eight Finnish political leaders convicted in the war-responsibility
trials. The True Finns introduced a bill that would allow the Supreme Court to reconsider
these convictions. The Supreme Court had earlier stated that such action does not fall within
its jurisdiction. The MP Reijo Tossavainen, the main proponent of the bill, argued that:
As a nationally traumatic pain spot and debt of honor, the war-responsibility convictions must
be dealt with in a manner demanded by the dignity of the nation and of the state based on rule of
law before the centennial of Finnish independence.8
All convicted leaders died years ago, and Tossavainen argues that we do not need to annul
these convictions to return their honor because a “majority of Finns never considered those
 938 M. Jutila

convicted to be guilty of any crime.” According to the party, the convictions must be
annulled to restore national dignity. Other True Finn MPs (Ari Jalonen and Rilva
Elomaa) argued in the ensuing parliamentary debate that war-guilty convictions are also
a libel against all war veterans. They assumed a unified nation and therefore, the conviction
of national leaders turned every soldier into a war criminal.
In this securitizing move, war-guilt convictions, and the fact that they have not been
annulled, are presented as a threat to the identity of the Finnish nation and state. The con-
victions are seen as against the principle of the rule of law, presented as a defining character
of the Finnish state. Recalling how the True Finns emphasized war history as an essential
element of Finnish national identity, it is easy to understand how any problematic aspects of
the war can be presented as threats. This move can be seen as a response to recent more
critical history writing that not only challenges the driftwood theory, but also shows that
contacts between Finland and Nazi Germany were much stronger than were previously
believed (e.g. Silvennoinen 2009). Such research findings are a threat to the myth of a
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unified, pure, and heroic nation. The measures proposed by the True Finns are to some
degree exceptional, giving new jurisdiction to the Supreme Court in annulling specific con-
victions. The timeline for the implementation of these legal measures was set for five years,
with the deadline as the centennial of Finnish independence in 2017. According to Tossa-
vainen and the 38 other signatories of the bill (31 of them are True Finns), Finnish national
identity would suffer a serious blow if the sentences are not annulled. The success of this
securitizing move is questionable. Taking into consideration the centrality of war history in
the True Finns’ identity narrative, this move to annul the convictions might resonate well
with their constituency and even increase their support. On the other hand, the formal audi-
ence of this act, Parliament, has not accepted this move. After the parliamentary debate, the
bill has now – in December 2014 – stalled in the Legal Affairs Committee for three years.

Resisting securitizations with history

National historical myths that are susceptible to securitization are usually simplified. In
most cases, the myths are narrated either as epics or as tragedies. Characters in these two
poetical forms are either good or evil, heroes or villains, victims or perpetrators. There is
little room for ambiguity in these narratives (see Lehti, Jutila, and Jokisipilä 2008; Kuusisto
2009). They tell idealized stories about who we have been in the past for contemporary pur-
poses. Also, these narratives are exclusive in two ways. First, the “Other” is presented as
evil, villains, and perpetrators, with characteristics that continue to define relations
between ethnoculturally defined groups. Second, within the group, those who do not fit
the idealized presentation are marginalized (cf. Bhabha 1990). Such simplified and ideal-
ized narratives are presented as the collective memories of the nation. What kinds of pro-
blems arise if we use this category of practice as our analytical category?
If categories of practice are accepted as relevant categories of analysis, we lose the
opportunity to criticize problematic practices on a more fundamental level. Resistance
and the need for it always take normative and political judgments. In this regard, we
should recall the general CS stance that in most cases desecuritization and return to
normal politics should be preferred. Especially in the field of societal security, including
securitization of history, the logic of security brings into the situation the division of
friends and enemies that turns the pluralistic communities into two opposing camps: “If
you are not with us, you are against us!” This kind of exclusivity is always cultural violence,
and from it there is only a short way to actual, physical violence. If we accept essentialist
and anthropomorphic conceptions of a nation, the only option for resistance against
 Nationalities Papers 939

securitization would be to argue that the threat presented is not real. With a more sophisti-
cated understanding of nations, identities, and the role of history in their reproduction and
transformation, we have more options for resistance (see Huysmans 1995; Jutila 2006).
To be able to criticize the use of history by the ethnonational entrepreneurs, we must be
able to reflect critically on their use of the concept of collective memory. If we understand
memory as an active recall of past events, only those who have experienced the event can
participate in some kind of a collective remembrance of it. For others, the activity, often
described as a collective remembrance, is closer to storytelling than recollection. Concep-
tualizing this activity as memory shields it from contestation. Bell has argued that with the
advance of anti-foundational epistemologies, “Memory seems to have claimed Truth’s
valorized position as a site of authenticity” (Bell 2003, 65). Careless use of “memory” as
an analytical category might reproduce this claim to authenticity. If we employ the term
“myth,” people’s actual memories can serve as a site of counter-hegemonic resistance.
“Myth serves to flatten the complexity, the nuance, the performative contradictions of
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human history; it presents instead, a simplistic and often uni-vocal story” (Bell 2003,
75). People who have memories of the events, who were there, can help in bringing
these nuances and contradictory voices to the public. This can serve as a powerful antidote
against telling simple stories of nations as good/hero/victim vs. evil/villain/perpetrator.
Naturally for many foundational myths of nations, there is no one person who has actual
memories of the events or people described. All the people who have the required personal
experiences have already died. Here the academic study of history plays a crucial role. Even
though historians have been involved in the construction and reproduction of nations, they
can also work as opposition. As early as 1882, Ernst Renan wrote about the myth-breaking
function of historical enquiry:
Forgetting, I would even go so far as to say historical error, is a crucial factor in the creation of a
nation, which is why progress in historical studies often constitutes a danger for [the principle
of] nationality. Indeed, historical enquiry brings to light deeds of violence which took place at
the origin of all political formations, even of those whose consequences have been altogether
beneficial. Unity is always effected by means of brutality. (Renan [1882] 1990, 11)
I do not claim that study of history could be an objective, Rankean study of “Wie es eigen-
tlich gewesen” (“How it really was”). Nevertheless, a systematic study of history leads to a
complex and nuanced picture of the past that is ill-suited for nationalistic purposes (Bell
2003, 77). Even without a claim to full objectivity and truth, historical enquiry can
reveal the foundational myths as what they really are: national myths, not collective mem-
ories. Showing the actual complexities of historical events and the multidimensionality of
the experiences of people occupying different positions can serve as a powerful desecuri-
tizing tool.
The conceptual discussion above has highlighted the diversity of views on nations and
their essential character. There are competing definitions of Finnishness and also different
views on the importance and meaning of WWII for those definitions. As the nationalist
commemoration of WWII has become more manifest, we have seen more securitizing
moves connected to war history from the radical right. Finnish war myths have been
used in anti-immigration and anti-multiculturalist securitizing moves. One of the most
noticeable features of this new commemoration of WWII is the “Kiitos 1939–1945” pro-
ducts. The T-shirts, hoodies, and patches depict a picture of a soldier standing on guard
with the Finnish flag in the background and the text reads, “Kiitos (Thank You) 1939–
1945.” One of the key targets of anti-immigration arguments has been Astrid Thors, the
former (2007–2011) Minister of Immigration. In February 2010, Thors appeared on the
Maria! talk show of Channel Four, together with Maryan Guuleed, a nurse and actor
 940 M. Jutila

with a Somalian background. Both guests dressed in “Kiitos 1939–1945” shirts at the
request of the talk show host. This show caused a huge controversy on social media.
After the show, one national conservative activist with connections to the True Finns
party created a Facebook group titled “I’m ready to serve a couple of years sentence for
killing Astrid Thors.” The group was soon removed and in December 2010, the creator
of the group got a small fine from the court. In an interview, he explained that he was out-
raged by Thors’ and Guuleed’s defamation of the “Thank you” shirt.9 In his view, connect-
ing WWII to multiculturalism is a threat to Finnish identity. This is a clear securitizing
move that proposes a really extreme measure, political murder, but only a few dozen indi-
viduals showed moral support for the cause by joining the Facebook group and no one took
action. The use of WWII for anti-LGBT arguments has been more comical. In 2011, True
Finn MP, Pentti Oinonen, stated that he refused to attend the Presidents’ Independence Day
Ball because more war veterans should be invited there. Oinonen continued: “Gays dancing
there is a personal insult to me. A veteran once wondered, how is it possible that gays can
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dance in the president’s palace. I also think that it is weird.”10 Both of these history politics
moves are based on the myth of the homogenously white, Christian, and heterosexual
Finland; something that the national conservatives deem worthy of protecting against the
threat of multiculturalism.
Both of these political uses of history for the purposes of the present have been resisted
with the help of critical historical studies. These studies included oral history, which has a
certain memory component, but since it was the studies that were used by people with no
direct experience of the phenomenon, it cannot be considered resistance that would be
based on memory. It is rather an alternative narrative constructed from a subaltern perspec-
tive. These studies have shown that the Finnish army in WWII was very diverse in terms of
culture, language, religion, and sexual orientation. LGBT activists organized gay dances for
the Independence Day celebration as a response to Oinonen’s statement. Resistance against
the anti-gay argument has also hijacked “Thank you” symbols from the national conserva-
tives. The LGBT activists replaced the Finnish flag with the rainbow flag and the soldier
with a character from Tom of Finland’s art. The text in small print reads: “Also Tom of
Finland (Touko Laaksonen) was a veteran of our wars.” Multicultural war history has
not been systematically used in desecuritizing moves, but conceptually, we can identify
a great potential in it. Showing that minorities of all kinds and immigrants also served in
the Finnish army during the war could be used to counter the use of WWII history in
anti-multiculturalist securitizing moves. It would show that the things that are now pre-
sented as a threat to the referent object were actually part of the referent object, willing
to kill and die for it, in the historical event that is used in the securitizing move. We can
now identify the conceptual potential of these desecuritizing tactics, but only after they
have been systematically tried, can we see how they work in practice.11

Conclusions
Historical myths are essential for the construction of national identities and they often play a
role in securitization in the societal sector. When the foundational myths of nations are chal-
lenged, someone often tries to argue that this challenge is a threat to the survival of the
nation in its essential character. This is a securitizing move, but in order to be successful,
an audience that can justify emergency measures must accept it. The above discussion on
new approaches to nationalism has highlighted the constructed and contested nature of
national identities. There is always more than one way of telling the story of who we are
and what is threatening to our identity. Even when connected to national identities,
 Nationalities Papers 941

historical securitizations are not accepted by everyone who identifies with a particular
nation, but these securitizations have traction only in subgroups. The study of securitization
should therefore always be explicit in identifying who the securitizing actor is, how is the
referent object defined, who is the audience, who is challenging the securitizing moves, and
how are they being challenged. The examples from the politics of Finnish war history illus-
trate the difficulties of securitizing history. History can serve as a facilitating condition for
securitization or be used to support a securitizing move, but securitizing history in its own
right is extremely difficult.
The study of history politics often focuses on conflicts and investigates how history is
used in creating divisions between two groups, “us and them.” But history can also be used
for more reconciliatory purposes. Securitization of national identities often uses simplified
historical narratives that present a more unified image of the nation than what would be his-
torically accurate. Highlighting the diversity of “us” in the past might make it more difficult
to present diversity as a threat today. Especially, if we can use individual recollection or
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academic studies to show that those issues that are now presented as threats have been
parts of the referent object in the past, we might be able to use history to desecuritize inter-
ethnic relations. And in this area, desecuritization and normal politics should be preferred
over reified national identities, their securitization, and extraordinary ethno-politics.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Alexander Astrov, Julie Fedor, Suvi Keksinen, Cristian Norocel, Markku Kan-
gaspuro, Jussi Lassila, Karen Lund Petersen, Maria Mälksoo, Ulrik Pram Gad, Trine Villumsen, Ole
Wæver, Maja Zehfuss, and the two anonymous reviewers for encouraging and constructive comments
on various versions of the manuscript.

Notes
1. Throughout the article, you can find references to international relations works that use this fra-
mework to study the securitization of identities. In this journal, only Popov and Kuznetsov (2008)
and Sakwa (2010) have used the securitization framework, and in Nations and Nationalism,
besides a brief mention by Simhandl (2006), no one has used the concept.
2. The politics of Finnish war history usually stay within the realm of “normal politics.” This case
cannot be used to study large-scale emergency measures that often follow successful securitiza-
tion, but we can use it to illustrate the implications of various conceptual choices, and it also illus-
trates the difficulty of securitizing history. One could find more successful cases of securitization
from, for example, the politics of the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, or the Soviet occupation
of the Baltic States.
3. For a presentation of current debates on securitization, see Balzacq (2011).
4. The report was published in Finnish in September 2011 and translated into English in 2013.
5. Jyrkin päiväkirja, 12 December 2008: “Talouden talvisota,” http://www.kokoomus.fi/jyrkin-
paivakirja/talouden-talvisota/.
6. Individual memory is also more problematic than just “recall of earlier states of activity and
experience.” The present has significant influence on how we remember the past (see e.g.
Zehfuss 2007, 175–220). Even though individual memories are not ”objective,” they can still
serve as a site of resistance against collective myths.
7. The name Perussuomalaiset translates literally as the Basic Finns. The party previously used True
Finns as an unofficial translation and has now adopted The Finns as the official English name. I
will use the True Finns here because it is a better translation of the Finnish name and because with
The Finns, it would be a bit difficult to avoid the categories of practice and analysis conflation.
8. All the documents and transcripts of the parliamentary debate are available in Finnish at: http://
www.eduskunta.fi/triphome/bin/vex3000.sh?TUNNISTE=LA+54/2011.
 942 M. Jutila

9. Helsingin Sanomat, 25 November 2010, http://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/artikkeli/Thorsin±uhkailusta

±syytetty%C3%A4±suututti±kiitos-paidan±h%C3%A4p%C3%A4isy±televisiossa/1135262232
549.
10. Iltalehti, 16 November 2011, http://www.iltalehti.fi/uutiset/2011111614761314_uu.shtml.
11. I also have anecdotal evidence of the power of this argument from my conversations with various
national-conservatives, especially at a public sauna in Helsinki, but that is a long story with low
generalizability.

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