Bridging the gap: Interdisciplinary insights into the securitization of poverty

Abstract

A significant body of literature within International Relations research attests to a securitization of poverty, since 9/11 especially, and within this process to the centrality of discourse. Remarkably, there has been little reciprocal work within Discourse Analysis to scrutinize the emergence of contemporary security agendas of non-traditional security issues and, as far as we were able to discern, nothing at all of the securitization of poverty. This article reports on part of a larger study into transatlantic representations of international poverty. It responds to the evident need of interdisciplinary research into the securitization of poverty by examining the discursive construction of poverty by United States administrations before and after 9/11. Adopting a Discourse Historical Analysis approach, we examine selected US National Security Strategies for evidence that supports or otherwise makes claims in International Relations literature for the American securitization of poverty. We ultimately conclude that they have engaged in a public discourse that represents poverty as a security issue, cast light upon how this is discursively legitimized and contend that 9/11 accelerated but did not cause this paradigm shift in the treatment of international poverty.

Discourses of poverty across genres: Competing representations of the poor in the transitional context of Serbia

“…A similarly negative portrayal is found in Latin America, where poverty is represented as a risk pertaining to favеlas as the sites of exclusion (Lacerda, 2015) that pose physical and moral dangers (Taylor, 2009). The securitisation of poverty is also found in the international relations and foreign policy fields where poverty is constructed as illness and entrapment (Lorenzo-Dus and Marsh, 2012).…”

“…A similarly negative portrayal is found in Latin America, where poverty is represented as a risk pertaining to favеlas as the sites of exclusion (Lacerda, 2015) that pose physical and moral dangers (Taylor, 2009). The securitisation of poverty is also found in the international relations and foreign policy fields where poverty is constructed as illness and entrapment (Lorenzo-Dus and Marsh, 2012). Fairclough's (2005Fairclough's ( , 2006 analysis of social exclusion discourse in Romania provides valuable insights because this post-communist country also formulated and implemented its policy as part of its EU integration process.…”

Contrasts and classtalk: A critical discourse analysis of welfare-to-work program managers

“…They are seen as dependent on the welfare bureaucracy to correct their moral failings. The lack of agency on the part of welfare recipients is reflected in the proliferation of paternalism by welfare offices, and welfare discourse serves to legitimate the welfare regime and the trend of neoliberalism (Connor, 2010;Lorenzo-Dus and Marsh, 2012;Wiggan, 2012). This discourse leaves welfare mothers feeling frustrated, nihilistic, and powerless against the towering leviathan of the system (Kingfisher, 1996;Pollack and Caragata, 2010;Van De Mieroop, 2011).…”

In the name of democracy: UNSC reform at the intersection of discourse and governmentality

“…The manner in which discourses on reform differ in how they rely on either realism or idealism is often subtle because they are part of the same democracy governmentality in the UN. Through this, the empirical aim of the paper is to increase awareness of the inevitable role of discourse in the reform debate, whereas the methodological aim is to contribute, firstly, with a globally oriented perspective on research connecting up discourse studies and governmentality studies (McIlvenny et al, 2016) and, secondly, with an answer to calls for more studies at the intersection of discourse studies and international relations (Lorenzo-Dus and Marsh, 2012)…”

“…The manner in which discourses on reform differ in how they rely on either realism or idealism is often subtle because they are part of the same democracy governmentality in the UN. Through this, the empirical aim of the paper is to increase awareness of the inevitable role of discourse in the reform debate, whereas the methodological aim is to contribute, firstly, with a globally oriented perspective on research connecting up discourse studies and governmentality studies (McIlvenny et al, 2016) and, secondly, with an answer to calls for more studies at the intersection of discourse studies and international relations (Lorenzo-Dus and Marsh, 2012) The debate about a reform of the UNSC is shaped by a number of alliances. This paper is concerned with the positions of the Group of Four, the G4 (Brazil, Germany, India and Japan), that argue for a reform that assign permanent membership of the Council to the G4 members and to two unspecified African countries, and the Uniting for Consensus, the UfC (led by Italy, Pakistan, Argentina, Mexico and South Korea 1 ), that wants to double the amount of non-permanent members from ten to twenty and exclude expansion of the permanent membership.…”