Book review: Sovereignty and the Responsibility to Protect: A New History
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836715610871 |
| Date | 01 June 2016 |
| Published date | 01 June 2016 |
| Author | Oliver Stuenkel |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
Book reviews 249
between a threat and a new context and the deliberate socio-political adaptation of the
threat framing to fit dominant discourses in the new context – is suggested.
This conceptualization of securitization as a discourse that travels between different
contexts and becomes localized into new contextual discourses is in the second part of the
book applied to the cases of organized crime as well as rogue states in Germany and the
United States. The reasons for choosing these particular threat images in these particular
contexts are not explicated, but the book presents an interesting read concerning the devel-
opment of the mafia narrative in the US, followed by a detailed outline of the process of the
securitization of organized crime in the same contextual setting. This is followed by a dis-
cussion on how this threat framing is translated to the German discourse and altered in
order to fit into that discursive setting. It is, however, not entirely clear to the reader how
– or even if – this translation took place. Different possible influencing sources are dis-
cussed – ranging from the portraying of the mafia in popular culture to events such as
international workshops and meetings between law enforcement representatives from dif-
ferent countries. Still, that the changes over time in the German discourse on crime ‘did not
happen autonomously but, on the basis of a pre-existing foreign threat text of “US organ-
ized crime”, as a process of successful sociolinguistic localization’ by local secur ity actors
(p. 113) might be open to interpretation. Although the narratives make rich descriptions
of how the different processes looked like over time, they do not ful ly demonstrate that the
threat image of organized crime was diffused to Germany from the US rather than solely
being responses to changes in the criminal environment. The same claim can be m ade with
regard to the second case desc ribing the US narratives on ‘rogue states’ and the translation
of this concept into ‘Schurkenstaaten’ in the German discourse. Also, here an interesting
and detailed narrative on the articulations of securitizing moves is provided. In this case,
however, it is argued that the socio-linguistic localization was not subsumed into the
German discourse, but rather, it is argued, that ‘counter-securitization’ moves, portraying
the US as the threat, were evident (p. 171), which makes any reservations against the
explanatory powers of translation and travelling superfluous.
In summary, despite the critical points that have been raised, this is an interesting
book that provides rich empirical insights into the construction of two different threat
images in two different contextual settings. It also provides a valuable contribution of
attempting to develop and refine the securitization framework, by not only viewing
threats as the intra-contextual creations of a significant securitizing actor, but also as
dynamic ideational constructs that travel and are transformed over time and space.
Roxanna Sjöstedt
Lund University
Luke Glanville, Sovereignty and the Responsibility to Protect: A New History, Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 2013; 304 pp., ISBN: 9780226076898, US$ US$95.00 (hbk), ISBN:
9780226076928, US$32.50 (pbk).
The conventional narrative of sovereignty told in the discipline of International Relations
used to be that it was established at or around the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, and that
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