Marc Schuilenburg, The Securitization of Society: Crime, Risk and Social Order
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474518818368 |
| Author | Heidi Mork Lomell |
| Published date | 01 December 2019 |
| Date | 01 December 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
Book reviews
Marc Schuilenburg, The Securitization of Society: Crime, Risk and Social Order, New York
University Press: New York, 2015; 345 pp. (including index): 9781479876594, $25 (pbk)
The concept securitization originated in International Relations (IR) and security
studies. When a public issue is presented and treated as an existential threat that
requires emergency measures and actions outside the normal bounds of political
procedure and beyond the established rules of the game, either as a special kind of
politics or as above politics, it has become securitized (Buzan et al., 1998).
Securitization theory aims to explain how security issues emerge, evolve and dis-
solve (Balzacq, 2010).
In Marc Schuilenburg’s book, the term “securitization of society” is used to
cover a much broader process; “the gradual occupation of society, since the nine-
teenth century, by techniques whose function is to bring the future under control”
(p. 67). In contrast to the classical securitization studies of the Copenhagen school
in IR, Schuilenburg wants to study the concrete practices of security rather than
the political process of securitization. Schuilenburg claims that in the literature on
security and securitization, the issue of how these changes occur is seldom dis-
cussed, conceptualized and questioned, they are merely observed. He wants to
study what is happening on the ground, in the messy realities of security practices.
The book is organized into four parts and 11 chapters. In the first part,
“A politics of fragmentation,” Schuilenburg examines the changes that have
taken place in security management over the last decades. He also elaborates on
the concept of “nodal governance” in relation to security practices.
The second part, “From panopticon to patchwork quilt,” consists of three
chapters which deals with three theorists that has inspired the work; Foucault
with his elaboration of security and securitization, Deleuze with his concept of
assemblages and Tarde’s two conceptual duo’s “imitation” and “invention,” and
“molar” and “molecular.” All three scholars focus on the process-oriented and
changeable elements of reality, but while Foucault and Deleuze are well-known
philosophers in reference lists in security and securitization papers, Tarde is a more
rare name to find. From Tarde, Schuilenburg borrows the concepts molar and
molecular to study the way in which securitization occurs in reality. “Molar”
refers to the scripted stability level of decisions and routine activities, the aims
and agreements, the routines and rituals of the actors. “Molecular” refers to the
unscripted dynamic level of (inter)action, where the daily activities and interaction
Punishment & Society
2019, Vol. 21(5) 639–647
!The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1462474518818368
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