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Securitizing the Threat of Climate Change: The Meaning of “Climate Change” to Different Audiences within the U.S. National Security Enterprise
Friday, August 23rd
1:00PM- 3:00PM
Conference Room 5145 (Note- Room Change!)
Metropolitan Building
Abstract: National Security is the primary concern of every government and the list of potential security menaces is long and diverse, perhaps limited only by the imagination of those entrusted with the security of the state. Hewing to varying interpretations of the social contract, each state makes decisions and implements policies that affect people, institutions, societies, other states, and relationships of all kinds. When that state is the United States, the implications of threat identification and the resulting security responses can be costly and far reaching. Borrowing conceptually from the Copenhagen School's Securitization Theory, I am interested in describing the discursive complexity of threat meanings within the U.S. national security enterprise following securitizing moves by President Obama. Specifically, I will examine what the threat of climate change means to selected audiences within the enterprise, how those meanings are constructed, and to what end. I base my analytic approach on frame analysis, seeking to discern the diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational frames evidenced in official audience discourses regarding the climate change threat. I further inform my analysis with personal insights from a 30 year career in the enterprise and theoretical insights from Social Identity Theory, the Cultural Theory of Risk, Kingdon's Three Streams Model, and Walt's Balance of Threat Theory. This project will contribute to our understanding of the U.S. response to climate change, help to address the under theorized role of audiences in securitization theory, and perhaps identify new avenues of inquiry related to threat identification and climate change.