Security, resilience and desecuritization: multidirectional moves and dynamics

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis via http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21624887.2015.1111095In its current configuration, Security Studies tends to analyse the relationship between security, resilience and non-security politics in cases where the issue of concern has been securitized, when some issue already has the status function and label of a security issue. The literature consistently frames desecuritization and resilience as processes that take place after an issue has been securitized. The overarching objective of this article is to tell a different sociopolitical story of the connections between desecuritization, resilience and securitization. In order to do this, we present a triangular model of dual relationships among security, resilience and non-security politics. By doing so, we propose a theorization of the relations among these concepts that takes into account not only instances in which desecuritization moves and resiliencization moves follow security, but also instances in which desecuritization and resilience arise before security – when securitization is still brewing. Empirical vignettes are employed throughout our discussion to illustrate key points of our argument