'Securing' the Homeland? A Comparison of Canadian and American Homeland Security Policy in the Post-9/11 Period
In
the post-9/11 period, the United States can be seen to have securitized its
approach to homeland security policy.
Canada did not follow suit.
Instead, the Canadian state sought to respond to American securitization
initiatives in order to protect its own state interests. An in-depth examination of securitization
theory demonstrates that this theoretical construct has been re-interpreted by
scholars and adapted to various research agendas. This dissertation differentiates amongst
three variants of securitization theory: philosophical, sociological, and
post-structural. Common to these
competing variants of securitization theory was the finding that the role of
the audience had remained vague, hindering the use of this theoretical model
for examining the policy creation process. Focusing on the philosophical
variant of securitization theory, as originally articulated by the Copenhagen
School, this dissertation re-evaluates the role of the audience while examining
the ways in which the American approach to homeland security was securitized in
the new security environment that emerged following 9/11, as well as Canada’s
response to this securitization.
This
project divides the audience into two separate groups, made up of three
components. The elite audience, which is
comprised of members of the state policy elite, and the media first determine
whether or not an issue poses an existential threat to the security of the
state. The populist audience - the state’s
public - then determines for itself whether or not it accepts the existential
nature of the threat. This division of
the audience into two separate groups allows for a clearer understanding of
whether or not a given issue has been successfully securitized.
In
the post-9/11 period, the American audience groups willingly accepted that the
threat of terrorism posed an existential threat to the state. The Canadian audience groups, prompted by
their own authorized speakers of security, did not recognize terrorism as
posing an existential threat to the Canadian states. Ultimately, an examination of the audience
groups in these two states demonstrates the utility of the philosophical
variant of securitization theory for evaluating states’ responses to security
threats.
