My Interpretation and Critique of Lene Hansen’s Threat Assessment

Professor Lene Hansen from the University of Copenhagen guest lectured recently at both professor Der Derian’s IR135 class and at the Watson Institute. Professor Hansen’s approach to issues in international relations and the Global Security Matrix was that of the discursive approach. Hansen focused more on the question of “how is security constructed in discourse?” and how actors shape that security. Her guest lecture at the IR135 class focused on two main areas. The first being security as seen through the discursive approach (along with an explanation of what is the discursive approach) and then an interpretation and critique of the Global Security Matrix utilizing that approach. She interpreted the security matrix while taking into consideration the true key players at the different levels of global security matrix and how would they interpret the specific category. This basically meant that Hansen looked beyond structure and took into consideration the actions of individuals such as the leader of a state when assessing a security threat. In her opinion, individuals such as leaders must be held accountable for their actions, because their decisions directly affect other variables such as state action.
Utilizing the Global Security Matrix in a discursive manner, Hansen provided a few guides lines and concerns. Firstly, she stated that one must consider what threats are constructed by important actors. This is because those filling out the matrix are not always (nor usually) the same individuals that make the decisions in the real world. Secondly, she expressed the point of having the matrix go beyond simply empirical mapping. To address this point, I believe that an answer to that concern is the blog used to comment on the various assessments of the matrix and critique security along with other issues that concern the Global Security Matrix project. Another point argued by Hansen is the role of identity construction and how that shapes how a “threat” is interpreted. To explain this concept, Hansen brought up the point of terrorism and how its identity has been constructed to result in terror rather than as other actions that have been constructed to signify acts of war, or simply as accidents. If 9/11 were to be seen as simply an accident it would have been unlikely that people’s reactions would have been the same, or that President Bush would have begun a “war on terror” in retaliation. For Hansen identity and how it is constructed is so important that she argues that it is more permanent than the actual threat itself. Further critique of the matrix by Hansen yielded another point that argued for the addition of more securitizing agents to the matrix. She also criticized the “human” or individual category by arguing that individuals are not securitizing actors in themselves because they are always a part of a greater collective. As a result, she points out that the Matrix needs more work on human in relation to states are connected and their connection to the Global level. A few of the higher threats identified by Hansen were Infowar. The highest threat for this was marked for the system, state, and global levels. Pandemics, States at Risk, and War were seen by Hansen to be very relevant threats at the human level. This assessment may seem odd considering her focus on the fact that individuals are not securitizing actors, but her assessment was probably made with the assumption that they are a part of a greater collective that might, as a result of collectivity, some general views on these issues, but it is not clear considering she did not have time to explain her choices in lecture. Her assessment of the relevance of Infowar is clearer in that it is definitely an identity constructing agent that shapes system, state, and global conceptions of what we see and do not see as threats today. States at risk and terrorism/crime were both given high marks by Hansen at the system and network level in addition to environment, which covered all actors with high marks except networks. The explanation for these high marks from the discursive perspective have yet to be seen in the Global Security Matrix blog as of 11/10/06 when this entry was made.

Posted by Ivan Maldonado on November 10, 2006 06:51 PM | Permalink

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