When "others" are an emergency

The concept of security, inside and outside Europe, is also often connected to the management of ethnic/national minorities. In this regard, we speak of the so-called “securitization” of minorities to refer to the process whereby certain minorities as well as migrant populations in their entirety are perceived as existential threats that require the implementation of emergency measures as a result of their presence.

The week-long Summer School program combines theoretical expertise and empirical research on relevant case studies in and outside the European Union. It includes lectures, panel discussions, role-plays and study visits to relevant institutions in the region. Indeed, South Tyrol is generally considered a successful case study of ethnic conflict resolution through its autonomy and power-sharing mechanisms. “One of the great successes of South Tyrol and its autonomy lies in the fact that a positive image of multilingualism and cultural diversity prevails today and is seen as an advantage,” comments Andrea Carlà.

Space at the Summer School will also be devoted to challenging, countering and reversing the processes of securitization. There are several approaches to de-securitization. The central idea of the securitization concept is that a phenomenon is treated in terms of being a threat or jeopardizing safety “not because there is a real existential threat, but because the issue is presented as such.” In this sense, normal politics, characterized by discussion, debate and deliberation, is replaced by the politics of emergency, characterized by silence, secrecy and suppression. Undoing this, de-securitization, can be understood as the restoration of genuine public spaces for discussion. Other studies focus on the actual possibility or usefulness of de-securitization and how it should be achieved and with whose contributions. “In any case, securitization, in itself, is not an inescapable phenomenon,” Andrea Carlà concludes. “In fact, some countries and governments appear more welcoming and less concerned about the negative consequences attributed to migration; and there are certainly cases of peaceful coexistence between majorities and minorities.”