Security politics is politics – but in what sense?
Keywords:
security politics, political theory, conceptual development, conceptual analysisAbstract
This paper asks in what sense security is political. The aim is to create an analytical framework
that describes the political process in which security becomes defined as a part of reality that
needs to be acted upon. This is done by applying political theory of Kari Palonen (e.g. 2003b) to
the concept of security politics and to the previous research on it. The result is a security policy
typology that provides a fruitful conceptual tool to analyse security politics both as political
action and as struggle about the direction and form of security policy. It reinterprets security
politics as a much broader political phenomenon and concept than previous research has done.
Concurrently, the typology strives to apply and synthesize the earlier conceptualisations. The
typology also has a wider applicability in foreign- and security policy research and security
studies.
