Oldal 130 [130]
OCR
128 | Beata Kovacs so-called ‘frozen images’ (Petersson 2003, 88), which also play an important role in the formation of group identity. Othering is like a reversed mirror, since ‘good, ‘virtuous, or ‘beautiful’ cannot exist without ‘evil’ ‘sinful, and ‘ugly’. These negative stereotypes associated with the Other are key elements in the formation of enemy images and in the social process of scapegoating (Petersson 2003). In the end, everything that is immoral and bad is outside of the dominant social group (Tsoukala 2008, 142). Finally, the Other is not only something that is inherently sinful, but also a potential threat to the existing social order and to the values of society. Right-wing populist parties use social tensions as a tool and they instrumentalise the use of different (ethnic/linguistic/religious) minorities as scapegoats. The nationalist and xenophobic discourse has become a part of our everyday lives, so fear dominates public discourse. And the object of fear can be nearly anything: globalisation or climate change can be perceived as a threat as much as change in traditional gender roles or deterioration in our financial situation (Wodak 2015). The discourse of fear can also be understood through the concept of securitisation. Securitisation has become a remarkable term in the field of critical security studies (CSS), which broaden the concept of security and emphasise that the feelings of insecurity and the perception of threat are not limited to interstate wars. Securitisation refers to a communication process in which a topic is defined as a security threat. According to the constructivist logic, security is not given or objective. Instead, it is socially constructed through discourse, actions, and interactions. Security, therefore, is a site of negotiation between actors claiming to speak on behalf of a particular group and members of that group. Successful securitisation depends on the effective presentation of issues as existential threats (McDonald, 2008). As Berry Buzan et al. explain, to present an issue as an existential threat is to say that “if we do not tackle this problem, everything else will be irrelevant (because we will not be here or will not be free to deal with it in our own way)” (Buzan et al. 1998, 24). Therefore, securitisation of an issue or object, calls for extraordinary measures beyond the routines and norms of everyday politics. This type of security extension can be dangerous, because security can itself become a security policy threat, as it may authorise the implementation of inadequate, extraordinary state measures (Buzan and Hansen 2009). Buzan et al. also note that in some cases the discourse of securitisation has been so entrenched, established, and institutionalised that the threat does not even have to be present. The Copenhagen School introduced societies, their functioning and identity, as possible objects of security through the concept of ‘societal security. In the societal sector, the object is large-scale collective identities that can function independently of the state. In terms of threats to societal security, the “abilities to maintain a language, a set of behavioural customs,
