Security and the problem of context: a hermeneutical critique of securitisation theory

How do we know when we are dealing with security issue? This is a cardinalquestion in Security Studies, and securitisation theory provides and authoritative yetincomplete answer, mainly because it rules out that the meaning of security can varycontextually. To overcome this limitation, we need a hermeneutical perspective centred onthe liminality of security as a category in-between theory and policy, which produces a moreprecise algorithm for empirical research. A contextual hermeneutics of security signals thatnormative awareness is necessary even in the absence of a unifying normative manifesto,also confronts the spectre of the “death of security” invoked by those who object to thepotentially endless broadening of its meaning