The IN-OUT Security Nexus

Today’s threats — mafia, terrorism, organised crime, human trafficking, border smuggling, illegal immigration — transgress national identities (Bigo, 2001:1). Securitisation has provided a different focus on other actors besides the state [and the traditional military threats to its security]. This requires new tools and methods, since traditional security actions like deterrence do not have the desired effect anymore (Weiss, 2011). In a globalised world, the perception of threat focus less on hard security threats (military) and more on soft security threats perpetrated by non-state actors (Aldis & Herd, 2005), such as terrorist organisations30. New transnational actors have been conquering prominence on a global security agenda as they simultaneously constitute an international threat and a menace to the politics of a state. Since the end of the Cold War, we have been experiencing a blurring of the boundaries separating the internal sphere from the external (Lutterbeck, 2005; Eriksson & Rhinard, 2009; Brandão, 2015), representing one of the consequences of globalisation31.

The literature regarding the IN-OUT Security Nexus, has been developed mostly under European Studies with especial attention on the EU32. Delcour & Fernandes (2016:4) stress that the IN-OUT nexus “bears implications for the balance between normative and strategic considerations”. European policy-makers recognise that there is a connection between internal economic integration and the EU’s external action (Wolff, Wichmann & Mounier 2009:10), and security concerns have surpassed sovereignty and freedom (Bigo, 2001; Delcour & Fernandes, 2016). The EU’s fight against terrorism33 is an example of that, i.e., the threat posed by terrorism has been acquiring significantly more importance to international security, but also to the internal security of the EU. In order to face that menace, it is required both internal instruments and externally oriented policies, tools and structures (Ferreira-Pereira & Martins, 2012: 459).

30 “The complexity of the phenomenon, associated with the diversification of threats and the multitude of actors, either as providers of security or as a source

of threat in the context of intense mobility and communicability worldwide, bucked the traditional paradigmatic, political and organizational separation between the internal and external dimensions of security defined by the realist legacy” (Brandão, 2015:5).

31 The end of Cold War has catalysed a changing of perceptions regarding the nature of a threat. Traditionally the international internal sphere, or domestic

security, was concerned with the inside realm of a state — crime, civil protection, law and order; while the external security focused on defence and deterrence between states (Eriksson & Rhinard, 2009:245).

32 The EU understands that “[s]ecurity is the first condition for development (Council of the European Union, 2003:13) and that internal and external arenas

of security are, now, interconnected (European Commission, 2005a), which requires a good coordination of both spheres. That way, the EU considers terrorism a determinative international security challenge with repercussion inside EU’s borders, as it was acknowledged by the Amsterdam Treaty and the Tampere Summit (Zimmermann, 2006; European Commission, 2006).

33 Prior to 2001 the EU considered asylum and illegal immigration as main priorities to its security, especially because of the instability in Central and Eastern

Europe, and former Yugoslavia (Balzacq, 2008). The terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington DC had a major significance to the West, as those terrorist events were no longer ethno-nationalist but religio-political oriented (Wilkinson, 2010) and their goal was to destabilise the Westphalian order dominated by the US (Wilkinson, 2010). To put it in other words, since 2001, and especially after the terrorist attacks in two European cities - Madrid (2004) and London (2005) — the European security acknowledged terrorism as a top security priority as: “[t]errorism outs lives at risk; it imposes large costs; it seeks to undermine the openness and tolerance of our societies, and it poses a growing strategic threat to the whole Europe. Increasingly, terrorist movements

Didier Bigo (2006) understands there is a debate concerning the best approach to the “hyper terrorism” (Alexander & Heal, 2002) phenomenon, inaugurated after the events of the September 11, 2001. On the one hand, the Classics advocate the war on terror to be a homeland issue. On the other hand, the Moderns believe in the opposite, i.e., fighting terrorism must be a global and multidimensional effort. According to the latter narrative, global terrorism has three major consequences:

First, it makes obsolete the conventional distinction between the two realms of war, defence, international order and strategy on the one hand, and crime, internal security, public order and police investigations on the other. Second, in the same stroke it undermines traditional state sovereignty and obliges all state agents to collaborate internationally. Third, it makes national borders effectively obsolete, as they no longer operate as effective barriers behind which the population could feel safe (Bigo, 2005:389).

In this sense, the phenomenon of terrorism has been contributing to intensify the IN-OUT security nexus narrative (Brandão, 2015:6) as it portrays a challenge threatening the peace and balance of the traditional Westphalian order. This threat obeys to the same dynamic as transboundary security issues (Eriksson & Rhinard, 2009: 247) and threatens all (Council of the European Union, 2005). In the new Westphalian order, states are connected at several levels, which means that responding to the terrorist threat requires a joint effort not only from states — state-centred — but a joint effort among all actors, namely states, International System and society (Sheehan, 2005).

International terrorism is an evidence of the mutating Westphalian order, that came into force in 1648, once states have been facing a wide range of challenges that until the end of the Cold War were not acknowledged as potentially harmful to the security of a state. Since the events of the 9/11 and the declaration of the “war on terror” by George W. Bush’s Administration, international terrorism has become a priority to the global security agenda. This has to do with the global reaching of the terrorist organisations: globalisation has connected people from all sort of places through the development of technology and the social media. The distances were virtually reduced and the information was easily spread, which include radical ideologies. In other words, the recruitment, radicalisation and coordination of terrorist attacks were simplified.

The IN-OUT security nexus suggests that there is a connection between the two spheres of the state’s security, which contradicts traditionalists to whom both realms do not get mixed up. International terrorism has proven precisely the opposite as the main goal of terrorists is to provoke a change of behaviour of a certain actor — mostly the state — through fear and panic. Despite the fact that terrorist organisations plan their attacks individually (depending on the location of the terrorist cell), the organisation claiming the event belongs to an international network with the ambition of interfering on

the domestic politic of the state were the attack was conduced. So, the IN-OUT security nexus means that a challenge to security do not focus exclusively on one of the two realms of the security of a state anymore. Terrorism, for instance, shows us how an international threat can, simultaneously, have impact on the way the foreign policy of a state is conduced, such as the implementation of a counter-terrorism policy; but also influence the national decision-making and the adoption of extraordinary measures to restrain the menace such as “[t]he prioritization of an issue results in speedier handling; redistributions of resources; media and public attention; policy changes; and, last but not the least, a downgrading of other issues due to so-called agenda crowding” (Sjöstedt, 2013:144); or, in other words, securitising the threat.