Major research results

The Copenhagen School's concept of securitisation

The 'Copenhagen School' in international politics research has introduced the concept of ‘securitisation’. This school of thought sees ‘security’ as a speech act with direct consequences for policy. Statements about security are used to move phenomena from the political arena over into a 'security' domain, legitimising the introduction of extraordinary measures. Securitisation is intersubjective, i.e. it refers neither to an objective threat nor to a subjective perception of threat, but depends on the audience accepting the speech act. Securitisation helps explain what phenomena like religion, the climate and the environment, terrorism, technology and disasters mean for international politics. 

• Buzan B, Wæver O (2003): Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security. Cambridge University Press.
• Buzan B, Wæver O, de Wilde J (1998): Security: A New Framework for Analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Risk management to tackle change and uncertainty

In a changing world – e.g. due to globalisation, climate change and growth in Asia – it is sometimes difficult to see the bigger picture and the common threads running through events and policies. Research at the University of Copenhagen shows that political stakeholders tend to focus on risk management in an attempt to address change and protect themselves against the uncertainty that it throws up. Viewed from this perspective, there is logic in the way that states, companies and individuals act, a logic in which security has been replaced by balancing one risk against another.

• Petersen KL (2012): Corporate Risk and National Security Redefined. Routledge.
• Rasmussen MV (2006): The Risk Society at War: Terror, Technology and Strategy in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge Unviersity Press.

National forms of democracy as indicators of willingness to engage in international affairs

Marlene Wind studies how countries' different forms of democracy affect their willingness to integrate and work with international institutions. She distinguishes between 'majority democracy', as pertains in Denmark and the other Nordic countries, and the 'constitutional democracy' commonplace elsewhere in Europe. Wind has come to the conclusion that the Danish form of democracy with 'no one above or equal to parliament' differs greatly from the kind of democracy found in the EU and in the rest of Europe. This helps to explain the widespread scepticism about international courts prevalent not only in Denmark but also in Sweden, Finland, and to some extent in the UK.

• Wind M, Rytter JE(2011): In Need of Juristocracy? The Silence of Denmark in the development of European legal norms. International Journal of Constitutional law.
• Wind M (2010): The Nordics, the EU and the reluctance towards Supranational Judicial Review. Journal of Common Market Studies.
• Wind M (2009): When Parliament comes first. The Danish Concept of Democracy Meets the European Union. Nordisk Tidsskrift for Menneskerettigheter.
• Wind M (2001): Sovereignty and European integration: Towards a post-hobbesian order. Palgrave Macmillan.

Identification of interrelationships that affect international law

Mikael Rask Madsen has identified the subtle interrelationships between actual stakeholders and the broader geopolitical and socio-cultural contexts within which international law takes shape in the world today.

• Madsen MR (2011): La genèse de l’Europe des droits de l’homme : Enjeux juridiques et stratégies d’Etat (France, Grande-Bretagne et pays scandinaves, 1945-1970) Tome 1.  Presses universitaires de Strasbourg.
• Madsen MR (2011): The Protracted Institutionalisation of the Strasbourg Court: From Legal Diplomacy to Integrationist Jurisprudence, i Mikael Rask Madsen og Jonas Christoffersen (red.) The European Court of Human Rights between Law and Politics. Oxford University Press.