Source
Ku & Finch (2024), LIT-1478, read in full in NOTE-1133 from the version of record.
The thesis
Beside the political agency securitisation theory grants an audience, Ku and Finch propose ontological agency: keeping one’s routines going to keep anxiety bracketed. “ontological agency is about inaction as much as action in the face of securitising acts” (p. 307). The anxiety is latent, not absent, and disruption releases it: “Successful and continuous securitisation thus depends on the extent to which securitising moves fit in with the audience’s routines with minimal disruption” (p. 315).
What the evidence is
THEORY-898: one afternoon of routine launches in Gangneung, observed by chance and judged from outward behaviour, and one night of tweets after a malfunction, filtered on “war” and “North Korea”.
What this does not say
- That latent anxiety was measured. “While we cannot access people’s internal reactions, they seemed unfazed based on their outward behaviour” (p. 317, fn. 57).
- That this is not habituation or low perceived risk. No alternative is tested.
- That publics resist securitisation. The authors argue inaction lets it reproduce itself (p. 314).