Rethinking Security in the Anthropocene: Environmental Securitization Processes From the Perspective of the Copenhagen School

Yıl 2025, Sayı: 120, 103 - 115, 25.12.2025

Abdullah Çelik

https://doi.org/10.36484/liberal.1749528

Öz

This article analyzes how security has been reconceptualized in the Anthropocene and how environmental threats have become security issues within the framework of the Copenhagen School’s securitization theory. The Anthropocene is defined as a new geological epoch in which human activities transform climatic and ecological systems. In this context, phenomena such as climate change, resource competition, and environmentally induced migration are considered not only scientific challenges but also subjects of national security strategies. The study employs a qualitative methodology based on literature review and discourse analysis to examine how perceptions of security are discursively constructed. In line with the Copenhagen School’s approach, the research investigates how environmental threats are securitized through the media and policy documents. The findings indicate that security is evolving from an anthropocentric perspective toward a more naturecentered and participatory framework. Nevertheless, while security aims at protection, it also comes to the fore at times as a mechanism of control and steering.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Anthropocene , Enviromental Security , Copenhagen School , Climate Security , Securitization Theory

Antroposen Çağında Güvenliğin Yeniden Düşünülmesi: Kopenhag Okulu Perspektifinden Çevresel Güvenlikleştirme Süreçleri

Öz

Bu makale, Antroposen çağında güvenliğin nasıl yeniden kavramsallaştırıldığını ve çevresel tehditlerin Kopenhag Okulu’nun güvenlikleştirme kuramı çerçevesinde nasıl güvenlik meselesi haline geldiğini analiz etmektedir. Antroposen, insan faaliyetlerinin iklimsel ve ekolojik sistemleri dönüştürdüğü yeni bir jeolojik dönemdir. Bu bağlamda iklim değişikliği, kaynak rekabeti ve çevre temelli göç gibi olgular, bilimsel sorunlar olmanın yanı sıra ulusal güvenlik stratejilerinin de konusu haline gelmiştir. Çalışmada, literatür taraması ve söylem analizine dayalı nitel bir yöntem izlenmiş, güvenlik algısının söylemsel olarak nasıl inşa edildiği tartışılmıştır. Kopenhag Okulu’nun yaklaşımı doğrultusunda, çevresel tehditlerin güvenlikleştirilme biçimleri medya ve politika belgeleri üzerinden incelenmiştir. Bulgular, güvenliğin insan merkezli bir anlayıştan doğa merkezli ve katılımcı bir çerçeveye doğru evrildiğini göstermektedir. Bununla birlikte her ne kadar güvenlik, koruma amacını taşısa da kimi durumlarda kontrol ve yönlendirme işleviyle öne çıkmaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Antroposen , Çevresel Güvenlik , Kopenhag Okulu , İklim Güvenliği , Güvenlikleştirme Kuramı.

Kaynakça

• Balzacq, T. (2011). Securitization theory: How Security Problems Emerge and Dissolve. Routledge.
• Bigo, D. (2002). Security and ımmigration: Toward a critique of the governmentality of unease. Alternatives, 27(1), 63–92.
• Buzan, B. (1991). People, States and Fear: An Agenda for ınternational security studies in the post-cold war era. Harvester Wheatsheaf.
• Buzan, B., Wæver, O., ve de Wilde, J. (1998). Security: A new framework for analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers.
• Chakrabarty, D. (2009). The climate of history: Four theses. Critical Inquiry, 35(2), 197–222. https://doi.org/10.1086/596640
• Dalby, S. (2009). Security and environmental change. Polity Press.
• Dalby, S. (2010). The environmentalization of security. içinde M. Beeson (Ed.), Security and Environment (ss. 41–56). Routledge.
• Deudney, D. (1990). The case against linking environmental degradation and national security. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 19(3), 461–476.
• Floyd, R. (2010). Security and the environment: Securitisation theory and us environmental security policy. Cambridge University Press.
• Hansen, L. (2011). The politics of climate change and the global crisis of the environment. Globalizations, 8(4), 451–466.
• Hansen, L. (2015). Security as practice: Discourse analysis and the Bosnian war. Routledge.
• Haraway, D. J. (2015). Anthropocene, capitalocene, plantationocene, chthulucene: Making kin. Environmental Humanities, 6(1), 159–165. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-3615934
• Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the chthulucene. Durham: Duke University Press.
• Malm, A. (2016). Fossil capital: The rise of steam power and the roots of global warming. Verso.
• Moore, J. W. (2015). Capitalism in the web of life: Ecology and the accumulation of capital. Verso.
• Moore, J. W. (2017). The capitalocene, Part I: On the nature and origins of our ecological crisis. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 44(3), 594–630. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2016.1235036
• Latour, B. (2018). Down to earth: Politics in the new climatic regime. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
• Wæver, O. (1995). Securitization and desecuritization. In R. D. Lipschutz (Ed.), On Security (pp. 46–86). Columbia University Press.
• Wendt, A. (1999). Social theory of international politics. Cambridge University Press.